Dvd/150: WIFE VERSUS SECRETARY (Clarence Brown, 1936)

By the mid-1930s the prohibitive production code made it difficult for Jean Harlow to play the tart-with-a-heart roles that made her famous so MGM subverted her persona in WIFE VERSUS SECRETARY - accused by others of being a homewrecker she is in fact just a devoted secretary.

Magazine publisher Clark Gable is happily married to Myrna Loy but, when she hears rumours of his relationship with secretary Harlow, Loy's suspicions overtake her.  This is not helped when Harlow secretly flies with Gable to Havana suddenly but we know it's all innocent as he is secretly trying to acquire a newspaper and only Harlow knows the plan.

Although billed as a comedy drama, director Clarence Brown concentrates more on the marital drama with Harlow standing glumly by, realizing her actual feelings for her boss when boyfriend James Stewart suggests she give up her job when they get married.

Shelf or charity shop?  As it's on the same disc as CHINA SEAS I will hang on to this one...

Dvd/150: CHINA SEAS (Tay Garnett, 1935)

Pure MGM adventure-hokum that races along with little character development as the stars are all playing their personas to the hilt.

Clark Gable is the gruff captain of a boat carrying passengers and cargo between Singapore and Hong Kong.  His voyage is complicated by the appearance on board of old flame and newly-widowed Sybil (Rosalind Russell) as well as 'China' Doll (Jean Harlow), a gregarious good-time-girl who is besotted with him.

To make Gable jealous, Harlow pals up with old friend Jamesy (Wallace Beery) but discovers he has secretly plotted with vicious Malay pirates to steal gold hidden on board.  As the ship sails into a violent storm, the action explodes...

Akim Tamaroff, Robert Benchley and Lewis Stone wander about as Harlow dazzles in her wonderful Adrian-designed gowns that cling where they touch.  An added delight is uncredited Hattie McDaniel as Harlow's cheeky maid Isabel.

Shelf or charity shop?  Braving the elements on the shelf...

Happy Birthday to the late and great Jean Harlow.

Along with Carole Lombard, Harlow had the seemingly lost quality in being a glamorous, shimmering screen goddess while also an effective and and smart comedy performer.

Her seemingly frank approach to her sexuality, using it like a second skin, made her performances always more suggestible than the Production Code allowed her scripts to be. But, again like Lombard, she also had the air of being as good a pal to the leading man as a love interest.Her performances as a dramatic actress were always slightly hampered by her flat middle-American tones but give her a role which also allowed for a cynically-raised eyebrow and a deadpanned wisecrack and she lit up the screen.

After a couple of years of scenery-dressing roles as shopgirls and gangster molls at MGM, she played the leading roles in PLATINUM BLONDE and RED-HEADED WOMAN - yes, they loved that hair - and suddenly her career went stratospheric as Clark Gable's leading lady in RED DUST. Their easy on-screen charisma led to a further four films together. Tragically it was during the filming of their last film together that she collapsed at the studio and within 8 days, was dead from kidney failure at the age of only 26. Her work is shockingly represented on dvd here. Only her negligible performances in THE PUBLIC ENEMY with James Cagney, the WWI award-winner HELL'S ANGELS and PLATINUM BLONDE are available.

C'mon whoever owns the MGM catalogue - let's be having RED DUST, BOMBSHELL, CHINA SEAS, LIBELLED LADY and DINNER AT EIGHT.

The latter featured one of the best put-downs in film history:

Harlow as Kitty Packard: I was reading a book the other day.
Marie Dressler as Carlotta Vance: *double take* Reading a book?

Kitty: Yes. It's all about civilization or something. A nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy says that machinery is going to take the place of every profession?

Carlotta: Oh, my dear, that's something you need never worry about.