Bombshell (1933)

Writers:

Caroline Francke (play) and
Mack Crane (play) ...

Release Date:

13 October 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

Sexpot film star Lola Burns seeks a new image and tries marrying a marquis, adopting a baby -- all sorts of schemes which go awry.

Plot Keywords:

Newspaper | Baby | Hollywood | Movie Fan | Male Female Relationship

Cast

Jean Harlow	...	Lola Burns
Lee Tracy	...	E.J."Space"Hanlon
Frank Morgan	...	Pops Burns
Franchot Tone	...	Gifford Middleton
Pat O'Brien	...	Jim Brogan
Una Merkel	...	Mac
Ted Healy	...	Junior Burns
Ivan Lebedeff	...	Hugo, Marquis Di Pisa Di Pisa
Isabel Jewell	...	Lily, Junior's Girl Friend (as Isobel Jewell)
Louise Beavers	...	Loretta
Leonard Carey	...	Winters
Mary Forbes	...	Mrs. Middleton
C. Aubrey Smith	...	Mr. Wendell Middleton
June Brewster	...	Alice Cole
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nils Asther	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)
Marcia Mae Jones	...	Flower girl at wedding
Willard Mack	...	Hugo's Lawyer (scenes deleted)
Etta Moten	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Also Known As:

Blonde Bombshell (UK)

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | USA:Passed

Filming Locations:

Ambassador Hotel - 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Shirley Ross' film debut.

Quotes:

Lola Burns: I didn't give you that for a negligee, that's an evening wrap!
Loretta: I know, Miss Lola, but the negligee you gave me got all tore up night before last.
Lola Burns: Your day off is sure brutal on your lingerie.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Harlow: The Blonde Bombshell (1993) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Lazybones

Sheer Unadulterated Pleasure

I often wonder if Lee Tracy would be more fondly-remembered by a larger percentage of the public had he been fortunate enough to hang around long enough to appear in films with musical scores. He was pretty much done by 1934, however, so the precious handful of Tracy vehicles we DO have are blessed/cursed by the prevailing conditions of early talkies. Nowadays, fans - especially younger ones - tend to either dismiss them as mildewed antiques that might as well have been made on Mars, or (just as bad) view them with smug condescension as dear, quaint little antiques....like flivvers or biplanes. Nearly every major starring vehicle Tracy made lacks background music, outside of the occasional musical number. Not a strong selling point for the DVD generation, who seemingly can't appreciate a film without a matching SAP, variable do-it-yourself camera angles, and a 'making-of' featurette padding the running time. Thus Lee Tracy - one of our great comic actors, whose presence in a movie automatically enlivens and enriches it - remains an answer to a trivia question nobody asked. In light of the foregoing, take a tip from this corner and preset your VCR the next time TCM schedules any of his films, like BOMBSHELL. Properly regarded as Jean Harlow's best vehicle, this lightning-paced, down-and-dirty sarcastic comedy of Hollywood in the early 30s is one of Tracy's best as well. (Actually, the whole cast, which includes Frank Morgan, Una Merkel and Pat O'Brian, is exemplary.) Tracy is incredible: scheming, scamming, wheedling, utterly insincere and unprincipled, yet never for a moment does he lose the audience's sympathy. His gift was to make you root for the shameless con man despite yourself, and in BOMBSHELL, the entire production is amped up to his speed of delivery. Every second of this movie is breathlessly paced, rudely funny, cynically observant and near-unbelievably satisfying. (If it moved any quicker, it might spontaneously combust.) Forget the (very) slight antique properties that might hamper this film (such as that lack of background music I mentioned) and concentrate on its strengths...one of which, by dint of its Pre-Code status, is a remarkably unapologetic unsentimentality, a virtue which would be swept away by the Hays Office broom in 1934 along with Tracy's career, not to re-emerge on the nation's screens until the rise of the writer-director in the early 40s (men such as Sturges, Huston and Wilder). If you don't love BOMBSHELL on first viewing, you're not as smart as you think you are. Keep an eye out for Tracy's other films (BLESSED EVENT, THE HALF NAKED TRUTH, THE NUISANCE, ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN, DINNER AT EIGHT, etc) and get a close-up look at one of our country's greatest, and most neglected, comedians for yourself.