Is an absolute riot. I love how she stalks through the newspaper offices like an albino peacock on PCP, looking for the one that got away. She's damned if she's not gonna get married. Too bad she had to leave us so young.
You take that diaper off your head, you put it back on your sister!
I thought her dress was lovely, too. So art deco '30's and looks perfect on her. Such a fun movie.
Where the underworld can meet the elite - 42nd Street
This is sad to say but I heard she really loved the dress and she was actually buried in the dress. Sad that she was buried in a wedding dress -- so close to being married to William Powell ....
At first her mother Jean Bello had selected the wedding dress for Jean in her casket. Then Mrs. Bello had a change of mind and opted for the pink negligee Jean wore in a scene from Saratoga.
Somehow it would have been sad to bury Jean in a wedding dress, when everyone knew what she wanted more was to marry Powell. At the same time Jean had already been married for 3 times so it hardly seemed appropriate. However, Jean's secretary Barbara Brown thought it was odd for Mother Jean to have dressed Jean in pink since Jean never wore nor liked the color pink.
I would have been in favor of the glittering, feathers, white negligee from Dinner at Eight best.
I feel the same with Marilyn Monroe. She had told Amy Greene that she wanted to be buried in white. But she was buried in a green Pucci dress that had been her recent favorite, thought nothing spectacular. It was rather a plain dress.
"Any girl can look glamorous. Stand still and look stupid."
--Hedy Lamarr
Looking at a photograph of the incomparable Bill Powell at Jean's funeral you realise how deep their relationship truly was... supported by his mother and clenching his fists and his eyes hidden behind sunglasses his pain is palpable.
Just so terribly sad ...
Often the casket lining is white, and funeral directors will try to steer the family away from white clothing in the casket. This happened with my mom and we ended up with a navy blue dress instead of white.
shareDifferent opinion on the dress. I didn't notice it when I was a kid, except it was the first movie I saw Harlow in (it was at a college film festival and I bought a ticket) and I knew she was meant to be a sex symbol. I didn't understand why she was a sex symbol based on this film. When I was grown up, I'd seen earlier Harlow films, and knew how she died. In the earlier movies, her clothes are closer to her body and show a lot of skin, so you can see the sex symbol. Here it's completely different. So here's the deal with the dress:
1) It's of the same bias-cut satin as all of her sex symbol dresses, except it covers her head to toe and has a lot of excess material.
2) she also carries a giant spray of flowers almost as big as she is. It's stapled to her side.
Both were to conceal her size. She'd bloated up in the face, the boobs, and the hips. She was only 24-25 here, and should have been able to carry off a body-conscious dress with ease. But her body was a mess because of her illness. They covered her in fabric, made it comic, and also super built out her clothes so she'd look tinier in comparison. For example, the last outfit she wears has enormous fur shoulders and an enormous fur hem, to make her waist look smaller by contrast. She's cartoonish in this movie.
In Saratoga they did some of the same tricks. There's a scene in the train where she has her coat only half off. The part that is still "on" covers half of her body, just as enormous bridal bouquet does in Libeled Lady.
Knowing Harlow's story, it is mystifying to me what the hell people thought was going on with her. The same people designed her costumes and dressed her from the time she got to MGM. She was still just a very young woman at this point - early 20s. Did they think she was bloated due to drinking - or what? Or did people just not think about it or keep their thoughts to themselves? What the hell did Harlow herself think was going on with her body? It was beyond her control
She was buried in that dress.....so sad
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