Red-Headed Woman (1932)

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(671 ratings)

Jack Conway complained about being assigned to direct this comedy, claiming that a woman like the title character had almost ruined his own marriage. In a way he had a point , but only Jean Harlow could have made gold digger Lil Andrews a sympathetic protagonist. And Katherine Brush's racy novel… More Jack Conway complained about being assigned to direct this comedy, claiming that a woman like the title character had almost ruined his own marriage. In a way he had a point , but only Jean Harlow could have made gold digger Lil Andrews a sympathetic protagonist. And Katherine Brush's racy novel (which first appeared, serial-fashion, in the Saturday Evening Post) could only have been filmed in the pre-Code days of the early 1930s. Helping both star and story is the snappy dialogue written by Anita Loos. Lil is the classic girl "from the wrong side of the tracks" -- she's a secretary with a bootlegger boyfriend and a wisecracking roommate named Sal (Una Merkel, who was a delightful foil to Harlow in several films). But Lil has ambitions -- she's "strictly on the level, like a flight of stairs," as one character says. She plans to snag Bill Legendre (Chester Morris), son of the venerable company head (Lewis Stone) -- no matter that he's happily married to his childhood sweetheart, Irene (Leila Hyams). Lil throws herself at Legendre until he can resist no longer and she snares him. But things don't work out as planned. Instead of making a big splash in society, she bombs -- so she casts her attention ever upwards to Gaersate, a coal king (Henry Stephenson). But a wrench is thrown into her scheme when she goes mad for his French chauffeur (Charles Boyer). "I've fallen in love and I'm going to be married!" she gleefully tells Sal, before explaining that it's the chauffeur she loves and Gaersate whom she will marry. However, Legendre Sr. has put a detective on Lil's trail and he shows Gaersate a handful of compromising photos. It looks like her game is up, but the last we see of the mercenary miss, she's leaving a fashionable Paris racetrack with a bearded old sugar daddy -- and her beloved chauffeur driving them away. In spite of all her blatant manipulations, Harlow gives Lil a childlike appeal, which makes her actions nearly forgivable (it also helps that the men are such dolts). But not everyone was able to accept a movie bad-girl who did not pay for her sins and, in fact, actually benefited from them -- the film was banned in Germany and England. It may not have gotten much play in France either, but certainly not because of Lil's wantonness. Charles Boyer, who was a star in his native country, was embarrassed at his failure to make a splash in America and didn't want his fellow Frenchmen to see him play a tiny bit-part. Depending on the source, he reportedly convinced MGM to either 1) release the film in France with his parts edited out (which would have made it quite confusing) or 2) not release the film there at all. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 19 min.
Directed By: Jack Conway
Written By: Anita Loos
Genres: Drama, Romance, Comedy

In Theaters: Jan 25, 1932 Limited
On DVD: Mar 27, 1991
Studio: MGM

Critic Reviews

Steve Crum, Video-Reviewmaster.com
Harlow is near her stride in this early talkie potboiler.
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Its overall tone and Harlow's unbridled (in every sense of the word) wantonness raise the film to the level of a kind of trash masterpiece.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Saucy romantic comedy.

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Featured Audience Ratings

jay n

Jean is one cheap piece of baggage in this racy pre-code but she's having a hell of a good time at it. This shot her to the top for the next five years as a great comedic broad.
AJ V

I really loved Harlow's performance in this movie, her character is crazy, using her feminine wiles to get every man's attention, and the lengths she goes to get these guys...wow. The story is good, but close to the end it slows down a bit and gets a bit confusing, and… More
I really loved Harlow's performance in this movie, her character is crazy, using her feminine wiles to get every man's attention, and the lengths she goes to get these guys...wow. The story is good, but close to the end it slows down a bit and gets a bit confusing, and I'm not sure if I liked how it ended. Overall, I liked it though, it was a really interesting movie.
Veronique K

jean harlow's notorious sex farce in the 30s that originally enraged the moral code...(barbara stanwyck's "baby face" was released next year. all tales about material girl climing toward wealth by sex )...as i discussed in "baby face" review. the femme… More
jean harlow's notorious sex farce in the 30s that originally enraged the moral code...(barbara stanwyck's "baby face" was released next year. all tales about material girl climing toward wealth by sex )...as i discussed in "baby face" review. the femme fatale stereotype is "gluttonish sensuality and sex appeal" which is attributed to red-headed woman....she's utterly mercenary and she would not pull back once she's determined to claim what she desires...once her appetite is tickled, she wants more and more and more..the loothole of greed could never be fulfilled....always un-content and un-grateful, and her misdemeanor is purely out of avarice. (bad without a cause.)..stanwyck's babyface utilizes men more out of a revengeful hatred toward their exploitations...generally red-headed woman is a flat character for comic relief without the grim complexity of stanwyck's babyface. unlike babyface which could be deemed as a social satire about a ghetto girl's eager angst to clander to the top in search of power, harlow's reddish circe is more like a ridicule of sex such as the scene she's trapped in the phonebooth and the absurd connotation of sadism & masochism as harlow remarks "do it again! i like it!!!" when the man slaps her facecheek...the first 30 mins, she illuminates her lecherous glitter to pierce audience's eyesight...miss harlow's wardrobe looks its best as the red-headed woman is still on wrong side of the track, later the glamour of flashy ornament is a bit redundant. it offers what the audience wants, it serves you with a shamelessly joyful happy ending for the bad girl to get her way. in a nutshell, jean harlow definitely gratify your mental libido with pleasurable orgasm, then she incarnates into sex itself.