This is ad art for The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), which I find thoroughly entertaining. Dorothy Provine was supposed to play Jean Harlow in one of the ‘65 biopics (the role ended up going to Carol Lynley). I’m glad Provine was spared, and this is a better film. 😁

Yearly reminder that Bombshell (1933) is technically a Christmas movie, if you want it to be

Mood: Jean Harlow golfing during a New Year’s trip to Agua Caliente in January 1933

Jean Harlow-themed valentine, circa 1934, to add some spice to your day. 😁

There’s this one, too (which is also Girl from Missouri era) that I like just as much.

Historical hearsay dictates that Jean Harlow was meant to be the original Maisie, a role that fell to Ann Sothern's feet in 1939. I wrote about why it's not that cut and dried on Vitaphone Zone. Link below:

A favorite photo of Jean Harlow #BOTD, posing with her ‘Platinum Peony’ outside the California Hacienda exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair, June 15, 1933. Glowing.

Just remembered I wrote about the context here on my blog when I was like, 20. I haven’t opened it in about seven years so I can’t tell you it doesn’t sound like a 20 year old’s blog post, but here it is. harlowheaven.wordpress.com/2019/06/15/har…

Jean Harlow refers to her screen persona as a ‘one-woman corporation’ that her offscreen self oversees (Motion Picture magazine, March 1937):

From a newspaper article called ‘New Clothes = New Personality’ that was just one of the usual publicity missives meant to help sell Harlow’s new hair. It used this dress as an example of her fussy onscreen wardrobe:

Jean Harlow at the Hotel St. Francis in San Francisco on December 27, 1932, for a post-Christmas shopping sojourn, according to the local Examiner. Wonderful candid courtesy of the Fang family photographic archive in the digital collections of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

Another angle from the San Francisco Examiner: “She’s Going Shopping!”

Had a great time chatting about Havana Widows with Sophia D’Aurelio Adair LISTEN: linktr.ee/FrontRowClassi…

Listen to me talk with the ultra-knowledgeable Brandon Davis about the magic of one my favorite pre-Codes, not to mention my favorite duo of the era. ⬇️ (Do it for Joan Blondell)…

Fantastic cartoon illustration of Jean Harlow and Robert Taylor as they appear in their 1937 film, Personal Property, by legendary Romanian caricaturist and paper artist Jacques Kapralik:

Harlow’s Lola skips out on a date at the Cocoanut Grove with Lee Tracy’s Space Hanlon in this scene from early in Bombshell (1933); Tracy makes a pretty good in-joke in this highly biographical film about using ‘klieg eyes’ to skip out on the other guy.

I dug into the story of 1930s 'nationally famous billboard beauty' Mona Gray, who readily wrestled publicity demons in court on account of a fake story about false eyelashes. Link below:

Jean Harlow as Cassie shows how she deals with potential pick-ups in the introduction to William Beaudine’s Three Wise Girls (1932), one half of her two-picture Columbia deal signed in ‘31. Gorgeous night scene cinematography courtesy of Ted Tetzlaff.

This is really sad. Loved her here. Apart from her character’s name, I really adore Mick LaSalle’s establishment of the Harlow to Perrine pipeline in his essential Complicated Women:

A little on how stars were at the mercy of complicated studio schedules and couldn’t possibly make every film they were slated for: one of Harlow’s was THE GAY BRIDE (1934). Link below