La donna di platino

There is a scene with Robert Williams and Jean Harlow singing a ditty to each other. There was such natural wit and affection that their infatuation and joy in each others company was perfectly expressed. This was love, this was sensuality, without a hint of the physicality that modern movies are forced to graphicly depict. Seeing a movie like this, made in low fidelity black and white seventy years ago shows what we have lost.

Robert Williams plays the kind of role Spencer Tracy did time and again at Fox and MGM--the brash, likeable working man--and, in fact, the picture suggests a dry run of Tracy's "Libeled Lady." There's a breach-of-promise suit, a roomful of reporters cracking wise, a rich-rich Long Island clan existing to be mocked, and the kind of farcical complications that made the newspaper comedy one of the '30s' most endearing genres. Unfortunately, the dialogue isn't as snappy as it thinks it is, and Jean Harlow is as miscast as a society dame as Loretta Young is as a world-weary reporter -- the whole thing might have made more sense if they switched roles. The compensations, though, are many: Capra giving his actors brilliant bits of business (the "puttering" scene is an unsung classic), a roster of swell character actors, and some pre-Production Code naughtiness, including two very sexy love scenes between Williams and Harlow. Capra's pace is slower than usual, and his later works had cleverer plot twists. His handling of actors, though, is as beautiful to behold as ever. And in Williams' irresistible performance, we have a glimpse of a star that might have been.

Stew Smith is a salt of the earth, street smart, cynical wisecracking reporter who's proud of his $75 a week salary. While tracking a story about a rich kid involved in a breach of promise suit, he gets involved with the Schuylers. This group of nitwits is a super-rich family trying desperately to avoid bad publicity. Stew catches the eye of the gorgeous Ann Schuyler, and the two fall madly in love to the absolute horror of Anne's snooty mother (who unfortunately is afflicted with gastritis). Indeed, Stew and Ann actually get married--with predictably catastrophic results. How will the filmmakers deliver Stew out of Ann's arms and into the arms of Gallagher--the equally gorgeous reporter who's madly in love with Stew?

This wonderful Frank Capra comedy must have appealed greatly to the sentiments of the 1931 audience at the very depths of the Depression. The Schuylers (and their idiot lawyer Dexter Grayson) were everything that people loved to hate--snooty, superior, stupid, wholly undeserving of their vast riches. They are mocked ruthlessly, while Stew Smith and Gallagher, as worthy representatives of the working class, are portrayed with understanding and compassion. Stew briefly embraces the idle life of the super-rich (even to wearing garters), but, of course, this doesn't last long.

This is more than just a film for Frank Capra fans--it's a glorious spoof of the old-time newspaper business and a tasty bit of social history.

Robert Williams doesn't even get any billing n the DVD cover or on other promotions of this film, but he IS the star of the film....and he is outstanding.

Williams could have been a major star, a very well-known actor, had he not died four days after this picture was released with a ruptured appendix. The man simply puts on an acting clinic here. I wonder if young aspiring actors are ever shown this film and told to study Williams? If is wasn't for this film, I assume nobody would ever know about this guy.

Anyway, the movie is really dated but its interesting thanks to some great dialog, mainly, once again, by Williams. Jean Harlow gets the billing but a young Loretta Young has the real beauty and charm here. Too bad her role was so minor and bland. She looked absolutely gorgeous.

The storyline is one of Hollywood's favorite themes: the average Joe beating up on the snobby rich people. Harlow's "mother" in here (Louise Closser Hale) plays that snob role perfectly.

Even though I just gave it six stars, there are lots of laughs in this film and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. Watching Williams' acting performance is worth the price of the disc, and then some.

After watching Platinum Blonde, I, like most other viewers, had to look up Robert Williams, wondering whatever happened to him while fearing the worst, the worst being true: he died shortly after he made this film. Tragic! One can wonder endlessly over what might have been. What is clear is that he was a natural for the camera, was highly skilled (years of stage experience behind him), and fit perfectly into the Capra-Riskind universe of tough-but- articulate Everyman up against monied mediocrities. He might well have ended up playing the Clark Gable role in It Happened One Night if he had been around at the time. In fact, the reporter he plays here seems like a first draft for that character. (The plot involves Williams as a reporter falling in love impulsively with the daughter of a wealthy Social Register family only to encounter the usual boobytraps built into such a union.)

The movie itself, though hard to separate from Williams's domination of it, stands up fairly well on its own. There are some imaginative camera movements and setups and intelligent, witty dialogue laced with fizzy Depression-era argot. The story is not very convincing but you suspend disbelief because of the way the actors, dialogue and cinematography bring it to life. The pace is leisurely, sometimes a bit too much so, with many minutes taken up in gentle, playful, ultra-naturalistic banter between Williams and his co-stars. I can't think of another film from that period that detoured so often into that type of throwaway conversational interlude.

Jean Harlow as the heiress and Loretta Young as a newspaper columnist are not ideally cast. Their roles should have been reversed, but it doesn't really matter because both actresses do well. Harlow, who by this time had had relatively little experience in front of a camera, seems right at home about 90% of the time. And it's hard to believe that Loretta Young was only 18 when she made this! But she had already been a veteran of several years standing as a film actress.