Why I love Jean Harlow’s per­for­mance in Wife vs Secretary

Jean Harlow’s mys­tique exists in the sweet spot between glam­orous and sala­cious. Her lega­cy is that of the orig­i­nal Hol­ly­wood bomb­shell, arous­ing images of state­ment eye­brows framed by per­fect curls and satin gowns cut per­ilous­ly close to the navel. But it is also the kind where suc­cess is flanked by tragedy, cement­ed by her untime­ly death from kid­ney fail­ure aged just 26.

On screen, Har­low was every­thing the stu­dio sys­tem PR machine pur­port­ed her to be: a beau­ti­ful blonde with a keen sense for bawdy com­e­dy and an hour­glass fig­ure that delight­ed male movie­go­ers and the MGM cos­tume depart­ment alike. How­ev­er, across a career span­ning nine short years, the women she played – with sel­dom excep­tion – were sim­mer­ing vamps, the­atri­cal­ly dim-wit­ted and far removed from the real Har­low. Think of Red Dust’s infa­mous pre-Code bathing scene that osten­si­bly required Har­low to appear com­plete­ly naked, or the steady stream of jokes per­tain­ing only to her character’s van­i­ty and lack of intel­lect in Din­ner at Eight.

It was a pub­lic per­sona engi­neered by the first gen­er­a­tion of Hol­ly­wood prof­i­teers she came to loathe. So when Clarence Brown’s 1936 roman­tic com­e­dy Wife vs Sec­re­tary appeared on her radar, Har­low cam­paigned for the role of Clark Gable’s ami­able per­son­al assis­tant Helen ​“Whitey” Wil­son, shrewd­ly real­is­ing it was a chance to show­case her act­ing chops, rather than her curves and abil­i­ty to crack wise.

Aside from Harlow’s refined per­for­mance, Wife vs Sec­re­tary is an aver­age pic­ture, mired by an over­ar­ch­ing work­place sto­ry­line that is nowhere near as com­pelling as Gable game­ly tries to make it. He plays Van Stan­hope, a pub­lish­ing mag­nate nav­i­gat­ing both the mag­a­zine busi­ness and inti­mate rela­tion­ships with sophis­ti­cat­ed wife Lin­da (Myr­na Loy) and the dot­ing Whitey.

Based on the mad­den­ing assump­tion that an attrac­tive woman will even­tu­al­ly weaponise her looks to ensnare a defence­less man of her choos­ing, Lin­da is con­vinced by her med­dling moth­er-in-law that Whitey is hot for her hus­band. As Whitey’s boyfriend Dave (a baby-faced James Stew­art) wise­ly notes dur­ing the film’s coda, ​“Don’t look for trou­ble where there isn’t any, because if you don’t find it, you’ll make it.”

When we first meet Whitey, she is atop a lad­der hang­ing a framed car­i­ca­ture of Van in their shared office – the kind that you might have found lin­ing the walls of old school celebri­ty haunts around Los Ange­les at the time. She is lumi­nous but dressed con­ser­v­a­tive­ly in a stream­lined calf-length dress and low heels. Unaware that he has entered the room, she stud­ies the pic­ture and won­ders aloud, ​“Maybe I’ve been with him too long, but he must be bet­ter look­ing than that?!” It is the first indi­ca­tor of Van and Whitey’s dynam­ic – play­ful but lived-in – and Gable and Harlow’s easy chem­istry ele­vates their arc. This was their fifth in a total of six col­lab­o­ra­tions and there is a pal­pa­ble mutu­al affec­tion between them.

Every­thing about her per­for­mance is con­trolled, buoyed by a sweet effer­ves­cence that is arguably more effec­tive than the brassy quips and dou­ble enten­dres fans had come to expect from a Jean Har­low pic­ture. Wife vs Sec­re­tary is not an out­right screw­ball com­e­dy, but the joy­ful way she plays those beats with Van are wel­come moments of light­ness. It is endear­ing to see a male/​female rela­tion­ship in a clas­sic Hol­ly­wood movie based on mutu­al respect and friend­ship first, rather than sex­u­al attrac­tion. So too for a female char­ac­ter to be so career focused that she turns down a mar­riage pro­pos­al from her para­mour due to the anti­quat­ed caveat that she must resign first.

Anoth­er lay­er that Har­low brings to Whitey is an awk­ward­ness that man­i­fests in her phys­i­cal­i­ty. When she is called to Van and Linda’s high soci­ety par­ty for work pur­pos­es, Whitey is vis­i­bly uncom­fort­able in the lav­ish envi­ron­ment; shoul­ders hunched, fid­dling with her fur coat and fan­cy dress. She laughs off Van’s eye roll-induc­ing sug­ges­tion that she should wear this kind of attire to the office and ignores the unso­licit­ed atten­tion of male guests, dis­in­ter­est­ed in any grav­i­tas afford­ed to good looks.

Whitey’s loy­al­ty to Van only reads as attrac­tion towards to end of the film, when the pair are thrown togeth­er on a busi­ness trip to Havana. There is a gor­geous moment where she sits alone in the hotel bar and ten­der­ly observes a cou­ple at the next table flirt and begin to slow dance. Harlow’s face says every­thing, con­vey­ing a long­ing to be romanced like this. She is elat­ed when Van arrives to keep her com­pa­ny but he then pro­ceeds to get stag­ger­ing­ly drunk. When Whitey walks him back to his hotel room, we see con­flict pool­ing in her glassy eyes. But there is no act of seduc­tion or ine­bri­at­ed mis­takes made, only a few word­less min­utes of intense eye con­tact before they go their sep­a­rate ways.

The inevitable third act con­flict leaves Lin­da dev­as­tat­ed when she tele­phones Van’s room at 2am, only to hear Whitey’s voice on the oth­er end, as they are still hard at work. This leads to the film’s most grip­ping scene, Loy and Har­low shar­ing the screen in a show­down that is more nuanced than your typ­i­cal ​’30s melo­dra­ma thanks to the choic­es Har­low makes. Whitey, qui­et and col­lect­ed, makes it known to Lin­da that she does indeed have feel­ings for Van but tells her plain­ly that if she leaves him, she is a fool. Moral­ly, the view­er should not be on Whitey’s side, but it is impos­si­ble not to be as we watch heart­break envel­op Harlow’s entire body, leav­ing us want­i­ng only good things for the character.

It is no acci­dent that the film ends with Har­low, its strongest play­er. Dave, real­is­ing his pig­head­ed­ness, begs Whitey’s for­give­ness in the imme­di­ate after­math of Van and Lin­da reunit­ing. It is here, nes­tled next to Jim­my Stew­art in a tight reac­tion shot in the back of a car, that yields a stir­ring pow­er not typ­i­cal­ly ascribed to Har­low or the char­ac­ters in her oeu­vre. Wife vs Sec­re­tary might not be Jean Harlow’s most mem­o­rable out­ing, but it is the one that lets us know bomb­shell sta­tus was hard­ly her rai­son d’etre – her craft was.