Customer Reviews

Jean Harlow: Blond Bombshell [VHS]

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4 star:		(2)
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This Ted Turner Pictures documentary is hosted by Sharon Stone lit superbly and dressed by Valentino. Although it's clear Stone feels an affinity with the "brazen gutsy" Harlow, Stone's appearance cannot altogether disguise her reading of the teleprompter and the odd physical poses she stands in. If this can be blamed on director Tom McQuade, we can also laugh when Stone repeats Harlow's need to use a slant board so as not to crease her form-fitting gowns.
The treatment written by Paul Boorstin isn't a definitive study of Harlow's short film career - there's no extended footage from Hold Your Man or China Seas or Suzy or Personal Property - but it does hit the main points - Hells Angels and her contract with Howard Hughes, Paul Bern and the move to MGM, the Bern marriage and his death, her change of image after the new production code, her relationship with William Powell, Saratoga and her death. We are told of Harlow's career slump after Hells Angels, and the resistance Louis B Mayer had to taking her since it was thought only "tramps" bleached their hair (though Harlow was a natural blonde) and MGM prided itself on their stable of "ladies" like Garbo, Shearer and Crawford (though considering Crawford as ladylike as Shearer is unbelievable, and reducing Garbo to a lady is ludicrous).
What is interesting is how we see MGM exploited Harlow's private life in it's treatment of her. The plot points in Reckless about a suicidal huband, Bombshell and a family living off her fame, even a scene in Libelled Lady where she marries Powell when he refused to in real life. We hear how her persona was not like her real personality, which prefigures the dumb blonde Monroe mentality and also is supposed to legitimise her "acting". It's just a shame that Harlow isn't shown to be more attractive, even given the period styles. McQuade who also edited shows more of her in Bombshell where her tirades wear thin than in Dinner at Eight where she had better material and the director George Cukor knew better. It's interesting to see the only colour footage of her in the 2 strip technicolour party scene from Hells Angels, though a shame it doesn't flatter her. And the change of her image makes her drop some of her most appealing qualities, as well as the peroxide, with pre-code Red Dust considered to be the best vehicle for her sexy/funny and poignant style. The masochism in Red Headed Woman where she enjoys being abused by a man is perhaps one good thing to come from the code.
The Bern affair concludes that the death was a suicide, with the theory that he was killed by ex-wife Dorothy Millette is not mentioned. And the sad irony of her final role in Saratoga where she plays someone ill and the apparent "bloating" appearance an indication of the kidney failure that would kill her one would think would be concealed by MGM's expert cameraman. Boorstin also says that Harlow did receive medical attention at home, contrary to the legend of her mother being a Christian Scientist and forbiding it.
Occasionally McQuade uses original songs by Scott Roewe performed by Muriel Walker on the level of If you'll be my hero I'll be your little girl, referring to Harlow's preference for older men, and also Cole Porter's Anything Goes. He also plays Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life over a concluding montage, after we are told this was performed live at Harlow's funeral.

Review on Jean Harlow: The Blond Bombshell

It is sad and unfair that biographies as well as history are often a matter of perception rather than truth. They are passed to posterity "authoritatively" by a credible famous actress, such as Sharon Stone, as truth, while in fact they are a concoction of truth mixed with falsehood.

To the astute, the main MGM physician appears to have been bought by the MGM, as were many public officials in order to conceal the truth and produce, like in movies, a false scenario of Paul Bern's impotence and suicide under its overall cover-up serving self-interest reasons.

It seems Harlow did not lie out of "loyalty" though the marriage "was not consummated," as implied by Stone's narrative, but told the truth that she is not part of this MGM cover-up and that she loves Paul.

However, in spite of the above distortions, in this documentary, Harlow and Bern are presented for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear as the real love of each other's life.

Thus, an allusion made in Stone's narrative to this effect, is that it seems that for Jean Harlow Mr. Right was Paul Bern.

As viewers are more perceptive than they are given credit for, the lack of the truth luster in this documentary may explain why such a documentary presentation is pushed back in Amazon.com's rank and in real life and unfortunately condemned to oblivion and forgotten, together with their main characters, Jean Harlow and Paul Bern.

Another hint attesting to the above assertion about Jean and Paul being the love of each other's life, contrary to MGM's cover-up, casting in the public eye William Powell, as such in the film "Reckless" and in real life, rather than Paul Bern, is the song going: "If you'll be my hero, I'll be your little girl..." This song is associated with the picture of Jean Harlow and Paul Bern in front of the MGM executive bungalow, 79 years ago, song that also concludes the whole documentary.

All in all, I give this documentary four stars, as it did more justice to the life and legacy of Jean Harlow than other similar presentations of the First Hollywood Blonde Bombshell.

Personally, I give Jean Harlow five stars.

Hopefully, in the near future the truth in the public perception will prevail, and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by Jean Harlow's star there will be another star...that of Paul Bern.