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Harlow

1965, Movie, NR, 125 mins

Harlow: Review

Released only one month after the first version of HARLOW starring Carol Lynley, this screen biography of the popular female star of the 1930s benefits from better production values and a more talented lead actress (Baker). Unfortunately, the script, based on the best-selling biography by Irving Shulman and Arthur Landau (the starlet's former agent), is no better. An inordinate amount of time is devoted to Landau (Buttons). Lansbury and Vallone turn in competent performances As Baker's conniving mother and stepfather, but Lawford was incongruously cast. Baker is a much better Harlow than the competition's vapid Lynley; she brings a complexity and compassion to the role that could have been stunning, given a better, less sensationalized, script. As far as the HARLOW war at the box office went, this version broke with Hollywood tradition and made more money than the previous effort. In the end, this HARLOW suffers from the same shallowness found in every screen treatment of Hollywood personalities from THE BUSTER KEATON STORY (1957) to FRANCES (1982). Perhaps Hollywood is incapable of the self-analysis needed to honestly portray the tragic circumstances that consume some of the talented, sensitive, and somewhat naive people whose faces live forever on the silver screen. leave a comment