Going Platinum

I've sort of worshipped Jean Harlow ever since college film society. Partly for her beauty and charm, partly for her sad end, partly for her distain for undergarments. But I hadn't seen Platinum Blonde (1931) until now. 

It stars Robert Willians as Stew Smith, newspaper reporter extraordinaire. We meet hiding from his editor, playing a kid's game with his work pal, Loretta Young. His editor wants him to look into the story that the scapegrace son of the wealthy Schuyler family is in a breach of promise situation with a chorus girl. His competition, sleazy Walter Catlett, gets there first but is bought off. He fast talks his way in and refuses to be bought off, so daughter Harlow tries to vamp him. He plays along and then calls the story in, with them watching. He gets tossed out, but got his story.

He returns, and manages to see Harlow, with the compromising letters that he stole from the chorus girl. She offers to pay, but he refuses. The story was news, but the letters are blackmail. Soon they are bantering with each other, and Harlow says something might be made of this guy.

On one visit to the Schuyler manse, he is confronted by a headline on the competitor's paper - he and Harlow have eloped. The rich family is aghast, and his newspaper friends start razzing him about being a kept man, a bird in a gilded cage. He insists that she will be moving to his flat and living on his salary - but winds up living with her in the west wing of the mansion. Harlow hires him a valet, and even puts a canary in his room. In a gilded cage.

All through this, he keeps up with his enemy Catlett and friend Young. A wild party of his friends in the mansion causes a rift between him and Harlow, so he moves out and starts working on his play - with the help of Young. It's only in the last few minutes that he -- SPOILER -- figures out that Young is in love with him, and he loves her. 

Harlow is wonderful in this, as usual - luminous, sexy, appealing. She could be frosty, but warm and human when approached honestly. Sadly, once Williams moves in,  she becomes sort of a stereotyped bossy rich girl. I would have liked to see her stay human until the end. There's a hint that she has important men buzzing around her - she won't stay single long. So I guess there's that.

Williams is interesting. He's kind of similar to Lee Tracy's character in Bombshell, a fast talking, sure of himself guy with solid, if somewhat skewed, morals. Also, not exactly a looker. Director Frank Capra gives Williams a lot of chatter. He talks about anything and everything when he's not doing serious reporting. He even befriends the butler, Smythe (Halliwell Hobbes), who tells him about "puttering". Sadly, Williams died of complications of appendicitis shortly after this film came out.

I don't have much to say about Loretta Young, who was 19 when this was made, and very cute. Her role of silent infatuation isn't very strong, but she does it well. In fact, this movie really didn't do justice to either female lead. But it looked like Williams had a great time, and Harlow looked amazing, and that's good enough for me.