Harlow (1965)
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Panavision 125m
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Carroll Baker, Red Buttons, Raf Vallone, Angela Lansbury, Martin Balsam, Mike Connors, Peter Lawford, Leslie Nielsen
Synopsis:
Living with her mother and Italian stepfather in Los Angeles, young Jean finds getting work at the studios impossible when she rejects the casting couch route. A chance encounter with a small-time agent, Art Landau, puts opportunity her way, but her ingenuous suspicion of men leads to misunderstandings and a disastrous marriage. Finally, in search of love she turns tramp and hits the bottle, contracting a fatal bout of pneumonia following an all-nighter on the beach.
Review:
How not to do a movie star biopic. Purportedly based on Arthur Landau's book, the screenplay makes fast and loose with the poor girl's actual life story: names are changed (Richard Manley is presumably Howard Hughes, or Harry Cohn; MGM becomes Majestic Pictures) and her whole career path revamped (no allusion to her early roles with Laurel and Hardy, or indeed Hell's Angels). Her three marriages, one of them actually predating her Hollywood years, and final relationship with William Powell become one fiasco (the sorry Paul Bern story); more perplexing still, we have a predacious stepdad who then becomes the wronged party when the actress succumbs to nymphomania and tries to seduce him; finally, her actual cause of death (kidney failure) was presumably deemed too unglamorous for a high-gloss production that treats the whole narrative like some bestseller fiction. Douglas's direction is stolid, and the performances vary between stiff and hysterical, almost as if they know they are pedalling phoney goods; Baker, however, does invest the part with some depth and pathos. Above all, the film resembles too much one of those Hollywood entertainments its premise should be designed to debunk, as if the dream factory could not help but be in love with its own mythology; you almost expect them to break into song at times. Miraculously, the film still garnered an 'X' certificate in the UK.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Panavision 125m
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Carroll Baker, Red Buttons, Raf Vallone, Angela Lansbury, Martin Balsam, Mike Connors, Peter Lawford, Leslie Nielsen
Synopsis:
Living with her mother and Italian stepfather in Los Angeles, young Jean finds getting work at the studios impossible when she rejects the casting couch route. A chance encounter with a small-time agent, Art Landau, puts opportunity her way, but her ingenuous suspicion of men leads to misunderstandings and a disastrous marriage. Finally, in search of love she turns tramp and hits the bottle, contracting a fatal bout of pneumonia following an all-nighter on the beach.
Review:
How not to do a movie star biopic. Purportedly based on Arthur Landau's book, the screenplay makes fast and loose with the poor girl's actual life story: names are changed (Richard Manley is presumably Howard Hughes, or Harry Cohn; MGM becomes Majestic Pictures) and her whole career path revamped (no allusion to her early roles with Laurel and Hardy, or indeed Hell's Angels). Her three marriages, one of them actually predating her Hollywood years, and final relationship with William Powell become one fiasco (the sorry Paul Bern story); more perplexing still, we have a predacious stepdad who then becomes the wronged party when the actress succumbs to nymphomania and tries to seduce him; finally, her actual cause of death (kidney failure) was presumably deemed too unglamorous for a high-gloss production that treats the whole narrative like some bestseller fiction. Douglas's direction is stolid, and the performances vary between stiff and hysterical, almost as if they know they are pedalling phoney goods; Baker, however, does invest the part with some depth and pathos. Above all, the film resembles too much one of those Hollywood entertainments its premise should be designed to debunk, as if the dream factory could not help but be in love with its own mythology; you almost expect them to break into song at times. Miraculously, the film still garnered an 'X' certificate in the UK.
Country: US
Technical: Technicolor/Panavision 125m
Director: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Carroll Baker, Red Buttons, Raf Vallone, Angela Lansbury, Martin Balsam, Mike Connors, Peter Lawford, Leslie Nielsen
Synopsis:
Living with her mother and Italian stepfather in Los Angeles, young Jean finds getting work at the studios impossible when she rejects the casting couch route. A chance encounter with a small-time agent, Art Landau, puts opportunity her way, but her ingenuous suspicion of men leads to misunderstandings and a disastrous marriage. Finally, in search of love she turns tramp and hits the bottle, contracting a fatal bout of pneumonia following an all-nighter on the beach.
Review:
How not to do a movie star biopic. Purportedly based on Arthur Landau's book, the screenplay makes fast and loose with the poor girl's actual life story: names are changed (Richard Manley is presumably Howard Hughes, or Harry Cohn; MGM becomes Majestic Pictures) and her whole career path revamped (no allusion to her early roles with Laurel and Hardy, or indeed Hell's Angels). Her three marriages, one of them actually predating her Hollywood years, and final relationship with William Powell become one fiasco (the sorry Paul Bern story); more perplexing still, we have a predacious stepdad who then becomes the wronged party when the actress succumbs to nymphomania and tries to seduce him; finally, her actual cause of death (kidney failure) was presumably deemed too unglamorous for a high-gloss production that treats the whole narrative like some bestseller fiction. Douglas's direction is stolid, and the performances vary between stiff and hysterical, almost as if they know they are pedalling phoney goods; Baker, however, does invest the part with some depth and pathos. Above all, the film resembles too much one of those Hollywood entertainments its premise should be designed to debunk, as if the dream factory could not help but be in love with its own mythology; you almost expect them to break into song at times. Miraculously, the film still garnered an 'X' certificate in the UK.