Bombshell is a 1933 American pre-Code romantic comedy-drama film directed by Victor Fleming, starring Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy.
Lola Burns (Harlow) is a glamorous Hollywood movie star—and yes, blonde bombshell—whose complicated life involves a temperamental Latin Lover who has overstayed his visa, a crazy fan who won't stop stalking her, a father and brother who are mooching off of her, and studio publicity man E.J. "Space" Hanlon (Tracy), who keeps embarrassing her with the fake scandals he gins up to keep her name in the papers. Space once dated Lola and still carries a torch for her, but he doesn't let that stop the studio's publicity machine. So when Lola falls in love with aristocrat Gifford Middleton (Franchot Tone) and elects to retire from pictures, Space has to lure her back, both for himself and the studio.
This film contains the following tropes:
- The Alcoholic: Lola's father (played by Frank Morgan, of The Wizard of Oz fame) is an idiot and a drunkard.Lola: Remember your heart, you're likely to have the DTs again.
- Celebrity Paradox: Lola has to do. Retakes for Red Dust, a real film that Jean Harlow had starred in with Clark Gable.
- The Con: An unethical studio publicity man hires a whole family of actors to perform in character in order to create a fake romance for Lola Burns, an actress who has quit Hollywood. The idea is to get her to go back to work after the fake romance ends. The Loony Fan who keeps following Lola around is also a performer hired by the publicity guy
- Driving a Desk: In every scene where people are riding in cars.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: After one day at the desert resort, Lola and Gifford Middleton are making wedding plans. It turns out this is all Spence's doing.
- Going Commando: Lola is specifically instructed by the studio not to wear a brassiere (and Harlow the sex symbol usually didn't.)
- High-Class Glass: Clara's father, Clara's boyfriend Hugo, and Gifford's father all use this to fake being sophisticated.
- Horrible Hollywood: This is how Lola feels after Space's meddling and other Hollywood jackassery embarrasses her and ruins her chance of adopting a baby. But later, she defends Hollywood after the snooty Middletons are horrified to find that she's an actress.
- Loony Fan: Lola has a crazy stalker who keeps following her around, claiming that she's his wife.
- Maybe Ever After: Having gone through two boyfriends, Lola has finally clued in to Space's feelings for her. They're about to kiss at the end when Lola finds out that her Loony Fan is also an actor hired by Space. They're fighting again as the film ends.
- The Rival: Alice Cole, a more well-adjusted actress at "Monarch Pictures". Space uses the threat that Cole might get a part that was supposed to go to Lola to lure Lola back to Hollywood.
- Roman à Clef: It's largely a satirical portrait of the life of Clara Bow at the height of her stardom—Bow actually did leave the movies to get married and retire to the desert. However, other elements are clearly taken from Harlow's own life, such as the large dogs at her mansion and her mooching family members.
- Think of the Censors!: The Hays Code is specifically mentioned as the reason why Lola has to do retakes for Red Dust. Apparently she showed too much skin before.
- Title Drop: A bandleader at the Coconut Grove says "I see the beautiful Lola Burns, the bombshell herself."
- Worst News Judgment Ever: Lola's boyfriend getting arrested by Immigration makes the front page of the newspaper.
