A glamorous film star rebels against the studio, her pushy press agent and a family of hangers-on.
Lola Burns is at the top of the pile in Hollywood. But life ain't easy, what with her father and brother always hanging around for handouts, and devious studio publicity honcho Space Hanlon cooking up endless lurid newspaper stories. Makes a girl want to give up pictures.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Your hair is like a field of silver daisies, a rhapsodic suitor tells Tinseltown megastar Lola Burns. I'd like to run barefoot through your hair. In her signature comedy, Jean Harlow shimmers and smolders as Lola, whose life is a dizzy whirlpool of studio expectations, adoring fans, familial leeches and most of all, a firecracker of a freewheeling press agent (Lee Tracy) who'd do handsprings through a minefield if it would keep Lola's name in the tabloids. But Lola is ready to provide a final headline herself. She's quitting the biz. Leaving. Abandoning the sham and the glam for the pitter-patter of tiny feet. Can Hollywood and a certain P.R. flack prevent it? Under the assured yet nimble direction of Victor Fleming (Red Dust), explosive laughter is in store with the comedy Bombshell.
Lola Burns is arguably the most beautiful, famous and temperamental movie star in Hollywood. She is constantly surrounded by her entourage. Included within this group are her personal secretary, her father and her brother who want their pound of flesh from the famous Lola. It also includes a corral of beaus and wannabe beaus. But her best friend and her worst enemy is Space Hanlon, the studio publicist who is jealous of all the other men in Lola's life. Space created "Lola Burns", the "Hollywood Bombshell" as the public refers to her. Space's approach to his job seemingly is the old motto that no publicity is bad publicity. The publicity that he develops for Lola primarily leans toward the salacious. Lola, getting tired of being treated solely as a studio commodity, contemplates giving up her movie career. Her resolve in this direction is strengthened when she meets Gifford Middleton of the Boston Middletons. Space's spin machine hasn't even managed to penetrate the shell of the upper crust Middletons, who have never heard of Lola. As such, Gifford loves Lola for who she really is. Space will do whatever he needs to to protect his job, and regain his favorite client and his true love.—Huggo
On a typical morning, movie star Lola Burns, known to her fans as the "Blonde Bombshell," is besieged by the demands of both her free-loading family and her studio's publicity department, which is headed by the incorrigible E. J. "Space" Hanlon. In addition, Lola is told that, because of the whims of the Hays Office, she must abandon her new film and shoot retakes for her last project, Red Dust . While frantically learning her new dialogue, Lola confronts Space about his recent spate of scandalous publicity concerning her love life. After Space glibly informs Lola that scandal is what her adoring public wants, film director Jim Brogan, a recently divorced former lover of Lola's, shows up in her dressing room, anxious to become reacquainted. During the day's shooting, Marquis Hugo, Lola's current lover, whom Space jealousy had tried to keep off the set, begins to fight with an equally jealous Brogan. By pretending to be both Hugo's and Brogan's supporter, Space ends the conflict, temporarily dispelling Lola's disapproval.
That night at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, Space arranges for Hugo to be arrested for immigration violations, but convinces Lola that he was not involved in the affair. When Lola immediately sees a newspaper headline announcing Hugo's arrest, however, she deduces Space's subterfuge and, once again, denounces him. Anxious to get Hugo out of jail, Lola, whose alcoholic father and gambling brother Junior regularly deplete her money supply, telephones Brogan and, without revealing her true intentions, asks him for a $3,000 loan. Lola then writes a letter to the studio head demanding that Space be fired. To placate the star, Space rushes to her house and, while feigning shame, tells her that as his last publicity act, he has brought a writer from the Ladies Home Companion to interview her. Touched by Space's gesture, Lola notifies the studio head to ignore her letter, then gives a "girl-next-door" interview to the matronly Companion writer. When the writer suggests that she might be more fulfilled if she were a mother, Lola becomes instantly obsessed with the idea of motherhood and tells Brogan, who had stopped payment on the Hugo's bail check when he learned for whom the money was intended, that she wants to marry and have babies.
Terrified by the suggestion, Brogan snidely advises Lola to adopt a baby from the orphanage on a thirty-day trial basis. To Brogan's surprise, Lola takes his recommendation to heart and picks out a baby boy from the local orphanage. When Space is asked by reporters if the rumor that Lola is pregnant is true, the publicist rushes to the Burns's house in a panic. After he learns about the adoption, Space arranges for a gang of reporters as well as Hugo and his lawyer, who are suing Brogan, to converge on Lola's house at the same time that the orphanage women are to conduct their interview with the actress. In spite of her desperate attempts to convince the orphanage women that she would make a good mother, Lola's chances are sabotaged by both the untimely return of her drunken brother and the brawl that breaks out between Brogan and Hugo. Lola then overhears Space consulting with the reporters about the scandal and, in her fury, condemns not only Space, but her family and secretary as well. After announcing that she is through with pictures, Lola drops from sight but is eventually tracked to a desert resort by Space.
While Space teases her with studio casting talk, Lola is romanced by Gifford Middleton, a Boston "blue blood" who is oblivious to her movie star status. Taken with Gifford's florid flattery, Lola accepts his marriage proposal and prepares to meet his parents the next morning. Just as her meeting with the proper Middletons begins, Lola's father and brother, having been alerted by Space as to Lola's whereabouts, arrive at the resort. While her family disarms the Middletons with their boorish behavior, a little girl asks Lola for an autograph. Shocked by their discovery that Lola is "that actress" around whom so much scandal has circulated, the Middletons, including Gifford, declare her unfit to be a daughter-in-law. Angry and hurt by the rejection, Lola tells Space she is returning to Hollywood to resume her career, unaware that the Middletons are stage actors who were hired by Space. Back at the movie studio, Lola embraces Space and is about to confess her love when she overhears the Middletons arguing about their acting careers outside her dressing room. Thus exposed, Space endures Lola's ensuing but loving wrath as he rides with her to the set.
