“The Story That Busted Gangdom Wide Open!”
Sound film — 83 mins.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Dir. George Hill
Production: December 1930 or January 1931 (David Stenn’s Bombshell lists a start date of December 1930, but AFI cites January 1931) — February 1931
Release date: April 18, 1931
Survival/release status: Extant; available to watch online and on DVD.
Cast: Wallace Beery (Louis Scorpio), Lewis Stone (Richard Newton), Johnny Mack Brown (Hank Rogers), Jean Harlow (Anne Courtland), Marjorie Rambeau (Peaches), Paul Hurst (Nick Mizoski, the Gouger), Clark Gable (Carl Luckner), Ralph Bellamy (Johnny Franks), John Miljan (Joe Colimo), Mary Carlisle (Girl, uncredited).
Summary (from IMDB): Bootlegger/café owner Johnny Franks recruits crude working man Louis ‘Slaughterhouse’ Scorpio to join his gang which is masterminded by crooked criminal defense lawyer Richard Newton. Slaughterhouse eventually takes over Franks’ operation, beats a rival gang, becomes wealthy and dominates the city for several years until a secret group of 6 masked businessmen have him prosecuted and sent to the electric chair with the help of rival crusading newspapermen Carl Luckner and Hank Rogers. Waitress Anne Courtland is torn between her love for the honest newsman Hank and her financial dependence on her generous boss, Slaughterhouse.
Trivia:
- Harlow’s first role at MGM (on a loan-out from Howard Hughes’ Caddo Co.), well before her long-term contract with the studio in March 1932; The Secret Six was filmed over the winter of 1930-1. Harlow’s scenes in the film were also her first with costar Clark Gable, and were a prescient preview of the chemistry the two would share at MGM in the near future. They were also her first with Wallace Beery, who she’d come to dislike (like much of Hollywood) for his brutish behavior. Assistant director Joseph Newman noticed Harlow’s drive to improve: “She was quite an amateur, but she was bright, astute, and observant. You could see it right away.”
- Gable, also a newcomer to Hollywood at the time, maintained in 1937 that Harlow’s presence on the film was a good luck charm: “I think Jean brought me good luck, because everything went so smoothly after we met. Up until then, I had worked like a dog to get some sort of recognition in this town.”
Stills and ad art:
Harlow Heaven 