Red-Headed Woman

Jean Harlow was well known for her platinum blonde hair, but she goes ginger in Red-Headed Woman, a 1932 pre-code film directed by Jack Conway. She plays a ruthless social climber who sleeps her way to the top, but the film has a comic feel to it, as written by Anita Loos (an early draft was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but studio head Irving Thalberg thought it was too serious).

The very first scene shows us Harlow getting her hair dyed, saying "Gentlemen prefer blondes, do they?" She then seduces her boss (Chester Morris) by throwing herself at him. Apparently no man can resist her sex appeal, and soon she has inserted herself between him and his saintly wife. She succeeds in being a homewrecker and marries him.

But still she's unhappy, because the society friends of Morris won't accept her. She's from the wrong side of the tracks and crude. A coal magnate (Henry Stephenson) won't see her, but she forces herself to meet him, and it turns out he was once one of her male puppets. She blackmails him into inviting everyone to a party at her house: "Oh, yes you can. I'll be listening at that door. And if you don't invite them within five minutes after they arrive here, I'll walk in and make a scene that Shakespeare couldn't top."

Harlow gives a great, brassy performance, that will you have feel one of two ways: you hate her, and you can't wait to see her get her comeuppance, or you root her on. Or maybe both. Even though she takes a shot at somebody (in a rule violation, we don't know she has a gun), the film maintains its light-hearted tone, with the gag being that she gets everything she wants through sex.

Because this is a pre-code film, there's a lot of salacious winking. Harlow was famous for not wearing a bra, and the implication of extra-marital sex is clearly stated. There's a scene in which Harlow and her wisecracking best friend, Una Merkel, exchange pajamas just outside the camera's frame, giving me the notion that they are partially naked.

Red-Headed Woman is a hoot, even though it's poorly directed by Conway, who lets too many scenes linger (it's 79 minutes, but still feels over long). Also in the cast is a very young Charles Boyer, as one of the Harlow's conquests.