Platinum Blonde (1931)

A brash newspaper reporter (Robert Williams) romances and marries a wealthy heiress and socialite (Jean Harlow) leaving a colleague (Loretta Young) heartbroken. Though the film is named after her, the third billed Harlow hadn't quite developed the persona that would make her one of MGM's (this was a Columbia film) most popular stars. Indeed, Harlow might have seemed better cast as Williams' fellow reporter (Young's part) rather than the hoity toity heiress. Directed by Frank Capra, the film benefits by its two leading ladies as its abrasive leading man Robert Williams (who died shortly after making this film) is a rather uncharismatic and charmless substitute for Lee Tracy or Pat O'Brien. As a film, it's enjoyable in the way many of those fast talking 1930s stock comedies are but outside of its leading ladies and the fact that it was directed by Frank Capra, there's very little about it that would draw one to it. With Reginald Owen, Halliwell Hobbes, Walter Catlett and Louise Closser Hale.