Red-Headed Woman (1932)

In the era where film studios attempted to censor themselves, in hope to avoid any kind of federal intervention in the realm of decency of the art of motion pictures, many films tried to think of creative ways for producing more risque material without being blatant. Others tested those lines much harder than others. The sexy starlet Jean Harlow would do just that in Jack Conway's Red-Headed Woman. At a time when talk about sex was kept under wraps in motion pictures, this film goes out and makes sex the prime subject of the plot. Not that sex was show, or even mentioned, but rather it was so heavily implied and used as a manipulative tool by the protagonist, played by Harlow, to do the things she would want to do. This film would struggle with censorship and intrigue audiences in the early 1930s, leading to one very interesting film.

Red-Headed Woman is the story about a young female who sleeps her way up social ladders, stopping at nothing to become, in her mind, the greatest socialite her town would know. Lillian (Harlow) is a young redhead who intentionally seduces her boss, Bill Legendre (Chester Morris), to help boost her status at work, ultimately ending Bill's loving relationship with his much loved wife Irene (Leila Hyams) and marrying Lil. High society does not take kind to Lil, seeing her as a home wrecker, so Lil's solution to that is to get even higher seducing Bill biggest customer and one of the wealthiest men in the nation, the coal magnate Charles Gaerste (Henry Stephenson). Lil would take a temporary separation from her new husband Bill to be with Gaerste, only to be discovered that Lil is having yet another affair with Gaerste's chauffeur Albert (Charles Boyer). This damning news would send Lil fleeing the country from the humiliation as she would go to strike her next prey in Europe. And let it be know that Bill and Irene do reconcile and remarry after his shunning of his moment of weakness with Lil, giving the film a happy ending despite all the affairs that take place.

The picture is beyond much anything I can say I've seen during this period in American cinema. We have viewed many films that have talked about sex in the previous years. Maybe not directly, but definitely alluding to it, playing with terms and visuals that implied the discussion of sex or actions prior to or following the acts of love making. We have seen, sex appeal, or "it" as it would be refereed to numerous times over. We have seen appealing women obviously seducing men into actions that associate lust, but here, with Red-Headed Woman, I must say, we have something completely different. Here sex, though not shown or even alluded to in direct conversion is the subject that drives the motion picture's plot as Lillian uses men for her own personal gain. She intentionally seduces men, breaks up a marriage, all to blackmail them to a higher status in life, giving her a unique angle in American cinema as a woman protagonist whose weapon is taboo in pop culture. It is a very contemporary story looking at it decades later, but to have this come from an age where this kind of thing was not permitted on film is just so different at that time.

Based off of a novel written by Katherine Brush, it is a mystery how director Jack Conway or MGM even thought that they would be able to produce this picture and get it past the censors. The Hay's code, the self implied censor board put in place, obviously made the subject of sex a very taboo subject, and extra marital affairs never a thing that would carried out in a film. By this code wrong doers were not to be seen without being punished for their actions. Now the male characters in the film were deeply remorseful right away and repented for their affairs, but Lil on the other hand was manipulative and unremorseful for her seductions. In the end Lil doesn't necessarily pay for her actions though it is manifested that she is never truly happy. Lil schemes her plans of attack against her men knowing it will ruin their happy lives. To make the film even more taboo, there is even a short glimpse of nudity from Harlow as her bare breast is flashed on screen for a split second. This was due to a slight mistake in camera movement that was to only pan over the forbidden body parts and not actually record them. These are subjects that the Hays code would never stand for in distribution making it a serious subject of controversy at its time in cinema.

Once the film was shot and edited it was, of course, hit heavily by the censors, refusing the right for the picture to be exhibited without major cuts. The producers gave in making seventeen major cuts to the film that would allow it to be screened in the US. The original uncut film was forbidden to be shown in many places including in the UK until where the movie was banned until 1965. Despite the cuts, there was a major buzz about the film, creating with it a box office success. Despite the good numbers there were a large number of complaints about the major edits, but the talk around it still brought people to theaters. Many members of the cast enjoyed the little bit of screen success the film brought, with the picture continuing to add to the lore or Jean Harlow in her prime years as one of Hollywood's seductive actresses. Many of the cast members would go on to long fruitfull careers in the business for decades after, including Charles Boyer, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Henry Stephenson, and Una Merkel.

The history of Red-Headed Woman gives us a glimpse into the world of movie censorship in the 30s and how sensitive the subject matter of seduction and sin were handled. Despite major editing to the original movie today we are able to view the movie in its entirety uncut as intended and realize how stories have changed when presented on the screen. Today's audience may not find the movie as risque, as the subject matter of a woman blackmailing a man over an affair would be ahead of its time in motion picture storytelling. In time tastes and censors would change, allowing this kind of story to be made many times over. Today such a story can be seen as common place as a storyline on daytime television or even prime time dramas, as well as on the big screen, making the subject matter more exposed to the mass population. Red-Headed Woman is good movie about seduction and blackmail that one could appreciate for the time it was released being beyond different from its counterparts. It is a piece of once forbidden Hollywood history.