Today's film post is about Platinum Blonde, directed by Frank Capra and starring Loretta Young, Robert Williams and Jean Harlow.
NEWS FLASH! Stewart "Stew" Smith, ace reporter for the Post, gets the goods on the Schuyler family scandal!
Playboy Michael Schuyler being sued by chorus girl Gloria Golden?!?! Oooh, what has our naughty boy up to?!?!?
Unlike the contemptible reporter for the Daily Trbune who took a bribe to kill the story, Stew Smith of the Post gets to the truth and prints the truth!!
Well, maybe not all the truth?
Stew discovers love letters that the chorus girl was intending to use to blackmail Michael and returns them to the Schuyler family. Michael's sister Anne wonders why Stew didn't include the letters in his story. Stew explains the lawsuit was news, the letters were personal.
Anne contemplates that the slovenly, unpolished Stew Smith might be turned into a gentleman.
Stew and Anne begin dating, fall in love and elope so they engage in legally sanctioned heteronormative sexual intercourse. (This may be pre-Code but we still have to mind our Ps & Qs.)
The Daily Tribune gets the scoop of socialite Anne Schuyler's marriage to Post reporter Stew Smith.
The Post's editor Conroy is not happy his paper got scooped on a story involving one of their own reporters.
Also gobsmacked by these events is Stew's best friend Gallagher, a writer at the Post. I should point out that Gallagher is a female woman of the opposite sex but it isn't clear that Stew as noticed this. But Gallagher has noticed Stew and is hurt that the man she has been pining for all this time has been snatched away and to a high society dame, to boot!
Conroy rags on Stew that he's a kept man, "a bird in a gilded cage". Stew takes exception to this characterization and insists that he is a MAN and he will take care of his wife without her money.
Anne has her own plans as Stew finds himself living in the Schuyler family mansion and wearing really nice suits. Stew is frustrated as he watches each bar of his gilded caged snap in place around him and he begins to act out against the niceties and restrictions of high society living.
Things are not helped when Anne realizes that Stew's best friend Gallagher is not a man as she assumed but is a female woman of the opposite sex.
SPOILER!
Anne agrees to divorce Stew, Stew punches the Schulyer family attorney when he comes 'round offering to pay Stew alimony and Stew finally realizes that holy cow, Gallagher is a female woman of the opposite sex.
Platinum Blonde is a light confection, a serviceable romantic comedy that provides some indicators of Frank Capra's more successful works to come (such as the 1934 classic It Happened One Night.)
There a couple of noteworthy flourishes that Capra employs. There is a scene with Anne and Stew embracing and kissing that Capra shoots through a garden fountain, their bodies flickering in and out of focus through the cascading water. And there is a long extended sequence as the camera follows Stew arriving to one of Anne's high society gatherings as he navigates the crowd towards Anne. It is a long sequence that appears to have been done with with few if any edits despite the complexity of the crowded scene.
The movie was originally called The Gilded Cage but studio execs changed to title to Platinum Blonde to capitalize on the surging popularity of Jean Harlow who plays Anne even though the role is a supporting one, not the lead.
Loretta Young gets top billing but her part as Gallagher is also merely a supporting role which is a shame as her portrayal of Gallagher just sparks whenever she is on screen.
Tragedy came for Robert Williams who played Stew Smith. He died of peritonitis three days after the film's October 31 release.
Platinum Blonde may be a slight film, on the surface not very noteworthy but it is a significant part of Jean Harlow's rise as a Hollywood sex symbol and it provides a revealing snapshot at the great director Frank Capra would become.
No comments:
Post a Comment