Red-Headed Woman **** (1932, Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Leila Hyams, Una Merkel) – Classic Movie Review 4944

MGM painted the town red when they dyed Jean Harlow’s platinum blonde hair red for director Jack Conway’s steamy 1932 American pre-Code romantic comedy movie Red-Headed Woman with its amoral tale about a very busy, man-eating gold digger secretary who claws her way to the top over a large number of very disappointed men.

Lil Andrews is a spectacularly amoral young woman living in Ohio who will do anything to improve her situation, and ruthlessly uses sex to advance her social position. Lil graduates from having multiple affairs to trying to kill a man.

Harlow plays Lil, who works for Will Legendre Sr (Lewis Stone)’s Legendre Company and flirts with Bill Legendre Jr (Chester Morris), causing him to divorce Irene (Leila Hyams) and marry her instead. Lil then has an affair with old businessman C B Gaerste (Henry Stephenson), using him to become a force in society, while having another affair with the handsome French chauffeur Albert (Charles Boyer).

Also in the cast are Una Merkel as Sally, May Robson as Aunt Jane, and Harvey Clark as Uncle Fred.

The very prim and proper and clean-minded MGM studio was surprised in the pre-Code days when it was attacked by the US censorship Will Hays Office, while the film was refused a certificate in Britain and remained unshown in the UK until 1965. Producer Irving Thalberg worked with the Hays Office for the censor’s approval and eventually agreed to 17 cuts.

The witty screenplay is by Gentlemen Prefer Blondes writer Anita Loos, adapting Katharine Brush’s 1931 novel.

F Scott Fitzgerald and Marcel de Sano were originally hired to collaborate on a script. To get Fitzgerald, Thalberg raised his pay offer from $750 to $1,200 a week, but then Fitzgerald fell out with de Sano, though they still finished the script in five weeks. But Thalberg decided it was too serious, and offered the job of rewriting it to Anita Loos, who wrote rough and revised drafts of the more fun and playful script in January and February 1932. Both scripts survive.

Let’s get this right. So Thalberg was surprised that a film of a highly controversial novel caused censor problems and later complaints from cinema patrons, thought the original story was too serious, hired serious writer Fitzgerald because he wanted his name on the film, paid him loads, then thought Fitzgerald’s script was too serious, hired playful writer Loos paid her loads, and then Fitzgerald’s name did not end up on the credits. Hah!

Charles Boyer as Albert and Jean Harlow as Lillian.

The opening scene of the film shows Harlow’s character getting her hair dyed red. The film’s first line of dialogue is ‘So Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Hah!’ Anita Loos is most famous for her 1925 comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, just as Harlow is most famous for her platinum blonde hair.

Harlow’s husband Paul Bern is the film’s production supervisor.

It was filmed at MGM Studios in Culver City, California. The English House and New York Street backlots located in Lot 2 were primary locations.

The cast are Jean Harlow as Lil, Chester Morris as Bill Legendre Jr, Lewis Stone as Will Legendre Sr, Leila Hyams as Rene Legendre, Una Merkel as Sally, Henry Stephenson as C B Gaerste, Charles Boyer as Albert, May Robson as Aunt Jane, and Harvey Clark as Uncle Fred.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 4944

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