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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 23809
Released: November 4, 2003 |
| Our Price: $7.28 |
| Used Price: $4.99 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
A newspaper reporter marries a socialite and suspects he's made a mistake.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: UN
Release Date: 1-NOV-2005
Media Type: DVD
Description of Platinum Blonde:
This Frank Capra comedy from 1931 helped define the screwball-comedy genre that became so popular with films like It Happened One Night and The Awful Truth. In this witty romp, Jean Harlow plays an upper-crust socialite who bullies her reporter husband (Robert Williams) into conforming to her highfalutin ways. The husband chafes at the confinement of high society, though, and yearns for a creative outlet. He decides to write a play and collaborates with a fellow reporter (Loretta Young); the results are unexpectedly hilarious, especially when Young shows up at the mansion with a gaggle of boozehound reporters in tow. With snappy, ribald dialogue (allowable in those pre-Hays Code days), Capra keeps the gags flying fast and furious, taking special delight in having Williams's journalist pals rib him endlessly over his kept-man status. Platinum Blonde was a great success at the time of its release during the class-conscious Depression; for better or worse, its star Harlow was identified with the tag "platinum blonde" until her untimely death. --Jerry Renshaw
Platinum Blonde Reviews:
An Eagle In A Gilded Cage 
2009-09-12 - Almost no one today knows the male star of PLATINUM BLONDE, Robert Williams. This screwball comedy directed by Frank Capra gave top billing to Loretta Young and Jean Harlow, both of whom were on the fast track to superstardom. Williams steals the show with many scenes of one who could charm the audience with his tough guy approach that would later catch on with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. Stew Smith (Williams) is a hard-nosed reporter whose specialty is delivering the scoop that others couldn't. He is assigned to cover a major scandal over a breach of promise suit with rich snobgirl Anne Schyler (Harlow). Smith meets Schyler and sparks fly. Naturally her family is aghast at the prospect of a working class stiff as an in-law. Williams has a co-worker Gallagher (Young) who loves him madly but he can't see her as anyone but one of the boys. Part of the comedy is that a beautiful woman like Gallagher (Young was 18 at the time) could possibly ever be taken as such. The rest of the humor lies in Smith as a fish out of water. When the Poor Man marries the Rich Girl, the Rich girl naturally assumes that the Poor Man will be more than happy to move from his dumpy apartment into her ritzy mansion while the Poor Man feels the same only in reverse. Director Capra uses the Schyler family as a cinematic straw man. With the possible exception of the butler and the son, everyone else in the Schyler clan is snooty, arrogant, and totally clueless in their collective belief that everybody has a price. Before Smith marries Anne, she tries to buy him off with a bribe of five thousand dollars to kill a story that would reflect unfavorably on her family. After their marriage goes predictably sour, she tries to buy him off again, this time with a big alimony that he manfully rejects. Harlow plays Anne as a woman who is so thoroughly entrenched in her family's arrogance that when she falls in love with Stew, that love cannot withstand her social prejudices. Some of the scenes that highlight these differences are not of the screwball type. In one revealing scene, Stew tries to tell her that he invited his hard-drinking friends to visit him in his new home. Anne can't stand them and retorts, "Your home?" Capra ensures that all of a Depression-afflicted America could look at the Schylers as social buffoons, totally unworthy of their riches and hence a legitimate target for ridicule. Williams is the true star and Young is effective in her role as one who loves a man who loves another woman. The inner tragedy is that Robert Williams died of a burst appendix just a few days after PLATINUM BLONDE was released in October 1931. He is justly remembered as a star in the making who was not permited to grow into more roles like this one.
Loretta Young has top billing in Platinum Blond. And deservedly so.
2009-09-11 - Originally "Platinum Blond" was named "Gallagher" after the character played by Loretta Young, who also had top billing. But when the studio realized they had a mega star in Harlow, Young was demoted, only by title not billing. At the time Young was a bigger star than Harlow. From all reports Young and Harlow got along famously, no diva quarrels on set, for both were down-to-earth actors. Harlow is definitely sexy in the movie, but she is terribly miscast and her acting leaves much to be desired. Young is quite good as Gallagher; her acting was always unappreciated for her luminous beauty always seemed to get in the way. No about it, the true beauty in this film is Young. In every frame she's in, she steals the scene, not because of her acting, but she intuitively knows the power of her beauty. Just watch her, there's a stillness about her that is remarkable, a kind of minimalist acting that is astounding in that you eye naturally goes to her. It's sad that Harlow died only two years after making this film. Young, however, went on to have a glorious, legendary Hollywood career, culminating in her winning the Academy Award for her role in "The Farmer's Daughter." She later had the courage to take on TV, and there was no bigger star on TV, except for Lucille Ball. Who can ever forget Young swirling through the door every week in a designer gown by Jean Louis, her future husband, by the way. I'm glad to see that because of the new book, "The Star Machine," Young's career is now being reevaluated. She indeed made some fine films. And she is a better actress than critics have give her credit for. As for her beauty: she is one of the most beautiful women to grace the silver screen. The camera loved her face. The photographer Hurrell captured her beauty in many portraits, but the one I favor is the cover of "The Star Machine": she and Tyrone Power together. Classic Hollywood photography. It's Capra's first film, and it's a very good one. For Young and Harlow fans it's a must see.
Platinum Blond 
2008-03-29 - A very amusing tale of role reversal. A wealthy woman involved with an "average joe" who still wants the
independence to live his life without the yoke of high society's false "airs."
A Senseless Jibe; but Jean Harlow is beautiful and Loretta Young is adorable 
2007-09-25 - This is not the best work of director Frank Capra who is known for one of the greatest classics ever made in Hollywood, "It's a Wonderful Life." Nevertheless this movie is played out to the desire of Columbia studios to promote Jean Harlow. No one ever complains about the casting, but the theme of the movie, set in depression era (1931) is lame. Jean Harlow plays the only daughter of upper-class socialite, Ann Schuyler who marries a shrewd newspaper reporter Stew (Robert Williams), and then tries to control his life in the confinements of her palatial home as a house husband, but without success. He invites his friends to his home to party, and his female friend Gallagher (Loretta Young) with whom he collaborates to write a play. At the end, Ann and Stew get separated and he later marries Gallagher. This is somewhat an unrealistic story, and a very strange way to poke at the wealthy for the ills of depression era. However Jean Harlow is stunning and offers a great performance as a spoiled wealthy girl. Loretta Young, one of her performances early in the career, is sweet and adorable as she always is. The untimely and sad deaths of Jean Harlow (at the age of 26) due to Influenza and kidney failure, and Robert Williams due to Peritonitis (died three days after the release of the movie) leaves this movie as a tribute to the work of these young artists.
1. It's a Wonderful Life (60th Anniversary Edition)
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Cinderella Man and The Platinum Blonde
2007-03-25 - Platinum Blonde remains a fine example of an early screwball comedy about very different people trying to coexist with each under stressful situations with plenty of silly lines and good laughs on the side. The script is certainly not the best you'll ever find but the actors do a superlative job with what they are given. The direction by Frank Capra reflects forethought and the camera angles help dramatize scenes in the movie as the plot unfolds.
The story starts with newspaper reporter Stew Smith, played by the very talented Robert Williams, going to get a story on a rich society scandal. He gets it; but he also gets the heart of the daughter of the wealthy Schuyler family, Anne, played by the beautiful Jean Harlow. Stew and Anne become romantically involved and the problems begin right along with the romance. Stew comes from a working class background and he wants to support his wife; but Anne has very different plans for him. This constant tug of war for control of their relationship dominates the rest of the movie plot.
In addition, look for Loretta Young playing Gallagher. Gallagher and Stew are friends; but to make matters even more complicated Gallagher wants more from Stew than friendship. Anne's mother and the family attorney spice up the plot even further with their histrionics about the tragedy of Anne's "funeral" relationship with Stew. Wow!
Will Anne and Stew stay together? Will Anne's family ultimately accept and love Stew as one of their own? Will Stew become "a bird in a gilded cage? "How will Gallagher fit into this plot? No spoilers here, folks: you'll have to watch the movie to find out the answers to these questions! SMILE
The cinematography impressed me; in 1931 it was still difficult for pictures to be shot without the camera staying still because microphones could not yet be moved about above the cameras. Nevertheless, in Platinum Blonde Capra manages to get both the cameras and the microphones moving as the actors move about the set. Excellent! The sound wobbles at times but this is to be expected from an older movie like this one.
I agree with the reviewers who write that somehow the title of this movie, Platinum Blonde, gives you the sense that Jean Harlow is the big star--but she doesn't quite get that honor when the credits roll. In fact, she gets second billing below Loretta Young! I agree with others who believe that the movie studio was indeed trying to play up the fact that Jean Harlow was in the movie.
The DVD comes with few extras; you merely get a couple of movie trailers. That irks me but in those days excess footage was not necessarily kept.
What a tragedy that poor Robert Williams died so soon after this picture was finished. He would have been a huge star had he lived longer
Overall, Platinum Blonde is a cross between a serious story and a purely comedic romp through relationships that become challenged when two people from very different backgrounds try to stay in love. Jean Harlow fans will treasure this movie; she never looked lovelier and her very convincing acting shines all the way through the picture. Fans of older movie classics will also enjoy watching Platinum Blonde.
