Main Cast: Carroll Baker, Martin Balsam, Red Buttons, Michael Connors, Angela Lansbury
Release Year: 1965
Country: US
Run Time: 125 minutes
Plot
Of the two competing Jean Harlow biopics released in 1965, producer Joseph E. Levine's Harlow is the more slickly professional, though neither film is exactly a cinematic landmark. Carroll Baker plays 1930s "platinum blonde" Jean Harlow, who, in keeping with the portrait painted by biographer Irving Schulman and Arthur Landau (upon whose book this film is based) was a forlorn waif tossed around like a football by the predatory males of wicked old Hollywood. Prodded by a hellish stage mother (Angela Lansbury) and an implicitly incestuous stepfather (Raf Vallone), Harlow rises to the pinnacle of movie stardom but never finds true happiness. The wedding-night revelation that her new husband, producer Paul Bern (Peter Lawford), is impotent is just another devastating blow for the poor girl. After all she goes through in the film, Harlow's premature death at age 26 is almost a relief. The only person who truly, deeply, sincerely cares about her is her lovable agent Arthur Landau (played by lovable Red Buttons) who, it will be remembered, co-authored the original Harlow book. Movie buffs will derive some perverse pleasure by the script's many distortions of the facts. Whatever its shortcomings, Harlow posted a huge profit for Joe Levine and Paramount Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Harlow is the title of two competing biographical films, both released in 1965, one by Paramount Pictures and the other by foreign film distributor Magna Pictures, both portraying the life of actress Jean Harlow. The Paramount version stars Carroll Baker in the title role, while the Magna release stars Carol Lynley.
Based in part on Rebel Without a Cause writer Irving Shulman's pulp biography, Paramount's Harlow was a melodramatic look at the life of Jean Harlow (portrayed by Carroll Baker), focusing on her failed marriages. The widescreen technicolor film, produced by Joseph E. Levine, was made on a $2.5 million budget and featured a wide-reaching publicity campaign. Upon release, however, the film failed critically and commercially, making roughly one million dollars at the box office.
Plot
The film opens with Harlow as a struggling extra and bit actress dealing with her greedy stepfather Marino (Raf Vallone) and oblivious mother "Mama Jean" (Angela Lansbury, only six years older than Carroll Baker). With the help of Arthur Landau (Red Buttons), she rises to fame and gains the unwanted attention of the Howard Hughes-inspired Richard Manley (Leslie Nielsen). She then marries Paul Bern (Peter Lawford), an absentee husband who kills himself some time after the marriage. His death, combined with the stress of her career leads Harlow on an odyssey of failed relationships and alcoholism, culminating in her death of pneumonia at the age of twenty-six.
In real life, Harlow died of uremic poisoning due to nephritis (inflammation of the kidney).
Filmed in black-and-white electronovision – a photographic technique relegated to television by 1965 – the Magna version was put out five weeks before Paramount's with a more limited release. Directed by television veteran Alex Segal, the film was made on a very low budget, and served as a second feature at most theaters. While Carol Lynley was arguably the better Harlow, being closer to Jean Harlow's actual age than Baker, the film's contrived plot and poor budget prevented it from gaining as much attention as Paramount's big budget version.
In the film, Efrem Zimbalist Jr's character, William Mansfield, is based on William Powell, who the real Harlow was about to marry before dying. That part of Harlow's life was entirely ignored by the Paramount feature. Another notable aspect of the Magna production of Harlow is the fact that it marked Ginger Rogers' last film appearance before her retirement, in a role Judy Garland was originally cast for.
