Reviews

I saw this short before a main feature at The Coolidge Corner Movie House in Brookline, MA and was completely unprepared for what I saw. It's a surreal story involving a teenage boy coming to pick up his date and having to wait with her father while she finishes getting ready. This very surreal, yet good natured film is like the flip side to "Eraserhead"-an outward manifestation of the protagonist's inner anxiety. Only instead of bleak and dark, the situations are absurd and benign (the film is well lit in warm sunny tones, which add to the otherworldliness of the events). The parents of his date are more than a little bit strange, yet well intentioned and genuinely friendly towards the boy-and completely oblivious to the non sequiturs and general weirdness that abounds. No sense of malice, just a series of random events, surreal set pieces, and one very unsettled boy. I really enjoyed this short film and feel fortunate to have seen it on the big screen. If you get a chance to catch it, do so-it is as unique a film going experience as one is likely to see and a genuine pleasure.

To call this movie dreck would be like calling "Heaven's Gate" a minor flop. Where do I begin? For starters, the screenplay is weak, and bears almost no relation to the actual filming of "Hell's Angels"-in fact, they don't even use the actual title, they call the movie "Angels in Hell". The screen play bothers to include a brief appearance by Howard Hawks, and yet does't even mention James Whale, who actually worked on "Hell's Angels". Then there's the casting and "acting" by the leads, Holchak and Bloom. Holchak plays Hughes like he was James Stewart-all shyness and "aw shucks" demeanor. Plus Jean's always cracking that he'll end up in the nut-house-a cutesy way of foreshadowing Hughes' real life future battles with mental illness. In addition to this, there's Lindsay Bloom's interpretation of Jean. Lindsay plays Jean as a crass vulgarian-she swears like Carole Lombard on a bender. Then to add insult to injury, the movie implies that Jean spent time in a "cat house" in LA-when by all accounts, while Jean did have her affairs, she was momma's little girl. Also, they portray her as a Midwestern guttersnipe, when she was raised in the lap of luxury-and the overbearing stage mother Jean had in real life was barely a cipher in this movie. Then there's the issue of the look of the film. Cheap cheap cheap. The filmmakers barely get the period right at times, and Jean's look is all wrong-the hair's too big and the makeup is all wrong. Not to mention, they don't even try to properly recreate her scenes in "Double Whoopee" and "Hell's Angels"-this movie sets "Hell's" in Paris, not London, and they get the dress ripping gag wrong as well as fail to mention Laurel and Hardy in the filming of "Double". I read in an interview with the director that the found out after principal photography started that this movie was merely a tax shelter-and the fact is, it shows. Everything about this movie is cheap and mediocre, the sets, the actors, the screenplay, the costumes-everything.

Lastly, there's the central premise of the film-that Hughes and Harlow were romantically involved. There's no evidence that Hughes saw Harlow as anything other than a cash cow. He basically held her to a slave contract and worked her hard with no regard to building her up as a star-Hughes just wanted to make money off of her while she was hot, with no though of her future. This movie has them wanting each other, but Hughes wants to wait until the movie's released until he beds Harlow-and having Harlow desperately trying to seduce him.

All in all, this is probably the worst representation of Harlow on screen-even worse than the hatchet job that Paramount made in the 60's with Carrol Baker. I had to see this, as I am a huge Jean Harlow fan. While I wasn't expecting much, I was still very disappointed. This movie fails on all fronts-as a Hollywood history, a docudrama, as a romance, even as a T&A boobie flick (for all the talk in this movie about Jean and her assets, we barely see any of her body.) I can not at all recommend this movie to anyone. I suppose that someone who's a fan of Harlow, or 30's Hollywood might be tempted to see this movie, and I can't stop them. All I can say is do NOT spend too much money on a copy of this movie. I was lucky to score a copy on eBay for about $5.00, and even that was too much. Since it has been out of print for so long, the price for it tends to be high-but I'm wondering if the release of "The Aviator" might cause the company to re-release this onto home video.

After making trashy movies of Miss Susann's books (yes I am well aware that Susann's novels were not high art, but cripes, those movies were far worse), Hollywood finally got around to making a trashy movie of her life. Instead of basing this travesty on the wonderful Jackie Bio written by Barbara Seaman ("Lovely Me"), they instead chose to base it on an article her former editor, Michael Korda wrote for Vanity Fair. Bearing in mind that Jackie hated Michael with vitriolic passion and that they only worked on one book together. This is as bad a biopic as "Harlow" was. The tone of this movie is all wrong as it veers between slapstick and tear jerking unconvincingly. As much as I respect Bette, she is somewhat miscast as Ms. Susann...in fact there is one glaringly inaccurate scene where Bette complains that the reason that she's not successful as an actress is that she's not skinny and cute...WRONG! Miss Susann in real life was skinny and regarded as very attractive-she just didn't have much, if any talent as a performer. This is one of many inacuracies in the movie. I know it's hard to remain faithful to the facts, but this movie barely even tries to get things straight. Not to mention that Jacqueline was not a borscht belt comic, she was part Jewish, but I think she aspired to being a WASP. The movie did include some of her real life trials-such as her breast cancer and an autistic child, but because the movie starts as a bad farce, these changes in tone are unconvincing at best. All in all, this movie is a stinker and should be avoided at all costs...if you want to se Bette in "loud mouth broad" mode...you are better off renting "Ruthless People."

The concept of the movie is a good one, a group of "stand-in's for cinematic legends get together to celebrate the birthday of one of their own, fails to work. On a dramatic level, it's very stagy (mostly because the movie is an adaptation of a stage play.) It's basically another "Boy's in the Band" or "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean." The script is cliched and over the top-Sammi Davis'[Jean Harlow's stand in] monologue at the end is particularly awful, as was the playwright's decision to make her southern and give her this "Carrie's" mom type of Southern gothic back story. The actors do fairly well with what they are given, and some ineteresting points are made about these women basking vicariously in their star's glory. For example, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis' stand ins duke it out over who's star won an Oscar, and Mae West's stand in tells of pretending to be Mae and signing autographs.

Historically, this film is a mixed bag. The stand ins are made to confront their own career's mortality when the death of a major star occurs (The film is set on June 7, 1937-the day Jean Harlow died.) Unfortunately, the film does not use historical facts to build drama-Jean was actually sick for about 10 days before she died, so her stand in would have been in limbo for all that time waiting for Jean to get better, that would have given the film more dramatic intensity. But Jean's last unfinished film is used to create friction, when Rita Hayworth's new stand in wants to use "Saratoga" to catapult her own budding career. The other major issue with history is the image presented of Jean Harlow...Sammi is impersonating her circa 1932, not circa 1937 (Jean stopped being a "Platinum Blonde" in 1935.) I know that this is nit picking, but they couldn't even get that right. Sammi looks like a tragic drag queen, and sports a terrible Southern accent.

I would only recommend this film to die hard fans of Jean Harlow and Hollywood's golden age. Dramatically and Historically it's of poor quality, but has some value for Harlow fans.