Stunningly good screwball comedy about Hollywood which has hardly aged at all. There were only two drawbacks – all the screaming and shouting did grate on my ears after a while (you can hear to much Jean Harlow yelling) and I didn’t buy Lee Tracey hooking up with Harlow at the end; Tracy is great with the patter and being ruthlessness but doesn’t convey longing for her and isn’t as attractive as say someone like Clark Gable would be.
It’s a genuine farce, based on an unproduced play, apparently – I’m surprised no one has since adapted it for a musical or another play, since it mostly takes place in the one location (Harlow’s house – apart from a scene at a health retreat). Great array of characters, raided mostly from the life of Clara Bow, but also from Harlow herself, as well as all starlets: dad is a drunk who rips her off (Bow), she falls for a dodgy French aristocrat (Gloria Swanson), her secretary is ripping her off (Bow), she’s making a film with Clarke Gable where she has a swim in a barrel (Harlow), she had a fling with a divorced director (Bow – the director was Victor Fleming who helmed this), she falls in love with people at the drop of her hat (all of them), she decides to adopt (Joan Crawford), her brother’s dumb, she keeps talking about wanting to run away from it all, she has a stalker.
Brilliant dialogue from some of the cream writers of the era: Jules Furthman, John Lee Mahin, Norman Krasna (uncredited). I love the faux love stuff between Harlow and Franchot Tone- “your hair… I’d love to run through your hair”. But it’s all good. Stunning support cast, including Frank Morgan, Louise Beavers and C Aubrey Smith. A masterpiece in it's way. I can't believe it's never been re-made.
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