Harlow

This is one of my favorite old movies. It may not be a realistic biography of Jean Harlow, but it's entertaining. I remember watching it on TV during a period of depression, and, oddly enough, it helped to cheer me up! I'll always like it for that reason, plus it's a bit of escapism from reality.

I thought Carrol Baker was great as Harlow, I also liked Angela Lansbury as Mama Jean. Like I said, even though it's not accurate, the movie does a good job at portraying the rise and fall of an actress. It might have done better as a fictional story about a fictional actress, rather than using the name of a real life one.

This movie has some memorable scenes for me, especially the ones where Harlow is at the top of her career, then suddenly spirals downward, because she feels she's missing something no one can give her.

Others may disagree, but for me, Harlow is a great escapist movie.

It's hard to believe anybody involved in the production of this glossy nonsense ever actually saw any of the real Jean Harlow's movies (none of the titles of which have been used). And apart from Harlow herself (who was seven years younger when she died than Carroll Baker was when she made this movie) only Paul Bern - played by Peter Lawford, who looked nothing like him - hasn't had his name changed. (Having been dead for over thirty years he presumably had no living next of kin liable to sue.)

But it's a sign of how standards have plummeted since this was made that while this was laughed off screens and died at the boxoffice in 1965, forty years later Scorsese's equally phoney 'The Aviator' (in which Harlow is fleetingly impersonated by a brassy-looking Gwen Stefani) won a fistful of Oscars.

Years ago I read Irving Schulman's book Harlow upon which this film is allegedly based. Other than Jean's family the only other real characters were her agent Arthur Landau and her second husband Paul Bern, played by Red Buttons and Peter Lawford respectively. All the people she worked with and for at MGM are eliminated from the story. In fact none of the titles of her films are mentioned.

There's a reason that MGM didn't do the story of one of its legendary stars. Too much dirty linen would be exposed and why would Paramount who produced this want to get into litigation with a rival?

Landau who was still alive and the source for much of Schulman's book is a character. The seminal event of Harlow's private life, her disastrous marriage to an impotent man was crucial. And the overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury) and gigolo husband (Raf Vallone) all had to be in the story. But any reasonably knowledgeable fan of Jean Harlow won't recognize her at all.

Caroll Baker plays Harlow in this and the real Harlow was never as naive as Baker plays her. She was a pretty smart girl, sadly dominated by a first class stage mother and her husband who fed off her celebrity. She did in fact have three marriages, one before and after Paul Bern, so Jean was acquainted with the facts of life.

I did rather enjoy Martin Balsam as the Louis B. Mayer like head of Majestic Pictures.. I think Balsam channeled Mayer pretty good in his performance.

By accounts of her contemporaries, Jean Harlow was a warm, gracious, and generous soul. Rosalind Russell in her memoirs said she was a good friend and generous to her coworkers and they worked together in China Seas and Reckless. William Powell who worked with her in Libeled Lady and Reckless and was going to marry her said she was not at all like the films that used her life had her.

Harlow had two tellings of her life in 1965, the second was a cheap production that starred Carol Lynley, but had a few more facts straight about her life. Jean's story ought to be remade now, too many people with vested interests were still alive in 1965

Carol Baker is stunning in 1960s hair and gowns. Unfortunately, the film takes place in the 1930s. The soundtrack also contains 1960s lounge and twist music. This film is mostly fictional and has nothing to do with Harlow's life, but it is fun.

My favorite line is when she turns down a tryst with a famous actor. She tells him she has a date for dinner and a film. The actor says, "I can't believe you're turning down a chance of "being" with me for a night of indigestion and a stiff neck." Harlow replies, "Aren't you offering the same thing?" LOL. Think about it.

It's big, it's expensive, it's colorful, and that's about it. The people behind "The Carpetbaggers," obviously hoping that lightning would strike twice, put together the high budget version of Irving Schulman's alleged biography of Jean Harlow the following year. This was a mistake. "Carpetbaggers" was trash, but it was enjoyable trash. "Harlow" doesn't even reach that level. Both the Schulman book and this movie were really more fiction than fact and many of those who knew and worked with Harlow, most of whom were still alive at the time, took serious issue with both. Then there are the performances. Even talented people like Angela Lansbury and Raf Vallone, as Jean's mother and stepfather, couldn't do much with this mess, and so compensated by going over the top. But for sheer miscasting, the real violator is not Carroll Baker's overripe Harlow, but Peter Lawford's Paul Bern. Here was the tall, handsome Lawford playing a man who was, by all accounts, short, bald, and, frankly, rather dumpy looking. It's a good thing everything and everybody else in this film other than Jean Harlow, her immediate family, and agent Arthur Landau, were cloaked under various pseudonyms. To have done otherwise would have left Joseph E. Levine and Paramount open to a world of trouble resulting from the libel suits alone.

In short, watching "Harlow," you'll gain nothing and lose 130 minutes you'll never get back again. It really isn't worth it.