Harlow, la blonde platine

An all around lurid film about sex symbol and superstar, Jean Harlow. There's no real point to the film, other than to present star Baker as a sex symbol herself. Her performance is nothing like her "Baby Doll," and everyone else is either bored with the material or reduced to overacting.

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.

No doubt the fact that there were two movies about Jean Harlow in 1965 might surprise some people; to add to that, apparently neither Carroll Baker nor Carol Lynley was the right woman to play her (I have to admit that I've never seen any of Jean Harlow's movies - unless you count her appearance in "City Lights" - so I can't comment one way or the other). Either way, this "Harlow" seems to go in two directions. On the one hand, it shows how the Hollywood dream looked: the opening scene shows what many people coming to Tinseltown expected, and then Jean Harlow gets to live that dream...at least superficially. On the other hand, the portrayals of Harlow's public life and private life make it nearly impossible to determine which is to be best remembered. Here, her frustration with her mother (Angela Lansbury) and anger at her stepfather (Raf Vallone) get played to almost comic effect. Is every movie star doomed to have something in his/her personal life that has to get sensationalized in a biopic?

So, I would say that this movie takes the same approach to its subject that "Mommie Dearest" did: trashy, but something about the movie gives it an almost desirable feeling. Did I like the movie or hate it? Well, it has its visuals (I would call Carroll Baker a visual in and of herself), and it sure beats any Steven Seagal movie for smarts. In a way, that's about it. Since I don't really know much about Jean Harlow, I just have to accept what "Harlow" says. It's not outright worthless, but don't make it your first choice. Also starring Red Buttons, Martin Balsam and Leslie Nielsen.

This is one of two films released at the same time about the tragic, original blonde bombshell. Carrol Baker is certainly beautiful in the role, but the strange mixture of 1930's dresses and 1960s spike heels and hairdos undermine the attempts at any accurate 1930's atmosphere. The music in the background would be more at home on an episode of "Pete and Gladys" than in a story of old Hollywood. Leslie Nielsen's character has a bachelor pad that would be the envy of Hugh Hefner. There are no true references to any of Harlow's work. She never (to my knowledge) ever took a pie in the face or was sprayed with seltzer water. (She did have an impressive walk-on in an early Laurel and Hardy short). Her earliest film appearances were as a film extra in such pictures as "The Love Parade", 1929. Her breakthrough role was in the Howard Hughes 1930 epic, "Hell's Angels". Her performances got better and better as she went under contract to MGM and made some truly classic films there including "Dinner at Eight." None of this is shown in "Harlow." The character of the Mother is shown to be pretty much sympathetic as played by Angela Lansbury. What is glossed over is the fact that Jean Harlow's real Mother was a Christian Scientist who forbade her daughter real treatment for her "illness", reportedly caused by the beatings she suffered at the hands of Paul Bern, until it was too late to make any real difference. The inaccurate facts presented in this film could be due to the fact that many of the principals involved in Jean Harlow's life were still living in 1965, the year that both of these "biopics" were released. If you want an accurate biography of Jean Harlow, see some of her actual films and read one of the many decent books about MGM. On it's own, the film "Harlow" is mildly entertaining in a "Valley of the Dolls" sort of way. The Carol Lynley version of this story is only slightly more accurate than this glossy, Technicolor version. I haven't seen it in years, and therefore cannot give an accurate review of it.

From a bit actress in the late 1920s to stardom in the '30s as a Hollywood bombshell, actress Jean Harlow's triumphs and pitfalls are cartoonishly documented; it's as if the filmmakers were quite satisfied dishing out movie-magazine nonsense instead of headier truths, with most of the names changed to protect the embarrassed. Harlow manages to hold onto her virginity even through a short-lived marriage, but fate dealt her a bad hand and she died at the age of 26--yet the movie sees all this through a rose-colored lens. Carroll Baker is a sweet, sometimes dazed Harlow; Red Buttons acquits himself affably as her agent and Angela Lansbury is nicely low-keyed as Jean's mother. Viewers hoping for some Hollywood dirt won't be satisfied with the scrubbed-clean goods showcased here, although the pacing is fast and portions of the presentation are very colorful. A rival production, also entitled "Harlow", was released the same year and starred Carol Lynley and Ginger Rogers. **1/2 from ****