“The screen’s star-studded sensation!”
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Dir. George Cukor
110 mins.
Production: March 1933 — May 1933 (Harlow filmed her scenes in ten days in mid-March)
Release date: August 29, 1933 (Hollywood premiere) / January 12, 1934 (wide release)
Release status: Available to watch free online (if you don’t mind VHS) and on DVD.
Cast: Marie Dressler (Carlotta Vance), John Barrymore (Larry Renault), Wallace Beery (Dan Packard), Jean Harlow (Kitty Packard), Lionel Barrymore (Oliver Jordan), Lee Tracy (Max Kane), Edmund Lowe (Dr. Wayne Talbot), Billie Burke (Millicent Jordan), Madge Evans (Paula Jordan), Jean Hersholt (Jo Stengel), Karen Morley (Lucy Talbot), Louise Closser Hale (Hattie Loomis), Phillips Holmes (Ernest DeGraff), May Robson (Mrs. Wendel)
Summary: Various lives entangled in the society party of Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) are profiled, as well as the drama that consumes them.
Trivia:
- A picture of Harlow in her famed Adrian ostrich-feather robe from this film was chosen for the cover of Time Magazine in 1935–one of (but not the first) film actresses to have the honor.
- A common misconception about Harlow in this film is that her bias-cut dresses were ‘too tight’ to sit down in, or they would have ripped. Some go as far to suggest she was ‘sewn into them’, and this is why there are pictures of her using a leaning board on set. However, these contraptions were actually standard for any actress to use to keep her costume pristine and unwrinkled during filming, tight costume or not.
- Director George Cukor said Harlow ‘played comedy as naturally as a hen lays an egg’. Costar Marie Dressler was generous as well, all but admitting Harlow stole their shared scenes: “Her [Harlow’s] performance as the wife of the hard-boiled, self-made politician played by Wallace Beery belongs in that limited category of things which may with reason be called rare. The plain truth is, she all but ran off with the show!”
- Dinner at Eight was screened during Harlow’s first of two Grauman’s hand-and-footprint ceremonies on September 25, 1933. She had to come back four days later for a redo after her cement slab slipped and broke during transport (a pivotal reason why the theater opted to move future ceremonies from the theater to the forecourt).
- Wallace Beery and Harlow disliked each other in real life, which translated swimmingly onscreen. Harlow, however, wasn’t without her people-pleasing guilt, as she once cried on the set over Beery’s withering dislike of her–even though he didn’t much like anyone.
- Costar John Barrymore once dared Harlow to wear her ostrich-feathered robe to an MGM studio luncheon. She was brave enough to deliver.
- The film was taken from the successful play that opened in October 1932; Judith Wood originally portrayed Harlow’s Kitty Packard.
- Some rare Coca-Cola advertisement art of Jean Harlow was released through a promotional tie-in with MGM; a natural color photo was taken with the entire cast (sans John Barrymore).
Stills and ad art:
Harlow Heaven 