MGM Studios

The Americanization of Emily

This post was originally published on the New Beverly Cinema blog on November 27, 2017. It is being republished here with full permission of the New Beverly. For the original post (with different artwork) please see the original post here.

The Americanization of Emily (Arthur Hiller, 1964) was intended to be a romantic comedy until screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky got a hold of it. In his hands, this story became an acidic and expertly composed tale of war’s human fallout. Tackling women’s sexuality and emotional welfare, it examines relationships between masculinity and heroism, leading a full-scale assault on the deification of war. A comedy with surreal overtones and an unusual approach to storytelling, The Americanization of Emily suffered a lengthy period of copyright entanglement making it almost impossible to see for many years.

William Wyler was initially slated to direct, with William Holden as the star, Lieutenant Commander Charles E. Madison. However, Wyler’s high salary and diva-like requests made MGM sideline his directorship. Holden was not much different. He was pricey and difficult to please. Finally, Wyler left, and after many other directors declined the job young up-and-coming director Arthur Hiller replaced him. William Holden’s reaction to the young filmmaker was less than kind and he left.

“I was already cast as Lieutenant Commander Paul ‘Bus’ Cummings when [producer] Marty Ransohoff asked whether I would play Charlie Madison if Holden dropped out. ‘Oh, you bet!’ I said,” remarked James Garner in his autobiography, The Garner Files: A Memoir, “I knew it was a hell of an actor’s part. It was a different kind of role than I’d been doing with a brilliant script from Paddy Chayefsky from William Bradford Huie’s novel. A lot of drama and a lot of humor…a long line of directors had turned the picture down before Marty reluctantly offered it to Arthur Hiller. Marty didn’t think Arthur was ready for it because he hadn’t tackled anything so meaty. As it turned out, Marty needn’t have worried.”

Worrying is a huge part of a producer’s job. It may as well be their unofficial title (“professional worrier”). The Americanization of Emily was one production that certainly made Ransohoff work for his paycheck. You wouldn’t think that the man who helped create Filmways, Inc. and produced beloved TV shows like Petticoat Junction and Mr. Ed was up to the task of battling the MPAA and studio brass, but Marty Ransohoff was That Guy. Nicknamed “the Messiah of the New Hollywood” by Budd Schulberg, Ransohoff went on to become an independent producer for groundbreaking films like The Loved One (Tony Richardson, 1965), 10 Rillington Place (Richard Fleisher, 1971), and The Wanderers (Philip Kaufman, 1979), amongst others. The Americanization of Emily was just the beginning.

Produced by Filmways and distributed by MGM, this film went directly against Sam Goldwyn’s mantra: “Pictures are for entertainment; messages should be delivered by Western Union.” Paddy Chayefsky’s script was FULL of message, which scared the shit out of the MPAA. The concern was that, as James Garner put it, “it put US Servicemen in a bad light and [the MPAA] worried about a box-office backlash…They thought the movie was too extreme for the American public.” This also explained why multiple directors had turned down the project. It was seen as an unpatriotic movie and few filmmakers were willing to be linked to it.

As a result of MPAA issues, there was significant tension on the set and Ransohoff constantly had to deal with the “higher ups.” Arthur Hiller felt this strongly as a young director and it transferred to the way he shot the film. During production, Hiller commented that he “did a lot of scenes in one shot…a lot of that was for safety reasons…Protection, I think I mean. Many times, studios, after you finish filming, want to look and make changes and the more I did in one shot the less they could make changes on.” There had been enough back and forth with the MPAA about the amount of nudity in certain scenes and how many times James Garner could say “Damn” that Hiller didn’t want to take chances. James Coburn vividly recalls Hiller’s shooting style.

Paddy Chayefsky’s script featured Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (James Garner) an unrepentant champion of cowardice. Charlie celebrated his ability to live and survive, even through “amoral” means. While Emily Barham (Julie Andrews) fits the “opposites attract” love interest, Charlie and Emily come together based on the most visceral level: a desire for life to continue and the rejection of death. Their relationship is a complicated structure of mutually expressed erotic attraction and sharp, pained revelations. For the record, it is beyond refreshing to have a woman depicted as strong and complicated with a healthy sexual appetite in American cinema. Emily is a great character and Julie Andrews really shines. Thank you, Paddy Chayefsky! Charlie and Emily are honest and open in the film about their sexual relationship. Of course, it’s not just sex that Emily and Charlie connect over. It is fear, bravery and trauma. The evolution of their connection is some of the most thrilling, maddening and sexy screenwriting in cinema.

All you need to know about Bus Cummings (James Coburn) is what Chayefsky has written in the script. While it translates to the screen, the screenplay actually does an exquisite job of giving you the Real Bus Cummings. Bus has three “romantic interludes” in the film. The script lists his female companions as “Nameless Broads.” This was not because Chayefsky was a sexist asshole or because it was to reflect on the character of the women. This descriptor was meant to extrapolate on Bus, himself, showing what kind of person he is. Chayefsky asks with this aspect of the script: does anything carry meaning with Bus? How cold and exploitative is he really? The answer is revealed throughout the film, and James Coburn carries the role with sleazy panache.

Critics like Bosley Crowther applauded the film for its bravery, but not everyone was a fan. Many charged it with being anti-military, anti-American, and anti-soldier. The film was accused of ridiculing WWII and mocking the deaths of thousands of men on D-Day (Omaha Beach is a plot point). The Americanization of Emily was castigated for what audiences felt were digs at war heroes; complaints poured in about cruel monologues that “railed” against war widows and the film’s unsympathetic portrayal of PTSD (then called battle fatigue or, as mentioned in the film, “cracking up”). The response, from critics and civilians alike, was enough to make the Navy take notice and they actively deterred the distribution of film prints to any of their bases.

After a public screening during which people expressed their dismay at the film’s content, Arthur Hiller published a response piece in the Los Angeles Times on January 3, 1965. “Goodness, virtue and nobility are so out of place in the context of war that satiric laughter is the only logical response,” wrote Hiller, “[the film shows] war for what it is, a barbaric, inhuman act of man – a miserable hell. It says that one thing we can do toward eliminating war from our world is to get rid of the goodness and virtue we attribute to war. Be grieved by death, but not proud of it. Stop naming streets after generals, stop erecting statues. It says stop applauding war. Stop celebrating war…[the fraud] is in the virtue and goodness we attribute to war. If you glorify war you create a climate for more wars.” What no one understood was that The Americanization of Emily was a dark comedy with a specific devotion to and for the men who had experienced war. The received public criticism only highlighted the unhealthy behavior in American culture that Paddy Chayefsky wrote about ad nauseum within the screenplay: the naked and unadulterated worship of warfare.

A team of war vets created The Americanization of Emily, many of them highly decorated officers. Paddy Chayefsky fought and received a Purple Heart in WWII. James Garner joined the Merchant Marines at 16 years old, just as WWII was ending. He served in Korea on a combat unit, earning two Purple Hearts. Arthur Hiller was part of the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII, navigating for bombers on night missions, dropping bombs on Nazis. It seems insulting to these men and what they experienced that critics, the MPAA and the public dared to think that this film or those involved in it were being disrespectful, unpatriotic or making fun of war.

The vast majority of those who waged censorship battles against the creative teams had no war experience at all. The bulk of the men who made up the Motion Picture Association of America (initially the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America) and Production Code Administration, men like Will Hays, Joseph Breen, Geoffrey Shurlock, never went to war. A few like Eric Johnston and Jack Valenti were vets, but they certainly didn’t have any say over films like The Americanization of Emily.

Legendary actor Melvyn Douglas, who played battle-fatigued Admiral William Jessup, was a veteran of both WWI and WWII. When The Americanization of Emily was courting controversy and being excoriated for its “rude” treatment of men in war, Douglas sighed, “I often wish we were like the British, who have a capacity to laugh at themselves and their own institutions which far exceeds our own…[all organizations] should be able to look at themselves with some humor as well as with seriousness…[I have] seen first-hand some of the excesses that were exploited in the film.”

James Garner and Arthur Hiller stated that Paddy Chayefsky was the only “bonafide genius” they ever worked with. Chayefsky said The Americanization of Emily was one of his two best films. Garner and Hiller list it as their favorite, ditto for Julie Andrews and James Coburn. Marty Ransohoff also counts it as a top-tier bestie. While all these names have done extensive film/TV work, it is The Americanization of Emily that they return to as their crowning achievement.

It was this kind of spirit that allowed the film to be made and gave the film such a dedicated production team. During one of the shots near the close of the film [slight spoiler], James Garner broke a few ribs in a beach scene set up to look like Omaha Beach. He fell on his canteen. It’s even in the final cut of the film. He does a small extra “flop” when he goes down. If you watch carefully, it’s in there.

The Americanization of Emily is not an anti-war film. This is a film that challenges perspectives through the complexity of dark comedy, most specifically satire. This film stands against the rabid glorification of war, one of the great All-American past-times. In this sense, it remains one of the most important films about war that will ever get made.

The Champ (1931)

This post was originally published on the New Beverly Cinema blog on September 30, 2017. It is being republished here with full permission of the New Beverly. For the original post (with different artwork) please see the original post here.

From its very first forays into narrative storytelling, American cinema has made one thing abundantly clear: men gotta be tough. There’s little to no room for sensitivity in the world of the masculine. It makes you soft! You’re a sissy! Thus in most film schools, US film history and genre classes will look at classic American cinema and code melodramas with the feminine. While this is not entirely incorrect (most of the work made in this genre was centered on the experience of women), this trend created a cultural atmosphere that said: “men can’t cry, they can’t feel, that’s the women’s domain” it also looked at sports films and never considered that they might possibly fall into the melodrama category.

King Vidor’s excellent film, The Champ (1931), is not only a melodrama but it has been called a “male weepie.” So, whatever gender you identify with, bring a helluvalot of tissues. No matter how many times you see the film, it still punches you in the gut just as hard as Andy Purcell aka The Champ (Wallace Beery) is known to have knocked out opponents in the ring…or how he currently hits booze and gambling halls. If you’ve seen Darren Aronofsky’s 2008 film, The Wrestler, that would also count as a “male weepie.” But The Champ was really the first of this genre.

Storied to be the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood at the time, Frances Marion had already changed the game for women in film. An author of over 300 film stories and scenarios in her career, Marion directed films, wrote how-to film textbooks and was instrumental in advancing the careers of actresses like Marie Dressler, Mary Pickford and Greta Garbo. Significant in Frances Marion’s repertoire, The Champ was a big success upon release and has remained a classic. To this day, The Champ remains the champ of motion pictures about boxing/boxers. However, without Marion’s magic touch, this film would not have been 1/10th of what it is. Her ability to read Beery as a performer was what gave her the impetus to write the character of Champ.

Marion had designed the role of The Champ especially for Beery after his standout performances in both The Big House (George W. Hill, 1930) and Min and Bill (George W. Hill, 1930), both scripted by Marion herself. When it came time for Marion to create The Champ, there was only one person who could be cast in the eponymous role: Wallace Beery. Originally, The Champ was to be a completely different film. In a conversation with MGM production head, Irving “boy genius” Thalberg, he had suggested to Marion that she write a Western. Having made her last 2 films with her now-ex-husband George W. Hill, she wanted something to get her own name out there, and feel more independent. Thalberg suggested a genre shift and she accepted.

So Marion made her way down to Mexico for a working vacation. What she returned with was not a Western but a boxing melodrama. Frances wandered the streets of Tijuana and Ensenada for inspiration and came upon a scene that completely changed her mind and the story. As she walked through town, she saw a saloon. Suddenly, a large drunken man charged through its doors, a child trailing out after him. Marion clearly heard the young boy shout to the growing crowd, “Can’t you see the Champ needs some air?” As Cari Beauchamp writes, Frances Marion had “gone to Mexico looking for a Western but returned to Irving’s office with a self-styled tearjerker, the tale of a drunken ex-prizefighter and his son which she called The Champ.”

Nominated for a variety of Oscars at the 5th Academy Award Ceremony in 1933 including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Production, Frances Marion won the “best story” Academy Award for The Champ while Wallace Beery walked away with a much-deserved Best Actor Oscar. This was no small thing for an actor who started his professional life as an assistant elephant trainer in the circus. Beery was notably a difficult man to work with and his personal life was not one to look into if you value his acting. But Marion and Beery had a curiously strong and valuable relationship that allowed the story that she wrote to come through in a powerful way. Thalberg’s initial response to reading Marion’s treatment of The Champ was “I’d like to own the handkerchief concession on your soap opera” and much of that is due to the sweet and sour, hard and soft, breathtakingly brilliant approach that Beery took to the character he played.

There is nothing dated in this work. That’s the glory of it. America still loves boxing, gambling, horseracing. We still have raging addiction and poverty issues. What makes this film stand out above all others is its focus on the deep relationship between a man and his son. Amongst the gambling problems, the alcoholism, Champ’s inability to keep enough money around to properly feed and clothe them both, The Champ clearly loves his kid Dink (Jackie Cooper) and Dink would be lost without The Champ.

Each time I watch it, I always wonder: where are the rest of the films about father/son relationships? Some exist, but not quite on this level. They’re either too saccharine or too “you gotta tough it out, kid!” The Champ is a great example of a film that reaches a happy medium. Sure, it’s a little dramatic, but it still gets the point across and hits home. I’ve read a few articles on this film and they talk about how it “reverses the melodrama” or “inverses maternal relationship representation” and that drives me bonkers. There IS a mother in the film. So it’s not that there isn’t maternal representation here. That’s just ludicrous. What these academics or film critics ignore is that there is a tender and beautiful bond between a father and son that is rarely (if ever) depicted in American cinema.

While their roles are ever-shifting as to who plays caretaker and who is being cared for, there is no question about the sheer amount of love that exists in this father-son pairing. So every time The Champ disappoints Dink, it’s not just heartbreaking, it’s shattering. Jackie Cooper’s performance matches Beery’s in its authenticity. Various articles at the time insist the two actors did not get along, but their professional relationship was clearly beyond any personal adversarial issues they had. Indeed, the two went on to make The Bowery (Raoul Walsh, 1933), Treasure Island (Victor Fleming, 1934) and O’ Shaughnessy’s Boy (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) together. They made an excellent cinematic team!

The male weepie is a highly underexplored genre. Recent films like Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016) have not only modernized the genre but also updated it in a stunning and progressive way. The structure and emotional resonance remain unchanged. Additionally, the need for men to be able to identify and connect with their tears is just as critical. The heartbreak deep within The Champ is as hardcore as that of Moonlight. Further explicated as a masculine-coded melodrama, the male weepie is more than just a dudely tearjerker or a dramatic film with guy themes. Melodrama is defined as “a sensational dramatic piece with exaggerated characters, exciting events intended to appeal to the emotions.” By keeping this definition in mind and remembering that male weepies are essentially melodramas with a focus on the masculine, we may be able to better appreciate the value of these films as a collective force.

Every boxing, wrestling or extreme sports drama falls under the category of male weepie. This genre includes every Rocky movie, The Fighter (David O. Russell, 2010) and Warrior (Gavin O’Connor, 2011). Requiem for a Heavyweight (Ralph Nelson, 1962) is a male weepie as is Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980). One of my favorites, Fat City (John Huston, 1972), definitely qualifies and Real Steel (Shawn Levy, 2011) counts whether you like it or not. These are, of course, only the sports-related films. There are a few action-related films that fall into this category and a handful of movies that people relegate to the drama section. The importance of many of these films is that they point out the brokenness of men as well as their value. Not a single one of these films praises its protagonist or worships masculinity, saying it’s healthy. They are all extensively critical of the kind of Tough Guy Values that lead our “heroes” to these situations.

The Champ is tops in this regard. It allows every criticism of The Champ that you could think of. He’s a gambler, a loser, and an alcoholic. He’s a bad provider. He takes his kid to saloons, gambling houses and racetracks. Champ has no boundaries or rules. And when he fucks up, he fucks up bad. But he’s not the one who bears the brunt of the gaffe or misstep- it’s Dink. Dink’s entire life has been this; he doesn’t know any different. Watching their exchanges, we know that this is their narrative. But it doesn’t make it any easier to watch or any easier to swallow. Every time Dink’s face lights up, it’s like blue skies and the bright sun shining! Conversely, when Dink’s face falls due to something Champ has done, there is nothing sadder or more hopeless. Jackie Cooper gave this character something really special.

While many films came afterwards that explored the emotional territory of the parental relationship and how traditional masculinity could really fracture a man’s identity or sense of self in comparison to what he FELT, The Champ is one of the first films to identify the value of those things. These are complex discussions and (more often than not) ignored ones. It definitely took a woman to write this story, but one can only hope that men will take the much-needed and valuable lessons that it has to teach.

“The Champ” Jackie Cooper, Wallace Beery 1931 MGM

The Dreaming Moon: Jean Harlow and the Magnetic Fields’ Get Lost

Jean "The Baby" Harlow, 1911-1937

There are a good amount of people out there who criticize the academic world, and with good cause. They say that we “reach,” that the things that we discuss have nothing to do with each other, and to put two such different items within the same paper/blog post/etc., is pretentious and an abuse of academic power.

I agree with that. To some degree. There are people out there who argue things to sound important or smart or exciting. And if that’s what they wanna do, cool for them. But if you can’t back it up, you’re gonna be stuck like the Goonies were, trying to figure out the notes on that damn skeleton piano. The bottom line for me is: can you read the music???

That said, what I am about to do, is definitely going to seem like reaching. But it is based upon my own interpretations and in that manner I think it works. I make no apologies, nor do I say that this is anything but a purely personal piece that is based upon a very passionate love of two things in my life: Jean Harlow, the actress, and the Magnetic Fields, the band.

This is my first blog for the Jean Harlow blogathon, which is being done to celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday (March 3rd). In a way, I felt compelled to write for this because Harlean Harlow Carpenter née Jean Harlow was only 26 years old when she died. She deserves a little more recognition. We all know about Marilyn, but without the original Platinum Blonde, Ms. Monroe wouldn’t’ve had a high heel to stand on…

Today I went to pay rent. As I was riding my bike around, I put on one of my favorite albums as I felt it would help me brainstorm a little. What I didn’t know was that it would provide me fodder for my entire piece. From the beginning to the end of The Magnetic Fields’ album Get Lost, it is almost as though they were writing it about and for Ms. Jean Harlow.

Jean Harlow was born as Harlean Harlow Carpenter on March 3, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mother, known as “Mother Jean,” was not only overbearing but she went beyond what one would consider the epitome of the stereotypical “stagemother.” Eventually, they got out of Kansas City, but as David Stenn notes, it wasn’t all for the “sake of the child.” In 1923, after divorcing Harlean’s father, Mother Jean took Jean to Hollywood, hellbent on a new life, one that they certainly were not going to get anywhere in Missouri. However, Mother Jean was a little off-base. She was of the mind-set that she might be able to procure a position within the burgeoning film industry, not necessarily her daughter. The pure, unadulterated fact was…she was just a little bit too old. Stenn writes,

In an era when leading ladies were teenage girls, thirty-four-year-old Mother Jean was hardly star material…At this point a stereotypical “stage mother” would have transferred the dream to her daughter, who was becoming a beauty herself. Mother Jean, however, was different: too fixated on her own aspirations to focus on anyone else, she continued to see herself, not her child, as the center of her existence. (1)

Jean and Mother Jean, in the "later" years...

When Harlean first arrived in Hollywood, acting was her last interest. And it was a rocky road to her first beginnings in any film work, including several different schools, a move to Chicago (engineered by Mother Jean so as to be closer to her own somewhat-questionable boyfriend at the time, Marino Bello), and a marriage to a man named Chuck McGrew which resulted in Harlean’s return to Hollywood.

The first song on The Magnetic Fields’ album Get Lost seems to refer to this period of Jean Harlow’s life, and from my standpoint, it has a double referent: not only can one see Harlean in the song (the chorus uses the word “Baby” repeatedly, a nickname given to Harlean early in her life) but one can also see Mother Jean. The idea of being able to be famous just as long as you get out of “this town” may be related to rock’n’roll within the context of this particular song, but it is so easily analogous to the early part of Jean Harlow’s life and career, that it would be almost ridiculous not to pay attention to it. Her own “marble face” was marveled upon as she grew up, and as she got to Hollywood, the beginnings of her career (tragically) were based upon “giving up control,” generally to her mother, but certainly, at times, to the Hollywood Machine. Regardless of her own Hollywood dreams, Mother Jean was aware that her daughter could “sell the world a new look and sound” and made damn sure that happened, almost without regard for what Jean, herself, may have wanted.

As Harlean’s travels through Hollywood continued, she was able to score some bit parts in films through a friend, fate,  and Central Casting. In a nutshell, McGrew had attempted to pry Harlean from Mother Jean’s tight-fisted grasp by taking her back to the west coast. While there, she met a lovely young lady named Rosalie Roy. One day, Rosalie needed a ride to Fox Studios, and Harlean offered to give her a lift. While there, some of the executives noticed her and pounced. After that, it was just a matter of time. However, this was about the point where “Harlean” became “Jean Harlow.” While applying for one of the Central Casting positions, she put her name down as Jean Harlow, and not Harlean Carpenter or McGrew.

Between Spring and December, Harlow went from Central Casting extra to signing a contract with Hal Roach. Not bad for a girl from Kansas City. Even so, it was not her own doing that was pushing her career, first and foremost. Although Chuck McGrew had attempted to get her away from Mama, Mother Jean was fixated on Jean’s life going on to something grand and big. In fact, when there was interest in Jean, she had up and moved from the Windy City, sleazy boyfriend and all, and come back to Hollywood to make sure that things were done right. But…it was all for The Baby, right?

Rock music is a funny thing. Clearly Get Lost was not written about Jean Harlow’s life. And any musician knows that the key to a good song, no matter what genre it is, is its ability to get the audience to relate to it. What I find unique about this album is that the next song on this album, “The Desperate Things You Made Me Do,” works as what Harlean would’ve said to Mother Jean if she could’ve. I realize that the actual intent of the song is not a maternal one: it clearly has more sexual connotations, and there are time-stamps contained within the song that date it. However, the intentions and lyrics (in my mind) work as part of the Jean Harlow story.

The next section in Harlean/Jean’s life involved an abortion that Mother Jean forced her to get and then a divorce from McGrew. The abortion destroyed Jean, but what Mama wanted, Mama got. Thus when Stephin Merritt sings the chorus of this song (“I dedicate this song to you/for the desperate things you made me do/I’d like to beat you black and blue/for all the agony you have put me through”), one could easily imagine a helpless teenage Harlean wanting to say the same things to Mother Jean, but not being able to. Not only that, but the idea that, within the song, the person being sung about/to is essentially sacrificing the singer and not caring about it, is a big deal. That seemed to be a big part of Mother Jean’s misplaced persona. Stephin Merritt sings “Time provides the rope/ but love will tie the slipknot/ And I will be the chair you kick away/You don’t even like anything you like or the people you know” and describes Harlean’s mother perfectly. Sadly, it also describes how Harlean came to die at such an early age. Mother Jean was so obsessed with the creation and upkeep of Jean Harlow that Harlean became lost in the shuffle, and died, painfully, far too young. Thanks, Mom.

Before the ultimate tragic event just mentioned, the Baby got famous. Hired by Howard Hughes and then signed to a contract by him, her career began to take off. While she was criticized harshly for what many saw as a lack of acting chops, the viewing public seemed to ignore that and the image that was carefully cultivated for her by Hughes became a full-blown success.

A publicity blitz began. Although its plot had nothing to do with her hair, Hughes convinced Harry Cohn to change the name of Harlow’s new film from Gallagher to Platinum Blonde, and in conjunction with its release, Caddo [Hughes’ company] organized over three hundred “Platinum Blonde” clubs across America, offering $10,000 to any beautician who could chemically match Harlow’s mane. None won, but the craze boosted peroxide sales by 35 percent despite the Depression…(2)

While the lyrics to the next song on the album don’t follow the story exactly, the title does. Song number three on Get Lost is called “Smoke and Mirrors” and that is, essentially, how Jean Harlow was sold to the public and how her romantic life was dealt with. While the song does hit on some aspects within her on-screen image (“a little fear, a little sex”), the way that her “handlers” made her popular was through cold calculated manipulation and lies. But that’s Hollywood- all smoke and mirrors anyway! Jean Harlow was not Harlean Carpenter. Directly after Jean Harlow was established as the Platinum Blonde, she was borrowed by Paul Bern for a film called Beast of the City. Her public image was growing, despite the fact that the young girl from Missouri was now pretty much type-cast as somewhat of a wanton woman. On her 21st birthday, due to Paul Bern’s persistence (it also didn’t hurt that he had asked his pal Irving Thalberg for a bit of help), Hughes agreed to sell her contract to M-G-M. From that point forward, her career soared, even if her private life didn’t.

Jean Harlow and Paul Bern

Jean married Paul Bern in 1932. The marriage only lasted 2 months. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound the night of September 5, that same year. There were many conspiracy theories surrounding the “why,” so the first thing that M-G-M had to do was damage control, and they did. Unfortunately, this was not the last fire that they had to put out in a short span of time. Jean began an affair with married boxer Max Baer, and had to be quickly married off to cinematographer Harold Rosson in order to prevent any more massive controversy for the starlet. After Rosson (and a quick “quiet” divorce), Harlow became involved with William Powell, and, while they never married (she wanted children, he didn’t) that relationship seemed to be her most functional romance. All the public relations that M-G-M put into making these various relationships look palatable to the public definitely used more smoke and mirrors than any magician at the time used!

While her romances were scandalous and fraught with difficulty, her career prospered. But if her career was prospering, Mother Jean’s fist was just as tight as ever. By Mother Jean had married Marino Bello, and the two of them seemed to get greedier and more involved in direct proportion to the Baby’s stardom.

Jean made 12 films in the next 5 years before her untimely death. Within that time, however, she also was subject to several health issues that delayed the production of at least three of the films (Wife vs. Secretary, Suzy, and Libeled Lady). If she had not been so fragile, who knows?  The fact that Mother Jean was a heavy factor in how hard Jean worked and how much she wore herself out didn’t help and neither did the fact that she had Jean on a tight leash during her whole career. Her methods of “career management” mixed with “mothering” directly effected Jean Harlow’s early death.

Jean Harlow in Saratoga (1937), the last film she did. The film had to be finished using stand-ins and doubles, and dubbing in lines. The public affection for Harlow would not let them replace her with another actress, as was the first impulse.

While rumors abound about Harlow’s death, it is not due to Mother Jean’s Christian Scientist affiliations. Due to Harlow’s case of scarlet fever as a young teen, she had contracted something called glomerulonephritis, which essentially caused her kidneys to slowly degenerate over the years. If this had been caught and diagnosed earlier, who knows? It might have been able to be fixed. But Jean had doctors by her bedside, even if she was not at the hospital. By the time she left the set of Saratoga, the Baby was in excruciating pain, and disintegrated into delirium and was deemed too weak to be moved.  Her internal organs were past the point of no return, and it was too late. In this day and age, we have the technology to fix that. But not so in 1937.

Writes David Stenn, “‘There wasn’t anything I could do to save her,’ sighed Dr. Chapman, and though he meant it medically- in the days before antibiotics, dialysis, or transplants…he also sensed Harlow’s emotional surrender. ‘She didn’t want to be saved,’ Dr. Chapman continued. ‘She had no will to live whatsoever.’ Never a fighter, Harlow faced death with the same passivity that characterized her life. Considering its circumstances, her attitude was understandable: after forty-two movies, three marriages, two abortions, scandal, alcoholism, gonorrhea, and heartbreak, Harlow had lived too hard for a twenty-six-year-old.” (3)

The Magnetic Fields album continues with several songs about love, pain and loss, which, aside from being controlled by a greedy, overbearing mother seem to fit Harlean/Jean’s life to a tee. Harlean was a natural young girl, just looking to be happy. Jean Harlow was a created product who never wanted to be “created.” She was what her mother wanted her to be, not what she wanted. On set, she was known to be one of the more down-to-earth and likable actresses; someone who didn’t put on any airs. You can see that in her comedy. But she was never allowed to have her own life. She wanted to have a child, a happy marriage, good friends…in fact, if it wasn’t for Mother Jean, she might have had a perfectly good life in Kansas City.

What Mother Jean did cannot be undone, but the gift that was left for us was the incomparable work of one Jean Harlow née Harlean Harlow Carpenter, and for that we can forever be grateful. Her vivaciousness and her unforgettable smile will forever go unmatched. many actresses have tried but so far not a single one has had the same presence or natural on-screen comfortability that Jean Harlow possessed. Her physicality corresponded perfectly with her well-timed facial expressions, making her all at once awkward yet sexy.

The final song of Get Lost is called “The Dreaming Moon,” and sounds a bit like a lullaby. As I was listening to the album today, hearing the various songs and their relative associative properties with the Jean Harlow story, I had to smile to myself when I realized what the last lyrics of this song were. I’ve always loved this album and I’ve always loved this song (although I think that “All the Umbrellas in London” is my favorite track), but this time it had a different meaning. Happy 100th birthday, Harlean. Thanks for the cinematic gifts you have given us. They are forever treasures, and while you only lived a short time, your work will live on forever.

The Dreaming Moon-lyrics: Stephin Merritt, Magnetic Fields

With an ivory pipe
And a cummerbund
In the dead of night
On the autobahn
With the long ago
On the radio
And the dreaming moon…
We were young and in love
In a burning town
But the fire went out
I’m alone again now
And I finally know
How cool to be cold
With the dreaming moon
I’ll begin again
With another new name
And a whole new life
Full of fortune and fame
But in the 100th year
I’ll be right back here
With the dreaming moon

(1) Stenn, David. Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

(2) Stenn, ibid.

(3) Stenn, ibid.