That was an excellent one.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Other reviewers have noted how closely this story comes to Jean Harlow's real life. Not so much the nightlife as her personal life with a highly dysfunctional family. I also was surprised, as were a couple of other reviewers, at Hollywood's seeming transparency in the making of this film. If nothing else, "Bombshell" is a scathing expose of the hype and hoopla that the movie studios used to promote their stars. They even manufactured gossip and scandals to make the news and keep the stars in the limelight. But the limelight began to sour from some scandals, and the movie industry began to back away from and even cover up such publicity – that was no longer to the public's liking. "Bombshell" is a good movie in showing such a crazy life as Jean Harlow apparently had. She plays Lola Burns in this the movie. Harlow was a very good actress who had a markedly different stage persona than all other leading ladies of her day and for decades thereafter. She had a toughness and briskness in her manner. She seldom played a refined woman. In the few scenes in this or other films where she shows gentleness, kindness or softness, it's a real stretch because of that persona. Still, she is very good in this film. The movie has a nice list of top movie names of the day – Pat O'Brien, Franchot Tone, Frank Morgan, Una Merkel, Lee Tracy. But the movie is mostly about her, and Space Hanlon, played by Tracy. Tracy was an nearly film leading man known for his fast-talking, high-energy roles. The IMDb Web site biography on Tracy nails the guy and his persona. It reads, in part, "this actor with a voracious appetite for high living was a … representation of the racy and race-paced style of … Hollywood."It doesn't take long for one to thoroughly dislike Space Hanlon (a credit to the script and Tracy's acting); but after a while this film strikes one as awfully noisy. And, it goes on a bit too long. The cleverness in the film is in the manipulation and management of the press that Hanlon demonstrates. It is peppered with some witty lines here and there, but I think, far too few for a comedy. Some of the best lines in the movie are telltale about Hollywood – the industry, the life, and the culture. Here are some of my favorites. Pat O'Brien as Jim Brogan says to Lola, "Say listen, you can't raise a family and make five or six pictures a year."Tracy's Hanlon says to the press, "Well, listen. Don't you know that Lola Burns can't have a baby?" Some reporters, "No? No? Why?" Hanson, "It's not in her contract."Hanlon and Burns are talking. Hanlon, "Listen, you can't adopt a baby." Lola, "As if you or anybody else could stop me." Hanlon, "Yeah, but that isn't your line. The fans don't want to see the 'IF' girl surrounded by an aura of motherhood leaning over a cradle, sterilizing bottles. I dubbed you the Hollywood Bombshell, and that's the way they like you. Men! Scrapes! Dazzling clothes! A gorgeous personality. Not pattin' babies on the back to bring up bubbles." Lola, "There's a lot of other people in this business have happy healthy babies."Later, Hanlon says, "OK, baby, you win. But I'll tell you one thing. The house with your family is about as a fine a place to bring up a baby as an alligator farm."

Fun Jean Harlow movie here as she plays a starlet pretty much created by the media via sensational headlines and her trying to get away from all of it (gee, how times change). The movie has that 1930's crackle where everyone is super hyper talking all at once, and you're struggling to catch up with all of it. Even though Harlow is the title Bombshell, I was really impressed with Lee Tracy as her publicist who seems to know Harlow more than she knows herself. It sort of does get monotonous towards the end, and the twist just doesn't really resolve anything, as a matter of fact, we're right back where we started. But it's still a fun sit through.

In the mid '30's, Myrna Loy penned (ostensibly) an article for Photoplay titled, "So You Want To Be A Movie Star," which went into grim detail about the grind that is the real life of a star studio player both on and off the soundstage. BOMBSHELL takes this conceit and runs with it as brilliant and lacerating satire. Jean Harlow is at her best as Lola Burns, the at-once pampered and put-upon star in question. Depicted are the constant demands for Lola's attention, time, energy and money, and the film has fun with all of it, from fatuous fan-mag interviews and staged photo ops to Hollywood politics and trouble with household and studio staff. Though awakened at the crack of dawn, Lola gets breakfast in bed - but with sauerkraut juice instead of orange juice. "There are are no oranges," apologizes the butler, to which Lola retorts, "No oranges?! This is California, man!" Before she's even out of her boudoir, Lola's had to contend with the pandemonium created by last-minute schedule changes, fussing and bickering from hair and makeup people and the inconvenient attention of her outsized dog. Finally ready to leave the house, she laments, "Well, here goes for another day; 7:00 AM and I'm already dead on my feet!" Also driving Lola to distraction with his constant headline-grabbing stunts is the scheming studio publicity director played by the irrepressible Lee Tracy, who always gave co-stars a run for their money when it came to on-screen dominance. Harlow more than holds her own with him.Appearing in able support are reliable players such as Franchot Tone as an apparently blue-blooded suitor unaware of Lola's fame, Pat O'Brien as her understanding director, Una Merkel as a less-than-reliable personal assistant and Louise Beavers as maid Loretta, who is deferential to Lola but takes no prisoners otherwise (responding to Merkel's early-morning crabbiness, she warns, "Don't scald me wit'cher steam, woman...I knows where the bodies is buried!"). As Lola's bombastic father and ne'er-do-well brother, respectively, the usually-lovable Frank Morgan and the never-lovable Ted Healy are ultimately rather tiresome, but that's what their roles require.In a good-natured way, the film throws in some weirdly biographical elements of Harlow's real life, in which she coped with familial hangers-on in the persons of her domineering stage mother and somewhat sleazy stepfather, and Lola's reference to her palatial home as a "half paid-for car barn" is reported to have been uttered by Harlow herself about her own ostentatious digs. There's even a scene depicting Lola doing retakes on "Red Dust," a hit for Harlow the prior year.In addition to snappy dialog and a mile-a-minute pace, the picture is enjoyable for its time-capsule look at the Ambassador Hotel and Coconut Grove in their heyday, as well as the grounds of the MGM lot itself, all used as locations.Although bordering on farce at times (but in a good way), BOMBSHELL gives the impression of an only slightly exaggerated look at what the "real" life of a top-name contract player might have been like at the height of the studio system, with Harlow giving perhaps her most genuine (and least mannered) comic performance.

This is an interesting change of pace comedy for Jean Harlow. She is not playing a lower class shop girl or even a prostitute like in THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI or RED DUST, nor a slumming upper class girl (as in THE PUBLIC ENEMY). Instead she is playing a very popular film star with a very sexy body and screen personae - gee, it sounds like she is playing Jean Harlow. According to the thread the character she is playing ("Lola Burns") was supposed to be based on Clara Bow (certainly the two names are similar in sound). But it could be based on Harlow's attempts (tragically repeatedly doomed) to have a happy normal life but finding her screen personae interfering.Still, even if one starts thinking of Harlow's marriage to Paul Bern or her romance with William Powell, the film is engrossing and humorous enough to make you push aside the tragedy of the life of Harlean Carpenter. Lola is, like all movie stars, a prisoner of the studio's determination to get all the public attention publicity can garner from it's merchandise (it's stars). In particular Lola finds herself at the mercy of the studio's head publicity man "Space Hanlon" (Lee Tracy). Tracy is always coming up with goofy stunts, or twisting events that involve Lola in her attempts at normality (like adopting a baby, or dating a "normal" man (Franchot Tone) into another mess. The studio only cares that she personifies sexual allure - so Hanlon keeps making that the key to his publicity: he even arranges a fight between several men on the set of her latest film (one is director Pat O'Brien) supposedly over Lola's love.Lola is not against sex and love - the quote in the "Summary line" is Lola's when her maid wakes her at the start of the film, and she's just had a promising sex dream. She really needs a confidante - but everyone around her takes advantage of her. Her father (Frank Morgan) is an alcoholic, cadging old scoundrel (who keeps reminding her - to her growing disgust - of her owing him obedience as her loving father). Her sibling (Ted Healey) is also an alcoholic, constantly having sexual affairs that she has to get him out of. Her maid actually steals from the household accounts (Lola is aware of this - she is not stupid). And all constantly are as demanding on her as her studio.Ironically there is one person who would be her confidante and more - but he knows she'll reject him. It's Space, who loves her. In fact, some of the stunts he sets up is to get rid of possible rivals. Eventually, can he get her to recognize this? Ah that is the final point of the film.Harlow was a gifted comic actress, knowing how to use her image for fun (such as Wallace Beery's unfaithful wife in DINNER AT EIGHT). But I suspect because of her own problems in Hollywood and real life she put more of herself in this film than in any other. I can't say it was her best performance (I tend to like RED DUST and CHINA SEAS a little more) but it was somehow her most real performance, and the film benefits as a result.