Claudio Carvalho In Renwood, the promiscuous and hot golf digger Lillian "Lil" (Jean Harlow) lives with her friend Sally (Una Merkel) in a poor neighborhood. She works for the Legendre Company with the only intention of seducing her boss William "Bill" Legendre (Chester Morris). When his beloved wife Irene "Rene" Legendre (Leila Hyams) travels to Cleveland with her Aunt Jane (May Robson), Lil takes his correspondence from his secretary and uses it as a pretext to go to his house. Then she uses sex to seduce Bill, but Rene unexpectedly returns home and finds them together. Lil succeeds in destroying Bill's marriage and he divorces Rene and marries her. When the powerful businessman of coal Charles B. Gaerste (Henry Stephenson) comes from New York to Renwood in a business trip, Lil has a love affair with him. Then she travels alone to New York and becomes his mistress. But Bill's father William "Will" Legendre (Lewis Stone) is not naive and plots a scheme to help his son."Red-Headed Woman" is an American comedy ahead of time, or Pre-Hays Code, the moral censorship guidelines that ruled Hollywood from 1930 to 1968. The plot is about the love affairs of a sexy and vulgar red haired gold digger. Jean Harlow is very funny in the role of an ambitious gold digger. Charles Boyer has a minor but also funny performance in the role of her lover Albert. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Mulher Parisiense dos Cabelos de Fogo" ("The Fire Haired Parisian Woman")

evanston_dad Jean Harlow plays a gold digger determined not to get stuck on the wrong side of the tracks and goes through men like tissues in an attempt to land a sugar daddy in "Red-Headed Woman."I've long since accepted that to watch a Jean Harlow movie you just simply have to agree to disagree with seemingly every moviegoer from the 1930s about Harlow's appeal. She was hot stuff back then, a fact that is nearly inexplicable to me now. In a role like this, when she's basically a slut, I can accept that men would want to have sex with her, despite the fact that she's actually quite ugly and uber-annoying to boot (ugh, that baby talk!) But that every man who comes across her would also want to dump his wife to marry her? That is pretty much impossible for me to get my head around.Though I will say that Harlow looks much more attractive with red hair than she does with that awful platinum blonde thing she sports in most of her movies. And while I don't find her remotely attractive, there is something about her that commands the screen."Red-Headed Woman" is not the raciest pre-Code movie I've seen, but it does manage to give a newbie some indication of how pre-Code movies were different from the ones that would be released in the couple of decades following. A movie made even five years later would never dream of letting Harlow's character get what she wants in the end without atoning for her sins first.Grade: B+

ametaphysicalshark Boy, don't ever show this movie to a feminist. While I don't think it qualifies as 'misogynist'- it does have two strong female characters, however wicked one of them is, the movie has a brazen sexuality which familiarity with old Hollywood films wouldn't really lead you to think would be present in a 1932 film, but then again this was pre-code. Plus, the whole movie is about a wicked seductress who preys on the natural weaknesses of men, and by the time our protagonist beats her up after she 'asks for it' any extreme feminists watching would probably be preparing banners demanding the film be erased from archives and campaign for 'womyn''s rights more fervently than ever.On the other hand, they might think Jean Harlow's character in the film is an example of a great, strong womyn. Take everything I've said so far with a grain of salt, I'm just having a bit of fun. Back to the film. It's really quite good. Not very good, not great, but quite good. It's a (very) darkly humorous movie with some fun pre-code naughtiness and a sort of sexuality American movies wouldn't really have for quite some time to come after the pre-code era.I suppose some of it is supposed to work as drama, but it's hard to feel sorry for anyone other than the male lead's wife who has her home wrecked by Harlow's character. It's pretty good comedy though, fairly well-written and while the whole movie is sleazy relative to the time period it was made in and modern audiences' preconceived notions about Hollywood films at the time (or at least those that have no experience with the pre-code films), it's all done with a sort of overall class which works in the movie's favor. It's well-directed and a good production too. I don't agree with most that Jean Harlow is even remotely attractive, nor that she's really even all that good here (some of the more comic bits she really doesn't pull off), but the film is pretty good entertainment, I'd recommend it to anyone interested in pre-code Hollywood or if it's on TCM late one night or something and you've got nothing better to do.

ar656 I am a big fan of 30's movies. This one is not one of the best. It is very dated, and the behaviour of the characters is not very credible, not even considering what life was in the 30's. Actually, it is even more incredible if you consider this was happening in the 30's.Do not waste time on this one. It is not a comedy, it is not drama, and does not qualify as a parody. There are tons of better movies from that era. At times you feel bored, at times you cannot believe the film is asking you to believe the situation and the twists of the plot, and at times you know you are wasting your time.Try playing solitaire before watching this one: your time will be better spent.