Fri 11 Mar 2011
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: BOMBSHELL (1933).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[16] Comments
BOMBSHELL. MGM, 1933. Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, Pat O’Brien, Franchot Tone, Una Merkel, Ted Healy, Ivan Lebedeff, C. Aubrey Smith, Isabel Jewell. Screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Jules Furthman; photography by Harold Rosson and Chester Lyons. Director: Victor Fleming. Shown at Cinecon 46, Hollywood CA, September 2010.
There’s not an admirable character among the characters in this steamroller satire of a star (Harlow) victimized by her family, studio and everybody she comes into contact with.
Lee Tracy as her lover and publicist, with not an honest bone in his body or an apparent ounce of concern for Harlow’s well-being, and Frank Morgan as her alcoholic father are the most blatant exploiters of the vulnerable actress, but every other actor in the film, with the possible exception of Pat O’Brien, plays a role that ensures complicity in the studio’s manipulation of every aspect of her life for the maximum return on her box-office potential.
It was apparently an open secret at the time of the film’s release that Harlow’s role was based on the tragic career of Clara Bow, a talented and enormously popular actress whose not so private peccadilloes contributed to ending her career.
Both Harlow and Bow exuded a sexuality that propelled their careers into the stratosphere, with Bow’s meteoric career a victim to sound, Harlow’s to a medical problem that her mother, a devotee of Christian Science, refused to have treated.
Bombshell was probably intended to be a satiric comedy, but the dark undertones of the constant breaching of Harlow’s character’s privacy that undermines any sense of self-worth, has a sour, almost vicious cast, that I found offensive.
Editorial Comment: Bombshell is scheduled to be shown on TCM next Tuesday night (March 15th) at 9:30.
March 11th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Considering Harlow’s own life this one is even darker than may have been intended.
The laughs are mostly bitter and the bite sharp and vicious. You have to wonder that the studio okayed this since it really doesn’t portray anyone in Hollywood as halfway human, from the star’s co workers to her monstrous family.
Still, there were a spate of these films where some poor noble person is put upon by everyone around him — Eugene Pallette’s father in MY MAN GODFREY and singer Irene Dunne in JOY OF LIVING. But none of them as biting and at times even disconcerting as this one.
March 11th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Actually, I found it very funny. Maybe because I lived in Los Angeles for over twenty years and knew the realities of the business. Maybe because it was just a screwball movie. Maybe because Harlow could make the phone book laugh out loud funny.
March 11th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
I found it funny too, but I do see Walter’s point. There is something almost vicious in the sheer joy of the way Harlow’s character is preyed upon by everyone around her.
As you say, one of the great screwball comedies, but one with a very black heart.
March 11th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Walter, if you are reading, I like your review. Your comments are valid and you presented it well.
March 11th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
Would this movie have been any where near as successful as it was (is) without Jean Harlow in the leading role? Even granting that you can feel awfully uncomfortable while watching it — I’m with Walter; I do — and I still can’t keep my eyes off the screen.
March 11th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Would any Harlow film be as good without her? Even in SARATOGA where half the film is a stand in because she died during production she still keeps your eyes glued to the screen.
I’m not sure I can think of a Harlow film where anyone else could have played the role — certainly not this one. In fact I think the only reason you can keep your eyes on the screen and laugh at this one is because Harlow is smart and tough enough that you feel somehow she can take it. It would be sadistic with some pale ingenue in the part.
With Harlow there is always steel under the silk and lace.
And if not for Harlow’s own tragic end I might not find this as uncomfortable, but knowing how she died and her familiy’s role as well as her marriage and romantic problems its hard not to see something a bit haunting about this one for all the screwball nature.
As it is it hits a little too close to home.
March 11th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
No doubt Harlow is the major positive of the movie. But remember, it was made without knowledge of Harlow’s future so how we may react to it now is different from how the audience saw it when released.
And the film works on another level. In 1933, the audience most likely found great pleasure seeing the spoiled rich have the same problems the average person had. It was reassuring that money and fame did not give you a decent supportive family, lover, or life. That not getting the movie star’s life you dream of may be a good thing.
March 12th, 2011 at 12:04 am
The whole screwball school works on one level as socal commentary — the rich are different — they’re funny to laugh at when they are unhappy.
Of course no one knew Harlow’s future, but watching it now we can’t help but know what happened to her.
Is that unfair to the film?
Sure, but you can’t ignore the fact that its there.
Try as we might it is sometimes hard to ignore what happened in the real world even while in the midst of escapism.
March 12th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I knew when I originally wrote this review that a lot of people would disagree with my take on it. I liked the different perspectives that David and Michael brought to the film even though they didn’t move it into the must-see-again category for me. I will only add that the cast was splendid even if the characters they played were generally self-serving, and Harlow was a phenomenal screen presence whose luster hasn’t dimmed in the almost 80 years since the film was released.
March 12th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
It’s been several years since I’ve seen BOMBSHELL, and I haven’t found anything I wrote up about it at the time, if in fact I did.
But I think the uneasiness I felt while watching the film had nothing to do with Harlow’s untimely death. (To put it more callously than I mean or feel, no one else involved with the movie is likely to still be with us either.)
I just felt uncomfortable watching it. Walter used the word “offensive” in describing the movie. That’s close to how I felt about it then, but not quite. Perhaps it was just a little too dark for me.
I added a note at the bottom of the review to remind everyone that BOMBSHELL will be shown on TCM next Tuesday night. Given the conversation so far, I’ll make a point of watching it again.
March 12th, 2011 at 6:10 pm
On one level I can watch this and laugh at it, but on another, while not offended exactly it makes me uncomfortable — almost as it it was trying to appeal to something most of us would rather not admit to.
I’d love to know what Harlow thought of this one? If she enjoyed making it or it hit a little close to home.
I think I have a Harlow bio somewhere. I’ll have to dig it out and see if it says anything about this film.
One thing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tracy or Morgan as unlikable or distasteful as in this film.
March 12th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
I understand the discomfort here, but for some reason I can forget the actress and accept the characters as characters.
Maybe we should call BOMBSHELL screwball noir.
March 12th, 2011 at 8:13 pm
Screwball noir? I kind of like that!
March 12th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Screwball noir — perfect.
April 7th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
[” Both Harlow and Bow exuded a sexuality that propelled their careers into the stratosphere, with Bow’s meteoric career a victim to sound, Harlow’s to a medical problem that her mother, a devotee of Christian Science, refused to have treated.”]
I can’t believe that there are people who still believe this myth. Harlow’s mother was a Christian Science in name only. She treated her membership as some kind of social club. Harlow spent the last few years of her life in and out of hospitals for different medical problems. And she was attended by a doctor and nurse during her last illness and was later checked into the Good Samaritan Hospital.
Harlow had suffered from scarlet fever when she was a kid. This illness damaged her kidneys pretty good. As she became older, she developed a kidney disease or renal failure. There was NO medical procedure in 1937 that could have saved Harlow.
April 10th, 2011 at 10:21 am
I shouldn’t make biographical comments loosely based on “received” information without checking the sources and the accuracy of the information. From what little fact checking I’ve just done, Rosie’s information seems correct. And whatever the cause of her death, it was still an untimely end to the career of a talented actress who still lights up even the small screens her films are probably most often viewed on these days.