GOLDIE (Stoloff, 1931)

“Two roaming Romeos–and a platinum blonde! 24-karat comedy of two salts always sweet on the same dame.”

Sound film — 59 mins.
Fox Film Corp. / Dir. Benjamin Stoloff

Production: April 1931 — May 1931
Release date: June 28, 1931
Survival/release status: Extant. Available to watch in low bootleg quality for free online, but lacks a physical release as of 2026 (and with Disney owning the Fox archives, we may never get one).

Cast: Spencer Tracy (Bill), Warren Hymer (Spike Moore), Jean Harlow (Goldie), Jesse De Vorska (Gonzales), Lina Basquette (Constantina), Eddie Kane (Barker)

Summary: Two world-weary sailors (Spencer Tracy and Warren Hymer), one of which leaves his bedroom conquests with a telltale tattoo on her arm, meet up and contend with a blonde hotcha high-diver (Jean Harlow) who doesn’t let her own tattoo stop her from playing around with both men.

Trivia:

One of the first extant motion pictures, but not the first, to utter the word “tramp” as a gendered insult.
A sound remake of Howard Hawks’ A Girl in Every Port (1928), which featured Louise Brooks in the Harlow role–later, Brooks was set to play Gwen Allen in The Public Enemy, a role that went to Harlow.
Harlow hated making Goldie and wrote to her friends to tell them not to see it. “Don’t go to see Goldie. I won’t. We hear such terrible things about it. It’s no wonder the picture shows are empty. The trash these producers are sending out!”
First pairing of Harlow and Spencer Tracy, who would go on to make two much better films together (Riffraff and Libeled Lady).
Harlow was filming Goldie at the same time as Iron Man and The Public Enemy in early 1931, which were all being made at different studios, ensuring her care and concentration couldn’t be applied too thick to one role.