When a showgirl sues Michael Schuyler (Donald Dillaway), part of a very prominent social family, for breach of promise, reporter Stew Smith (Robert Williams) is sent to cover the story. The Schuyler family desperately wants to keep the scandal out of the papers, so they try bribing the reporters to not cover the story. Ann Schuyler (Jean Harlow) also tries to charm him out of running the story, but Stew is one reporter who can’t be bought and runs the story anyway.
After the scandal hits the papers, Stew stops by the Schuyler estate. Not to apologize, but to return a book he had taken with him while he was there. Inside of it, he found some love letters the show girl was planning to use to blackmail Michael into giving her more money, and he knew the family would want those back. Stew knows the difference between news and blackmail and doesn’t want any part of the latter. Ann offers him a $5,000 reward, but he turns it down and the two of them end up having lunch together.
Ann and Stew get along very well and continue seeing each other. They very quickly elope, to the shock of everyone, especially Gallagher (Loretta Young), Stew’s best friend and secret admirer. Ann’s family disapproves of her marrying someone from a lower class, but she reassures them that she’s going to turn him into the perfect gentleman. Many of Stew’s friends give him a hard time about being a kept man. He wants Ann to move into his apartment and they can live off of his salary, but instead, they end up living in a wing of the Schuyler family estate and Stew has a very hard time adjusting to Ann’s way of life.
Stew and Ann’s worlds collide during a party the Schuylers throw for a Spanish embassador. Gallagher is sent to cover the story for the paper and Ann isn’t happy to discover that her husband’s best friend is a woman. Not only that, when a rival reporter shows up to offer Stew his own column under the condition that he uses the byline “Ann Schuyler’s Husband,” Stew punches the reporter. Sure enough, the fight lands them on the front page of the paper.
The Schuylers are absolutely horrified by the whole event, but Ann sticks by Stew and encourages him to write a play. One night, Stew skips one of Ann’s many society events to work on the play. But when he needs a little inspiration, he invites Gallagher and some of his other friends to come over, and before he knows it, there’s a wild party going on. Despite all the crazy antics going on around them, Gallagher and Stew manage to come up with the idea of doing a play about his marriage. However, when the Schuylers come home, they aren’t happy about his little party. Ann gets into a fight with Stew and he decides he wants out of this marriage. He ends up back in his old apartment and finishing his play with Gallagher by his side.
I really loved Platinum Blonde, despite its forced ending. However, the title felt a little inappropriate to me. The first time I saw it, with a title like that, I was expecting a madcap comedy like Bombshell. In reality, it’s a smart look at the power of social class differences that’s more on the witty side than the madcap. Frank Capra’s direction and a strong script serve as a rock-solid foundation for Harlow, Williams, Young, and a delightful supporting cast to bring it to an even higher level.
I absolutely adored Robert Williams in it, who unfortunately died a short time after Platinum Blonde was released. He only made a handful of movies during his life and showed great promise in Platinum Blonde, it’s really too bad that he didn’t get to have a more prolific film career.
