Red-Headed Woman (1932)

(On Cable TV, October 2020) If you want a full-blown illustration of where Hollywood cinema was headed in the pre-Code era, go no farther than Red-Headed Woman, a salacious drama in which our heroine systematically goes about improving her social position by seducing increasingly important men, all the way to a climax where she tries to gun down the man she once seduced because he dared reconcile with his ex-wife. Jean Harlow is ferocious in the title role, clearly announcing her bombshell status of later years. There is a little bit of comedy to the proceedings, but Red-Headed Woman really is about shocking mainstream audiences, and it still does—despite some much-harsher material in the intervening years.