Bombshell (film)
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Bombshell is a 1933 film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Frank Morgan, C. Aubrey Smith, Mary Forbes and Franchot Tone.
[edit] Plot summary
| Bombshell | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Victor Fleming |
| Produced by | Hunt Stromberg Irving Thalberg |
| Written by | Caroline Francke Mack Crane John Lee Mahin Jules Furthman Norman Krasna |
| Starring | Jean Harlow Lee Tracy Frank Morgan Franchot Tone Pat O'Brien Una Merkel Ted Healy Mary Forbes C. Aubrey Smith |
| Cinematography | Harold Rosson Chester A. Lyons |
| Editing by | Margaret Booth |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
| Release date(s) | October 13, 1933 |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $344,000 (estimated) |
| IMDb profile | |
Movie star Lola Burns (Harlow) is angry with her studio publicist E.J. "Space" Hanlon (Tracy), who feeds the press with endless fake scandals about her. Lola's family (Morgan plays her father, Pops Burns) and staff are another cause of distress for her, as everybody is always trying to scrape money from the actress. All she really wants is to live a normal life and prove to the public that she's not a sexy vamp but a proper lady. She tries to adopt a baby, but Hanlon, who more or less secretly loves her, thwarts all her plans.
Lola decides she can't stand any more of such a life, and flees Hollywood. Far from the movie fluff, she meets wealthy and romantic Gifford Middleton (Tone), who hates the movies and therefore has never heard about Lola and her bad press. They soon fall in love and Gifford proposes marriage. Lola is to meet her fiancée's snobby parents, but everything collapses when Hanlon together with Lola's family finds her, and tells the Middletons the truth. Lola feels hurt by the rude way Gifford and his parents dump her, and accepts Hanlon's suggestion to return to Hollywood with no regrets: it is, after all, her life. ... Little does she know that the three Middletons were all actors hired by Hanlon himself!
Bombshell is an enjoyable screwball comedy, with good performances by the whole cast and witty, sharp lines. This is a Pre-Code film, so some expressions and situations deal with sex and other hot topics in a very free way. Harlow and Tracy are very good in their constant quarrelling and in their love-hate chemistry.
It is easy to see that the character of 'Lola Burns' was modelled on the real life of Jean Harlow.
