Platinum Blonde and Beyond

It was her trademark, her calling card and, in 1931, the name of a film for which she received third billing. Platinum Blonde had originally been intended as a vehicle for top-billed star Loretta Young but, by the time it was released, the film's title had changed and changed again until it was an outright reference to pale-haired co-star Jean Harlow. It was not Harlow's breakout picture, that had come with Hell's Angels (1930), nor is it generally cited as one of her great classics, but Platinum Blonde was pivotal - it proclaimed her stardom.



The Public Enemy (1931)

In 1931, the 20-year-old starlet was still under an oppressive five-year contract with Howard Hughes, producer/director of Hell's Angels. She had proven her appeal in the film, but Hughes had no projects in the works for her and most Hollywood insiders believed he was mismanaging her career. Harlow's then-friend/future husband Paul Bern arranged for her loan to MGM for The Secret Six (1931) an underworld drama with Wallace Beery and not-yet-famous Clark Gable. Immediately after, she was loaned out to Universal for an unsympathetic role in The Iron Man (1931), a boxing drama with Lew Ayres. While still on that project, she went back to MGM for retakes on The Secret Six and began work on her next film, this time on loan to Warner Brothers for the gangster classic The Public Enemy (1931), with James Cagney. Her fourth film in five months was for Fox, Goldie (1931), a comedy with Spencer Tracy. Of these films only The Public Enemy was an unqualified hit, and it was a blockbuster, but it was Cagney who became the overnight star...Harlow's allure was noted, but her performance was widely panned.

With an assist from New Jersey mobster Abner Zwillman who was involved with Harlow, a two-picture deal with Harry Cohn at Columbia Pictures was secured. Zwillman made sure the actress earned quite a bit more than what she eked out from Howard Hughes. Harlow's first film for Columbia was to be called "Gallagher" and was one of several films of the emerging "newspaper" genre. It was a romantic comedy about an everyman reporter who falls for a high living socialite and is blind to the love of his best friend and fellow reporter, a gal pal named Gallagher.

Loretta Young

Contracted to star as Gallagher was luminous Loretta Young, already a movie veteran at only 18. She'd started in pictures at age four with an uncredited bit part as a "Fairy" in The Primrose Ring (1917) starring Mae Murray. At eight she'd appeared as an "Arab Child" in Valentino's The Shiek (1921) and at 15 co-starred with silent screen legend Lon Chaney in Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928). In 1929 she, along with her sister Sally Blane, Jean Arthur and others, was named one of Hollywood's "WAMPAS Baby Stars." By the time she came to "Gallagher" Young had already appeared in more than 30 films.

"Gallagher" had begun as an assignment for director Edward Buzzell (At the Circus, Go West, Song of the Thin Man, Neptune's Daughter) and development of the project was nearly complete by the time Frank Capra, then a promising director at Columbia, took over.

Harry Cohn and Frank Capra

Capra was on his way up in 1931, but still a few years away from the Oscar nominations and wins that would characterize his career. He had been scheduled to make Forbidden with Barbara Stanwyck but that project was shelved for the time being and he moved on to "Gallagher." Comparing the filmographies of Buzzell and Capra, this was fortuitous.

On loan to Columbia from RKO-Pathé to co-star in Forbidden was recent Broadway-to-Hollywood transplant Robert Williams. With that film on the shelf, Williams was cast as the male lead, a down to earth newspaperman and charmer named Stew Smith, in "Gallagher."


Harlow and Williams

 Williams had been on the New York stage for nearly ten years when Hollywood beckoned. He'd starred in a great hit of the era, "Abie's Irish Rose," the longest running play in Broadway history up to that time. In 1930 he was cast in Donald Ogden Stewart's "Rebound," which was just a moderate success. But sound had  permanently arrived, and Hollywood was desperate for stage plays, actors and writers. When RKO-Pathé bought the film rights to the play, Williams repeated his role in Rebound (1931) opposite Ina Claire. He was quickly cast in two more productions, The Common Law (1931) with Constance Bennett and Joel McCrea and Devotion (1931) with Ann Harding and Leslie Howard, and was considered "a new comedy sensation" when tapped for "Gallagher."
 
Another noteworthy contributor on the film was screenwriter Robert Riskin (It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take it With You, Lost Horizon) who, though credited only with the dialogue, reportedly penned the script that had captured Capra's attention early on. The combination of an appealing cast, an up-and-coming director along with well honed writing, delivered a box office hit - and a film that has been called Capra's most underrated.

By the time the picture was screened for its final preview audience, it had been retitled "The Gilded Cage," referring to protagonist Stew Smith's predicament and shifting focus from the Gallagher character. At the same time, a PR-fueled craze for peroxide-blonde hair swept the country and further heightened interest in bombshell Jean Harlow, recently tagged "the platinum blonde." Within a week of the last preview, the film had a new and lasting title, Platinum Blonde, though the plot had nothing to do with haircolor...

With Platinum Blonde Harlow became a star. A few months later The Beast of the City (1932) brought her first consistently good reviews and in April 1932, aided by the maneuvering of Paul Bern and Irving Thalberg, she signed a seven-year contract with MGM. Her first film for the preeminent studio was Red-Headed Woman (1932), and it was tailored to her style and personality with added emphasis on humor to soften the perception of overt sexuality. Jean Harlow made 13 more films for MGM, all of them popular, several of them classics, and was a top Hollywood star for the rest of her short life.

Loretta Young's acting career covered more than 75 years, but her ascent to stardom only began in earnest when she signed with 20th Century Fox in the mid-'30's. She won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Farmer's Daughter (1947) and later won three Best Actress Emmys for her 1950s TV anthology series.

Capra and Riskin went on to make a string of classic films together. It's significant that the primary characters and themes of Platinum Blonde would be revisited and refined in their later collaborations. The two men next worked on American Madness (1932) and then came Lady for a Day (1933) bringing Oscar nods to each of them. It was the following year, with It Happened One Night (1934), that Capra's and Riskin's reputations were made. The film won five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing/Adaptation. In his career, Riskin was nominated for a total of five Oscars, all were for Capra films. Capra was nominated for six Oscars and won three; all winning films were those on which he'd collaborated with Riskin. Their first success working together had been Platinum Blonde...

Robert Williams


I realized on first viewing Platinum Blonde that the standout performance and the heart of the film was the male lead. I wondered who Robert Williams was and why I hadn't seen his name before. He was enormously talented, facile, charismatic...and attractive enough to make the grade - yet I'd never heard of him. There was a very good reason.

When Platinum Blonde opened Williams received glowing reviews. He must have realized that he was about to break out, but he had little time to enjoy his new caché. Just as the film was opening, Williams took a trip to Catalina Island, a popular getaway for Hollywood folk in those days. While he was there his appendix ruptured and by the time he managed to return to the mainland and go into a hospital he'd developed peritonitis. He underwent surgery but died on November 3, four days after Platinum Blonde's release and on the same day Variety singled out his performance and predicted a promising future.


There isn't much available on YouTube from Platinum Blonde, but the scene below provides a moment of pre-Code mischief (if some of the dialogue seems politically incorrect remember, this film is 80 years old)...

TCM will air Platinum Blonde on Tuesday, March 29, 11:30pm Eastern/8:30pm Pacific

Loretta Young, Robert Williams, Jean Harlow

Darrell Rooney and Mark Vieira's new book Harlow in Hollywood: The Blonde Bombshell in the Glamour Capital, 1928 - 1937 (click here to learn more) is scheduled for release in  March from Angel City Press.

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Posted by: Tukiyooo Platinum Blonde and Beyond Updated at : 12:00 AM

Monday, February 28, 2011