December 18 movie: Bombshell. When I got home from Bad Buffy Night I discovered that while I was away, Georg had bought and hung up pine garland in the living room, the very day we'd sadly decided that we didn't have time to decorate this year. What a sweetheart! Between the garland and the groovy glowing Santa that my aunt gave me, the house is looking downright festive.
I was too wound up to go right to sleep, so I sat in the living room writing up movie posts, enjoying the pine fresh scent, and watching Bombshell. Jean Harlow plays a Hollywood starlet coping with a freeloading family, and a studio publicist who feeds the press scandal stories about her and thwarts her efforts to build a normal life, because he fears the public won't find her so interesting without a constant flow of gossip in the papers. The movie is played as broad comedy, and it is very funny. But I have to admit I found it also very sad, almost tragic. The bare bones of the story are apparently based on Clara Bow (Harlow's character is named Lola Burns and called "the It girl," back in the day when that meant no one but Bow) but also to some degree based on Harlow herself, who also had a family of moochers to support. It's so sad to think of Bow (and Harlow as well) being exploited by all those people who live off her and care so little about her, except as a meal ticket.
Now I've made the movie sound depressing, when it really is very funny. Made before the Hayes Code, it's full of salacious details that would never have made it into a movie just a couple of years later. And it's a hilarious parody of Hollywood the money-making machine. It's just funny with a sharp, painful edge.
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