Red-Headed Woman (1932)

. . . Jean Harlow is meant to embody "the clap," and the other olden-days Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). Unlike today, movie studios maintained a go-for-broke competitive stance (since most of them WERE broke; for instance, the opening credits for RED-HEADED WOMAN state that its producer, M-G-M, was then under the "control" of Loew's). Therefore, WOMAN was able to make the shocking revelation that venereal diseases can strike rich One Per Cent guys, too. As Ms. Harlow slinks from man to man like some baby-talking bacteria or vain virus, she's careful to be an equal opportunity fluid swapper. Whether it's Albert the chauffeur or Al the bootlegger, "Lillian's" insatiable lust for new hosts cannot be contained by clothes. On the surface, Lil is an amoral gold-digger, with a puzzlingly counter-productive tendency to repel her target bankrolls through her indiscreet wanton slumming. Taken as an allegorical fleshing out of STDs, her amorality is more understandable if no less deadly.

Enjoyable, often hilarious tale of on-the-make secretary Jean Harlow who sets her sights on the boss's son. She uses sex the way some people use bribery. Relentlessly pursuing Bill, (her first prey) Harlow intends to marry up and do it fast.Considering the prudishness of most 1940's films, this 1932 offering is pretty frank. There is lots of sex outside of marriage and adultery within it; Jean's character enjoys being bad and doesn't apologize for it.Harlow steamrolls her way through men, but will she get her come uppance. Watch this little gem and find out.

Jean Harlow plays a gold digger determined not to get stuck on the wrong side of the tracks and goes through men like tissues in an attempt to land a sugar daddy in "Red-Headed Woman."I've long since accepted that to watch a Jean Harlow movie you just simply have to agree to disagree with seemingly every moviegoer from the 1930s about Harlow's appeal. She was hot stuff back then, a fact that is nearly inexplicable to me now. In a role like this, when she's basically a slut, I can accept that men would want to have sex with her, despite the fact that she's actually quite ugly and uber-annoying to boot (ugh, that baby talk!) But that every man who comes across her would also want to dump his wife to marry her? That is pretty much impossible for me to get my head around.Though I will say that Harlow looks much more attractive with red hair than she does with that awful platinum blonde thing she sports in most of her movies. And while I don't find her remotely attractive, there is something about her that commands the screen."Red-Headed Woman" is not the raciest pre-Code movie I've seen, but it does manage to give a newbie some indication of how pre-Code movies were different from the ones that would be released in the couple of decades following. A movie made even five years later would never dream of letting Harlow's character get what she wants in the end without atoning for her sins first.Grade: B+

Jean Harlow oozes sensuality as a woman from the wrong side of the tracks who tries to get her boss to hook up with her...and proceeds to have still MORE affairs. "Red-Headed Woman" got made before the infamous Hays Code's establishment, meaning that it contains what had to be some of the most erotic things commercially filmed by that point (which means that it's only PG in our era). Sure enough, once the Hays Code came about, the movie got pulled from circulation and wasn't shown again for years. A real pity, since it's got some really funny stuff. In the 21st century, when we can find all sorts of porn and crude humor on the Internet, it's hard to believe that there was ever a set of rules dictating what movies were allowed to show, but there was just that. As always, the moralizers prevent people from having any fun.Anyway, it's a pretty funny movie.