Reckless (1935)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

There's a good chance the film will make you laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, there's an even better chance it will make you openly sob.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

William Powell is delightful, Jean Harlow is warm and vulnerable, Rosalind Russell is charming, and even Franchot Tone, who plays a millionaire playboy who jilts Russell for Harlow without truly knowing his own mind, is witty. The dialog, particularly in the first half of the movie, is light and amusing, and there are a couple of nice musical numbers. It gets a little fast paced and soap operatic towards the end, but it's always entertaining. This is the film that got Powell and Harlow together personally for the last two years of her life, and their chemistry shows. The early scene with them lounging together and him proposing in his own way as she drowses off is fantastic, and Powell's scenes with the old granny are also priceless. It's also fun to see a young Mickey Rooney in a couple of scenes. Not perfect but watch this one for the cast and their performances.

Jean Harlow shows she can neither dance or sing well in Reckless, A Selznick driven production cynically attempting to cash in on the "Platinum Blonde's" tabloid fresh brief marriage to producer Paul Bern. The role is tailored made for the better voiced, trained dancer Crawford but MGM and director Victor Fleming instead opt for evasive action shooting Jean's double in long shot from the side and hiding her behind the gaudy costumes of the chorus to make up for her hoofer inefficiencies. When she sings (or is dubbed) the Kern, Hammerstein tune Reckless it comes across as bad Mae West. Ned Riley (William Powell) manages the blossoming Broadway career of Mona Leslie. He wants to marry her but vacillates and loses her to spoiled playboy Bob Harrison (Franchot Tone) who on a whim buys out an entire show to watch her perform alone. They rush into marriage, Bob dumping intended "Jo" ( Roz Russell ) much to the discomfort of the upper crust society that Leslie feels out of place in. When Jo quickly rebounds and marries Bob predictably acts out and things snowball from there to tragedy.In its early scenes Reckless is buoyantly screwball, eventually becoming deadly serious before sealing its fate with an insipid redemption. Harlow underwhelms in every way. Somewhat detached to both lovers she provides little spark in her scenes with either though Powell and Tone acquit themselves well in their respective roles. Shot from the waist up smiling as she plows through her dance numbers Fleming goes as far as dissolving a trained professionals steps and gams to Harlow's upper torso in one shot to pull off the ruse. By throwing caution to the wind and playing against Harlow's weaknesses Selznick's actions regarding this picture are succinctly summed up in the title.

As I got into this film I began to sense that something was wrong with it. So, I consulted IMDb and quickly concluded what the problem was by simply looking at how it was classed -- as a "drama - musical - comedy". There's the problem, the film doesn't quite know what it is. A drama can have aspects that are humorous, and a comedy can have its serious moments, but when it comes right down to it, most films have to be primarily one type...and this isn't.There's an overly-long production number early on in the film, which though important to the plot, should have been much shorter. The scenes in the fun-house were quite clever and interesting, and reminded me of fun-houses I experienced as a child back in the 1950s. William Powell plays a sort of thinmanesque character here, with his best scene perhaps being when he professes his love for the Jean Harlow character, not realizing she has fallen asleep in the hammock. Franchot Tone plays the heavy-drinking, likable playboy...a role that he was often typecast in.So, things are going happily, funnily, and musically along (and, in my view, boringly)until almost exactly half-way through the film, when suddenly it transforms itself into a drama. Franchot Tone realizes he is still in love with his former fiancé, Jean Harlow realizes Tone is not really in love with her, and suddenly Tone commits suicide. Not to mention that Harlow is secretly pregnant. Now, don't get me wrong, but up until it turned into a drama, I wasn't enjoying the film. Once it became a drama, it got quite interesting.Some of the supporting actors here are interesting. A pre-Andy Hardy Mickey Rooney is quite good. May Robson is superb as the grandmother. Rosiland Russel has a small, but key role, and you may not recognize her because of how young she is here. Henry Stephenson comes across as the bad father of Franchot Tone, but redeems himself as the film comes to a conclusion, and he is a welcome presence in any film. There are two "mugs" in the film -- Nat Pendleton, who is interesting, and Ted Healy (of Three Stooges fame), who is not.So, I gave this film 5 stars out of 10, because half of the film is interesting.

If you enjoy identifying actors in cameo roles, this movie might interest you. Spotting the likes of Mickey Rooney, Leon Ames, Allan Jones, Margaret Dumont and Paul Fix saved this movie for me. If it weren't for that little game, I'd have regarded this film as a total waste - of both my time and a deep, talented cast.The film slowly develops a plot that never seems to gel, and the characters are all very one-dimensional, except Franchot Tone, who delivers a reasonable performance. However, his character's fate comes out of the blue, and is the point at which the tone of the story veers sharply in a bizarre way.The early, light comedy part of this movie is pretty aimless, and it jumps around a lot. The second half of the movie is like a completely different film spliced onto the first half. It, too, meanders; but unlike the first half, it is maudlin and melodramatic.The final scene is preposterous. The supposed-to-be climactic speech by Harlow would not come close to turning a hostile audience in her favor. She repeats a few generalized statements that, no doubt, everybody had read many times in the press coverage of the scandal. Talk about rehash!Oh yeah, there are quite a few discontinuities, too, for those of you who can entertain yourselves by spotting them. There is a shot of Tone's yacht in broad daylight, an intervening interior scene, and then Harlow and Tone go out onto the deck in darkest night, without the slightest suggestion of any time having passed.I was drawn to this film when I saw the incredible cast. How did Victor Fleming and this impressive cast deliver such a malaise of a film? Chalk it up to the writers, I guess.