Platinum Blonde Movie

A rather bleak comedy-drama from Frank Capra, Platinum Blonde basically starts where Capra's later and much more buoyant It Happened One Night (1934) ends: the marriage between a brash newspaperman and a society dame. But where the latter comedy was enhanced by the director's patented optimism, Platinum Blonde, produced at the height of the Great Depression, expresses no faith in a common ground between the classes. Star reporter Stew Smith (Robert Williams) falls in love with the sister (Jean Harlow) of his latest victim (Donald Dillaway). They marry despite the misgivings of Ann Schuyler's blue-nosed mother (Louise Closser Hale) and Stew's cynical colleagues ("Ann Schuyler's in the blue book. You're not even in the phone book!"). Unable to stand life in a gilded cage for long, Stew upsets the Schuyler mansion by inviting his friends to a wild and woolly party. Returning home unexpected in the middle of the drunken revelry, Ann lays down the law and Stew bolts -- right into the arms of girl reporter Gallagher (Loretta Young), whom he has loved all along without realizing it. Jean Harlow is surprisingly realistic as the callous society girl but Robert Williams' wisecracking reporter comes across as rather grating. An up-and-coming comic lead, Williams died after an operation for appendicitis on November 3, 1931, less than a month after Platinum Blonde had premiered to mostly positive reviews. Ironically, Loretta Young, who received top billing, had demanded to star in this film when it was still known as "Gallagher," the name of her character. Harlow, needless to stay, stole the limelight completely and Capra changed the title much to Young's chagrin.

This early Frank Capra talkie showcases Robert Williams in an edgy performance as Stew Smith, a streetwise reporter who naively jumps into marriage with the beautiful socialite Anne Schuyler. Inevitably, he loses his identity and is cut off from all that was familiar to him. While the plot may seem like a cliché to modern audiences, the evolution of Stew and Anne's relationship is handled with a refreshing maturity. Their attraction is immediate, and Williams and Jean Harlow have a chemistry that comes through as honest, notably in a sexually charged scene where they make out behind a fountain glass, and in a bedroom scene where they playfully argue with each other while speaking their dialogue to the tune of "A-Hunting We Will Go." At first, Stew fights to retain his connection to his former world -- he refuses to wear garters, use his valet, give up his job, or live in Anne's house -- but one by one surrenders each of these principles, almost without realizing it. Capra repeatedly stresses the theme of the bird in a gilded cage to emphasize Stew's confinement (and emasculation). Capra also underscores Stew's boredom through subtle touches such as showing him playing hopscotch on the tile floor. Stew's scenes with the butler Smythe are especially fun, as when he instructs Smythe in how to yell so that his voice echoes through the vast but empty mansion, and Smythe in turn educates Stew on the fine art of puttering. Platinum Blonde can certainly be accused of being rather predictable and simplistic, but it also possesses a charm and naturalness that is often missing from Capra's later films.