Dreadful even if "Harlow" herself is reasonably well-played by Carroll Baker who was really a better actress than she was ever given credit for. It's the kind of biopic that Hollywood does often and badly, milking every cliche in the book and forgetting to mention most of the facts. Indeed, this might as well be fiction as it never mentions any of her real films or most of the real-life people she worked with, providing fictionalised Hollywood stereotypes instead.
This is just another tawdry rags-to-riches story that completely wastes the talents of the likes of Martin Balsam, Angela Lansbury, Raf Vallone and Peter Lawford. Only Red Buttons comes out of it with something like his dignity intact and was actually nominated for a Golden Globe. The terrible script was by John Michael Hayes from Irving Shulman and Arthur Landau's trashy bestseller while Gordon Douglas, (never a name to fill you with awe), directs as if in a trance. Amazingly, in the same year this came out there was another biopic with Carol Lynley as Harlow. It was marginally more factual but just as awful.
This is just another tawdry rags-to-riches story that completely wastes the talents of the likes of Martin Balsam, Angela Lansbury, Raf Vallone and Peter Lawford. Only Red Buttons comes out of it with something like his dignity intact and was actually nominated for a Golden Globe. The terrible script was by John Michael Hayes from Irving Shulman and Arthur Landau's trashy bestseller while Gordon Douglas, (never a name to fill you with awe), directs as if in a trance. Amazingly, in the same year this came out there was another biopic with Carol Lynley as Harlow. It was marginally more factual but just as awful.