Waste of time

Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

You've seen other reviews, you've read the synopsis, you already know what this film is about, and you know who the stars are ... I'm just here to point out something I've not seen mentioned.Everyone in this movie YELLS THEIR LINES!Why speak when YOU CAN SCREAM?It's all very chaotic, and the one-liners come at you fast and furious and LOUD!I could have enjoyed this film so much more if everyone had toned it down a notch or three. So much of Bombshell is just Jean Harlow SCREAMING about something.You've been warned.

BOMBSHELL (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1933), directed by Victor Fleming, marked the turning point in Jean Harlow's movie career. For what many consider to be her finest comedic performance next to LIBELED LADY (1936), BOMBSHELL is her best movie. Sometimes labeled "Blonde Bombshell" to avoid any confusion to a war movie, BOMBSHELL, in some ways is a war movie, a battle between actress and her living and working surroundings of oddball characters, resulting to a Hollywood farce that makes no apologies poking fun of itself at its own expense.The opening gets off to a fine start as the sizzling bombshell explodes into the image of film star, Lola Burns, segued through a series of sequences through the underscoring of "Low Down Rhythm" revealing her personal activities through newspaper and magazine articles before shifting to title scoring from the motion picture HOLD YOUR MAN (1933) showing theater patrons watching the kissing scenes between Lola and co-star, Clark Gable. The montage concludes with fans reading about Lola in Photoplay Magazine before plot development gets underway. Lola Burns, Hollywood's brightest film star for Monarch Studios, lives in a Beverly Hills mansion where she supports her large sheepdogs, a drunken gambling father (Frank Morgan) acting as her business manager, and a lazy good-for-nothing brother, Junior (Ted Healy). Also under her wing are Loretta (Louise Beavers), a sassy maid; Winters (Leonard Carey), a butler who's in season filling in for Summers; and Miss Mac (Una Merkel), a personal secretary who, like the others, take advantage of her good nature. Arising at 6 a.m., Lola finds she must return to the set for retakes of her latest motion picture, "Red Dust," with Jim Brogan (Pat O'Brien), her old flame, directing her revised scenes. Tired of playing sexpots, Lola wants nothing more than to change her screen image. With her personal and professional life nothing but a series of complications, nobody is more responsible for her shattered life than her publicity agent, Space Hanlan (Lee Tracy). Things become more complex when Lola's fiancé, Marquis Hugo Di Binelli (Ivan Lebedeff), gets arrested at the Cocoanut Grove (featuring Gus Arnheim and his Orchestra) by detectives from the immigration department. The final drawback occurs when Lola loses all chances in adopting a baby boy when representatives (Ethel Griffies and Mary Carr) from the Fairfax Orphanage arrive at the wrong time to witness family squabbles between father and brother, a fist fight between Brogan and the returning Marquis, and intruding reporters. Embittered and disgusted, Lola walks out on family and studio contract for peace and tranquility in Palm Springs. While there she meets the wealthy Gifford Middleton (Franchot Tone), who not only becomes interested in Lola, but would "like to run barefoot through her hair." Before wedding plans are to take place, Gifford arranges a meeting between Lola and her future but snobbish in-laws (C. Aubrey Smith and Mary Forbes) visiting from Boston. When things start going wrong for Lola again, there's no doubt Space Hanlon is not far behind.  A prime example to the definition "mad-cap" or "screwball," BOMBSHELL, is a forerunner to those loud and brash comedies in the director Howard Hawks (1938s BRINGING UP BABY and 1940s HIS GIRL Friday)tradition, never letting up for an instant. What Harlow may have lacked as a dramatic roles makes up for it in comedies such as this. Following the pattern of 1932 releases of WHAT PRICE Hollywood?, MERTON OF THE MOVIES and ONCE IN A LIFETIME, BOMBSHELL doesn't use the traditional rise to fame theme, for that Lola Burns, its central character, is already an accomplished movie star. All she really wants now aside from better film roles is a civilized home-life, husband and kids, but with her family, studio employees and one publicity agent who'll stop at nothing, it's totally impossible. Credited from a play by Caroline Franke and Mark Crane, BOMBSHELL very much appears to be an autobiographical account on the personal and professional life of Jean "Lola Burns" Harlow. Considering "Red Dust" an actual title to a Jean Harlow movie and Clark Gable her leading man (mentioned a couple of times in the story), Monarch Studios is, in fact, a fictitious name to MGM. Lola's classification as "The If Girl" is a clever in-joke on silent screen legend Clara "The It Girl" Bow.While Franchot Tone has the film's most famous line, Lee Tracy's "Why don't you change your brand of narcotics?" should go as an honorable mention. Tracy, whose catch phrase in song tone of, "Right, right" as part of his character trait, whose annoying performance in DOCTOR X (1932) is 100 percent perfect in BOMBSHELL. He gets his quota of laughs by stopping at nothing through his tricks of the trade of publicity gimmicks. Another added plus is the recurring gag of the unexpected appearance from a long lost husband (Irving Bacon) and his hilarious attempts in reclaiming the confused Lola, no matter where she goes.Others in "the Hollywood trenches" include Isabel Jewell as Junior's new girlfriend; and June Brewster as Alice Cole, actress victim of Space's schemes. Aside from Frank Morgan (sporting a walrus mustache) making his MGM debut but a start in his long range of befuddled characters he was to perform so well, especially as the title character as THE WIZARD OF OZ (MGM, 1939). Everything in BOMBSHELL works, thanks to the professional team effort between Harlow, Tracy and the rest of the cast.BOMBSHELL, distributed to home video in 1991 and a decade later on DVD, is one that can still be seen and appreciated whenever shown on Turner Classic Movies. (***1/2)

This is an interesting change of pace comedy for Jean Harlow. She is not playing a lower class shop girl or even a prostitute like in THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI or RED DUST, nor a slumming upper class girl (as in THE PUBLIC ENEMY). Instead she is playing a very popular film star with a very sexy body and screen personae - gee, it sounds like she is playing Jean Harlow. According to the thread the character she is playing ("Lola Burns") was supposed to be based on Clara Bow (certainly the two names are similar in sound). But it could be based on Harlow's attempts (tragically repeatedly doomed) to have a happy normal life but finding her screen personae interfering.Still, even if one starts thinking of Harlow's marriage to Paul Bern or her romance with William Powell, the film is engrossing and humorous enough to make you push aside the tragedy of the life of Harlean Carpenter. Lola is, like all movie stars, a prisoner of the studio's determination to get all the public attention publicity can garner from it's merchandise (it's stars). In particular Lola finds herself at the mercy of the studio's head publicity man "Space Hanlon" (Lee Tracy). Tracy is always coming up with goofy stunts, or twisting events that involve Lola in her attempts at normality (like adopting a baby, or dating a "normal" man (Franchot Tone) into another mess. The studio only cares that she personifies sexual allure - so Hanlon keeps making that the key to his publicity: he even arranges a fight between several men on the set of her latest film (one is director Pat O'Brien) supposedly over Lola's love.Lola is not against sex and love - the quote in the "Summary line" is Lola's when her maid wakes her at the start of the film, and she's just had a promising sex dream. She really needs a confidante - but everyone around her takes advantage of her. Her father (Frank Morgan) is an alcoholic, cadging old scoundrel (who keeps reminding her - to her growing disgust - of her owing him obedience as her loving father). Her sibling (Ted Healey) is also an alcoholic, constantly having sexual affairs that she has to get him out of. Her maid actually steals from the household accounts (Lola is aware of this - she is not stupid). And all constantly are as demanding on her as her studio.Ironically there is one person who would be her confidante and more - but he knows she'll reject him. It's Space, who loves her. In fact, some of the stunts he sets up is to get rid of possible rivals. Eventually, can he get her to recognize this? Ah that is the final point of the film.Harlow was a gifted comic actress, knowing how to use her image for fun (such as Wallace Beery's unfaithful wife in DINNER AT EIGHT). But I suspect because of her own problems in Hollywood and real life she put more of herself in this film than in any other. I can't say it was her best performance (I tend to like RED DUST and CHINA SEAS a little more) but it was somehow her most real performance, and the film benefits as a result.

Bombshell is almost a mirror of Jean Harlow's life (although, I have heard it is extremely close to Clara Bow's life and from what I read from her biography, it seems very true) and it is fascinating to see Jean Harlow play herself (even references to Red Dust, which she made in the previous year), or perhaps what the viewers like to think is the real Jean Harlow. Anyway, Jean Harlow plays sexy bombshell Lola Burns – mega movie star who has everything – a mansion, maids, stunning clothes, dogs, movies with Clark Gable… but there's a downside: she has her drop-out brother and drunken father (Frank Oz) leeching money off her constantly to pay for their expensive lifestyle and her fast-talking publicity man Space Hanlon (Lee Tracy) makes up disgusting stories about her. She decides enough is enough – she's sick of Hollywood – so she packs up her bags.If you want to take a truthful and in-depth look at the old Hollywood system of making movie stars, than Bombshell is the movie for you! It takes an amusing but realistic look at this period using satire and witty, hard hitting lines, beautifully execute by Jean Harlow and a great supporting cast. There are also some daring innuendos that are only found in pre-code Hollywood movies – this makes it all the more enjoyable. This type of comedy is not everybody's thing, but Bombshell is certainly worth a look.