Review
By Stephen Murray
An entertaining example of pre-Code "dangerous" females
on the make
Dec 15 '04
Pros
the volcanic strong-willed 21-year-old Jean Harlow
Cons
the men who are as vindictive as they are stupid
The Bottom Line
Jean Harlow: "When I kiss a man he stays kissed for a long time."
In that she was the original Hollywood platinum-haired bombshell, it is
a surprise that in the first movie Jean Harlow carried she was "The
Red-Headed Woman." This 1932 movie, in which she plays a gold-digger
who gets what she wants (men and money) and "Red Dust" also released
in 1932 in which Harlow played a happy, likeable prostitute are two of the
movies that outraged moralists who soon (mid-1934) were able to prevent
any pictures in which "vice" was not punished from being made
(let alone exhibited in what bills itself as "the land of the free" but
is still dominated by the allegedly "Christian" right).
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The contrived script
for "The Red-Headed Woman." was written by Anita Loos,
most famous for writing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (which
had already been filmed once, in 1928 as a silent movie), and who
wrote another tale of gold-digger success (post-censorship, as
a professional virgin) for Harlow, the 1934 "The Girl from
Missouri."
Lil, the red-headed woman, is totally calculating about sleeping
her way to the top, discarding one besotted male when one with
more money and status appears. The men are such fools that they
don't garner much sympathy for being seduced, bilked, and then
abandoned. Lil starts in the secretarial pool and goes after her
boss Bill Legrande (Chester Morris), son of the company's owner.
That Bill is (1) married and (2) genuinely in love with his wife
Irene (Lelia Hymans) matter not in the least to Lil (/Loos).
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Irene divorces her philandering husband and Lil gets Bill to marry
her, but is infuriated that his social set went with the wife and
will have nothing to do with her. She proceeds to ensnare an old
family friend (Henry Stephenson) to help her gain social acceptance.
He fails locally and Lil decides to pursue him to New York. He proposed
marriage, but Bill shows him pictures of his chauffeur (a very young
Charles Boyer) and Lil has to settle for a small payoff. At the end,
she is continuing to separate rich old men from some of their money
in Paris, being driven by the same chauffeur who is presumably still
her lover.
Watching what seems like a sort of "Reefer Madness" with
Harlow playing the weed, I'm not sure how much of what is funny was
intended to be funny. That the screenplay was written by Loos suggests
that what might seem to be creaky melodrama was intended to be funny.
Harlow seductive and Harlow vexed are both so over-the-top that I
had to laugh at them and at the stupidity of the men who go ga-ga
for her (and are far more vicious than she could be).
As amazing as Harlow's brassy vamping is here, I think she was funnier
in the even more contrived "The Girl from Missouri" in
which she fiercely guards her virginity (though as a means to achieving
the same end as seducing men in "Red-Headed" was). And
funniest of all in "Bombshell" as the exploited movie star
Lola Burns...
Recommended:
Yes
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