Teddie Blake
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Arianna Moses
Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Cristal
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
lugonian
THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1934), directed by Jack Conway, stars Jean Harlow, the girl actually from Missouri playing the fictional girl named Eadie from Missouri. In typical Depression era style story about gold diggers out to find rich husbands, THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI is no different from the others, but how it's played makes a difference from one movie to the next. While such gold digging types as Joan Blondell, Carole Lombard or many others might have handled similar assignment roles such as this, Jean Harlow does quite well in a light comedy with dramatic overtones. As the credits roll to the same underscoring that opened Harlow's earlier comedy success of BOMBSHELL (1933), the narrative opens at Mrs. Chapman's Hot Spot, the Best Beer in Missouri, where Edith "Eadie" Chapman (Jean Harlow) manages to sneak away from her unhappy existence of her loose-morals mother (Esther Howard) and unsympathetic stepfather (William "Stage Boyd), by packing up and going away with Kitty Lennihan (Patsy Kelly), her closest friend, on the first train leaving town for New York City. Later, Eadie and Kitty acquire jobs as chorus girls, but that's not enough. Eadie's ambition is to better herself, become somebody and marry a millionaire. Along with the group of chorus girls hired to entertain in the home of Frank Cousins (Lewis Stone) and his guests, Eadie makes a play for the elderly gentleman, unaware that he's broke and in desperate need of money himself. Unable to acquire financial help from millionaire businessman, Thomas Randolph Paige (Lionel Barrymore), Cousins kills himself. Before he dies, however, Cousins has earlier agreed to both an engagement to a girl he hardly knows as well as giving her his expensive gold cuff links as a gift. In fear of being arrested for having the cuff links found on her, she has Mr. Paige, whom she earlier mistook for a butler, to hide it for her from the police. Most appreciative of helping her out of a jam and offering her money, Eadie goes after Paige, president of T.R. Paige and Company, but her presence becomes too much for the elderly gentleman. Going to Palm Beach on a business trip, Eadie, who takes Kitty as her chaperon, follow suit. While waiting outside his office, Eadie is spotted by Paige's son, playboy Tommy Paige (Franchot Tone), who becomes her aggressor. When Mr. Paige discovers his son's love for this blonde chiseler and intends on marrying her, he does everything possible to break their engagement.Other members of the cast featured are Alan Mowbray (Lord Douglas); Hale Hamilton (Charles W. Turner); Henry Kolker (Senator Ticombe); Clara Blandick (Miss Newberry, Paige's Personal Secretary); and in smaller roles, Charles C. Wilson, Fuzzy Knight and Shirley Ross. Look quickly for Nat Pendleton as the lifeguard whom becomes Patsy Kelly's latest male prospectSurrounded by such veteran MGM contract players as Lionel Barrymore and Lewis Stone, along with the studio's up and coming Franchot Tone, in his second of four movies opposite Harlow, Patsy Kelly, as the second banana, gathers the most attention described as "the old-fashioned home girl like Mae West." Her wonderful presence and wisecracks are most welcome here. When she's not around in some long stretches, Harlow is on her own, ranging from finding herself a sort of Mae West situation making her presence known while on an all male yacht, to getting revenge on old man Paige for breaking up her engagement to his son. Franchot Tone, in one of his many millionaire playboy types, has his moments of keeping himself from "going cuckoo" from Eadie's charms before letting go and telling her how he really feels while both getting wet under a showerFollowing the box-office successes of RED DUST (1932), BOMBSHELL (1933) and DINNER AT EIGHT (1933), THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI (1934), although quite entertaining in its own way, is one of the most overlooked Harlow MGM movies in recent years. Interestingly her only 1934 release, she was to follow this with other developed classics, especially her finest, LIBELED LADY (1936), before her untimely death in June of 1937. Looking very much like a pre-code production, there's indication of how many scenes were changed and altered before the film would win the fade-in title card approval rating from the production code. One wonders how this 73 minute production might have turned out had it been released in theaters before the production code was strictly enforced. In present toned-down form, it's still enjoyable gold digger themed material after millionaire fluff story. Formerly available on home video in the 1990s, the decade when this long unseen comedy made it to some public television stations, THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI can be seen and studied either watching on DVD or whenever broadcast of Turner Classic Movies cable channel.(***)
mark.waltz
No matter how you slice it, she comes up Lorelei Lee. The names may be different, but Jean Harlow and Patsy Kelly are identical to the blonde and brunette heroines of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes". Instead of heading out to sea from the Big Apple, they pack their bags and head out of the mid-west hoping to take Manhattan (and its millionaires) by storm. Who better to play Anita Loos's lovable gold-digger than Jean Harlow? Unlike Marilyn Monroe's movie version of Lorelei, Harlow is closer to the stage incarnation of that character, here a tough girl who doesn't want to end up like her tired but still fairly young mother. She has morals, but like Lorelei believes it is better to fall in love with a rich man rather than a poor one, and ultimately gets more than her original intentions.The mannish Patsy Kelly is so delightfully funny (as well as touching) as Lorelei's pal, who like "Gentlemen Prefer Blonde's" Dorothy (Jane Russell on screen) isn't necessarily looking for gold, just love, sweet love. She flirts with every handsome blue collar worker she lays her eyes on, but is at Harlow's beck and call as every best pal should be, even if it interferes with her carnal activities. Her best line of wanting to be a nice home girl just like Mae West is a gem.Made just on the cusp of the unfortunate Hays code, there's still plenty of innuendo concerning sex, prostitution, infidelity and cocaine to go around. The basic story concerns Harlow's involvement in the missing cufflinks of the suicidal Lewis Stone and the scandal that breaks after she sets her eye on the wealthy Lionel Barrymore and later his son (Franchot Tone) whom she initially believes to be poor. "Auntie Em" Clara Blandick has some amusing moments as Barrymore's secretary (her quiet stares at the intrusive Harlow are hysterically funny, as is her light flirtation with Tone), while Nat Pendleton is raucous as one of Kelly's "conquests". Not as blatant as previous Harlow outings (particularly her gold-digging "Red Headed Woman"), it is still plenty juicy.
tnrcooper
Because the Hays Code was implemented during the production of this film, it has a bit of a contradictory plot - Harlow wants to have fun but she also insists that she has the highest morals. She and her friend Kitty (Patsy Kelly) have bolted Missouri for the East Coast where Eadie (Harlow) wants to hook a rich benefactor. She sets her eyes on the rich elder host of a party, Cousins (Lewis Stone) and he agrees to marry her. However, unbeknownst to Eadie, he has just been turned down for a large loan and will imminently kill himself. She then turns her attentions to TR Paige (Lionel Barrymore), a banking magnate, who isn't interested in her and can see through her games. His son TR Paige Jr. (Franchot Tone), is besotted with her and his dad thinks that if he gets burned by the money-grubber, he might learn something. Eadie shows herself to have a heart of gold and so the film doesn't turn out as the banking magnate might have foreseen it.Some great acting by Tone and Harlow steals every scene she is in. Barrymore is fantastic and effortless in his role. Kelly is very good as Eadie's frisky friend. An enjoyable way to spend 75 minutes.
csteidler
"I know my singing and dancing won't get me anywhere," Jean Harlow tells friend Patsy Kelly. "I'm gonna get married." Harlow is The Girl from Missouri, and in the picture's opening moments she and Patsy flee their depressing small town gin joint surroundings and head to the City, where they take jobs as chorus girls and set about finding men. Harlow is determined to find a rich husband; Patsy is just as interested in meeting doormen and lifeguards. Lionel Barrymore is excellent as T.R. Paige, a millionaire who has worked his way up from nothing himself and sees Harlow as a "platinum chiseler" after his son; Franchot Tone is also good as Tom Paige, the son of that wealth whose eager pursuit of Harlow inspires her distrust and his father's dismay. Will he propose to her? Will she accept him? Will Lionel accept her as a daughter-in-law? --All is complicated by Lionel's political ambitions and by a ring Harlow has fashioned from a pair of cufflinks.Patsy Kelly plays it (mostly) straight as Harlow's friend and companion, and gives a solid performance. Lewis Stone has one poignant scene early on as a ruined businessman. The funniest scene belongs to Nat Pendleton as a beefy lifeguard who, when called, pops up from behind a boat on the sand….Overall, though, it's Jean Harlow's show all the way—and she is charming, strong yet vulnerable, ultimately as tough and clever as Barrymore's political schemer and a match for Tone and his charming grin. No classic, but good fun.
