LGM Film Club, Part 441: Three Wise Girls
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I’ve never really gotten the appeal of Jean Harlow. Every movie she was in centered around her beauty, but I don’t get it. I also don’t think she was a very good actor. So I’m not much of a man. That said, this William Beaudine helmed film from 1931 isn’t bad. It follows three young women, who really aren’t that wise. Harlow is a small town girl who has an old friend in New York. She’s making money and sending it back to her own mother, so NYC seems awfully glamourous. Interestingly to me, it actually names the town–Chillicothe, which is in Ohio. Early films rarely gave an actual place that they wanted to satirize even a little bit. Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life is Seneca Falls, New York, but you’d have to know that from somewhere else. Mae Clarke plays the girl in New York. She’s getting pretty OK work as a model in a high-end clothing store, but the money is coming from the rich guy she’s having an affair with and is deeply in love with, even though she knows it’s hopeless.
The third and much more minor female lead here is played by Marie Prevost. She is a sad story. In this film, she’s surprisingly large. You don’t see that much in early films. Well, she had been a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty in the the late 1910s and the decline of her career due to her weight by the late 30s led her to anorexia and death. Horrible. Anyway, she plays Harlow’s roommate who really just wants a man. Meanwhile, Harlow gets involved with her own married millionaire, even though Clarke urges her to break it off before she goes too far.
Given that Harlow wasn’t a good actor, the film works because Clarke is so outstanding as Gladys. So heartbroken, so desperate, so determined to hold on even though she knows the guy is a son of a bitch. Really first rate performance, carries the film to above average. She should been a top actress for longer, though her work in 1931’s Waterloo Bridge is certainly well-regarded. But mostly she stuck with decent parts in reasonably OK movies.
Whole thing is available on YouTube. There’s also a colorized version over there, for heretics and antichrists.