“So gentlemen prefer blondes, do they?”

The opening line of MGM’s topnotch treatment of Red-Headed Woman is an inside joke: 
the line, of course, is a reference to Anita Loos’ book Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, published in 1925. 
The joke is that Jean Harlow's blonde hair was already the star's trademark, and that the screenplay of Woman was written by none other than Loos herself—apparently after F. Scott Fitzgerald’s effort fizzled.


The accepted story, repeated by numerous Fitzgerald biographers, has it that the Fitzgerald script (produced with collaborator Marcel de Sano) was deemed too somber, and was tossed aside. In all fairness to Mr. Fitzgerald, it should be pointed out that Kay's original novel does not contain much—if any—of the humor to be found in MGM's realized adaptation. (By his own account, the experience left Fitzgerald more than a little disillusioned with Hollywood.) According to This is on Me, Loos was with the project from the beginning, and Fitzgerald a seemingly minor player. I'm not quite sure who to believe, but it would seem that Kay’s recollection in this instance is faulty. In any event, it’s Loos’ name in the opening credits, not Fitzgerald’s.

The picture premiered on June 25, 1932, and was an instant hit.

My favorite line in the movie? Lillian Andrews, trying on a dress in a shop (and standing in front of a sunny window), demurely asks the (off-camera) shopgirl 

“can you see through this?”  “I’m afraid you can, miss,” answers the shopgirl. 

“I’ll wear it,” comes Lil’s unexpected reply. It occurs within the first 2 minutes 

of the movie, and it lets us know right from the outset just what sort of picture 
this is going to be: 
    
“a quick, caustic biography of an alert, successful strumpet,” according to Time.

Jean Harlow (seated) and Anita Loos cutting up for MGM's publicity department

The Outsider

I just finished reading Red-Headed Woman. I had left it for later, as I mentioned previously, because I felt I already knew the story well enough from the movie. 

In fact last night, with 20 or 30 pages left, I put the movie on, so that I could do a sort of side-by-side comparison. My initial assessment—that I knew it, the story—was only partially correct. The picture’s a good one, a lot of fun, but the book is, not surprisingly, much better, much fuller.

The jacket of the 
movie tie-in edition

The essentials are the same. Red-headed Lillian ("Lil") Andrews is from the "wrong side of the tracks." Lil works as a stenographer for the Legendres, who own a number of coal mines in Renwood, Ohio. Lil aspires to a more affluent, comfortable (well, pampered, really) life, and sets her sights on William ("Bill") Legendre, Jr. She uses her considerable feminine charms to seduce Bill away from his wife Irene. But even Renwood affluence isn’t enough for Lil, and, what’s worse, the social gates she thought would be flung wide to welcome her remain frustratingly, maddeningly barred. She decides it’s time to trade up, which she does by charming one C. G. Gaerste (rhymes with "thirsty"), whose wealth dwarfs that of the Legendres. ("You wouldn't call it money.")

Here’s where the stories diverge. In Kay’s original, Gaerste is, like Lil, an outsider of humble origins. Through hard work and sheer good luck he amassed his millions, which he now relishes in flaunting before all the world. Free of any “old money” snobbishness (to say nothing of restraint), he and Lil are simpatico. Gaerste sees Lil as simply another gorgeous, expensive ornament for him to dangle before envious, admiring eyes. Whether or not there’s any real affection between the two is completely beside the point.  

In the movie, Gaerste is a bit of an old coot, a wealthy friend and business associate of the Legendres. At first resistant to Lil’s wiles, Gaerste must be won over with sex.  And old coot or no, Gaerste is rich enough for Lillian to accept his proposal of marriage.

But then there’s a chauffeur (in the guise of Charles Boyer), a private investigator, a shooting, and an escape to Paris, none of which originated at the point of Kay’s pen. Oh well, both versions of the story end with Lil pretty much getting exactly what she wanted from the start.

Obviously, motion picture adaptations of literary works have to be condensed, streamlined. Characters get combined or added or eliminated altogether; events are truncated, shifted. At least this was the understood, the expected and accepted practice in 1932. Unfortunately, the central—it literally happens in the middle of the book—event in Kay’s original, the party scene, is shifted and condensed in such a manner and to such a degree that it loses most, if not all, of its impact.

The scene shows Kay at her best, I think, and can stand almost on its own as a story. It’s worth reading in its entirety, and if you’d like to do so, you can find it here. 

Here’s the emotional climax:

                She knew, she understood, then and thereafter. Her mind made swift and shattering translations. She could not delude herself, she could no longer, with the thin veil of Louise's subtlety, hide from herself Louise's meanings. Now she knew what all this was—deep in her mind she must have known it from the start, to know it so well now, to see it with such clarity. They were kidding her, these girls. Of course. Of course. They were giving her a ride. They were making fun of her, making a perfect fool of her—laughing at her behind the bright polite glaze of their eyes. They were collecting ludicrous quotations and descriptions, to take away with them; enough to last them for a long time. They were Irene's great friends, and this was sport and this was vengeance. So they had come. Now she knew well why they had come.

                This was what happened, then. This was what you got. You were the red-headed Andrews girl from Renwood Falls, from the railroad crossing, and you stole a rich husband and bought a big house, and a Chinese Buddha, and a naked dress, and you tried to crash Society—and this was what you got. Never mind what you expected, hoped for. This was what you got. This was what Society did to you, to make you understand. You couldn't crash it in a million years.

The scene as Kay’s written it also highlights one of the less tangible differences between novel and movie. Watching Harlow give life to Lil Andrews, we are alternately amused and scandalized (assuming we’re an audience of 1932, anyway) by her wanton brazenness. But we never feel sorry for her. Not once. And while we might cringe at the behavior, the taste and the choices of Kay’s “heroine,” she’s not one-sided; something akin to pity is often aroused in the reader. 

Pity for the outsider who so desperately wants to belong.

photo of Kay from the first edition dust jacket

The Blonde Bombshell

Any spark of recognition mention of the name Katharine Brush might generate today certainly owes more to Jean Harlow's fame as an actress than to Katharine Brush's own fame as an author.

But an author she was, and a damn fine one at that.  Her wildly popular novel 
Red-Headed Woman was turned--almost instantaneously--into one of pre-code Hollywood's raciest, and most notorious pictures, one that helped catapult the 21-year-old Harlow to superstardom.


And while Katharine Brush outlived Harlow by fifteen years, the Blonde Bombshell's fame has proven far more durable, lasting far and long beyond the grave; Brush's, by contrast, was short-lived, and essentially died with her in 1952.

Jean Harlow with Chester Morris

Such, of course, is the nature of fame: writers seldom last as long as motion picture stars, and books generally do not attain classic status at the same rate as movies.


Though she later credited Harlow and her performance for making the picture the smash-hit that it was, Katharine Brush was, quite ironically, initially disappointed with MGM's choice of Harlow, who hadn't had that many big roles up to that time.  


And of course Harlow's hair was the wrong color...