David Stenn

Reckless positions Mona between Ned and a frequently drunk Southern heir played by Franchot Tone, a member of Libby's extended social circle who knew Smith and alternately plays him as a puffed-up drunk or moody child.

Harlow biographer David Stenn quotes David O. Selznick, who back when this was thought of as a Joan Crawford vehicle, wrote the story under a pseudonym as saying, "I certainly never would have planned a musical for Jean Harlow." Though Harlow was incapable of doing her own singing and dancing, which were doubled by Virginia Verrill and Betty Halsey, respectively, for me, the musical numbers are a highlight of Reckless.

Director Victor Fleming, undersung for his visual ingenuity, dissolves on Harlow's swirling skirts to replace the star with her stunt feet, then dissolves back to Harlow again as the camera pans up to her face.

This movie, whose relationship to reality is largely summed up by its title, leaves little doubt that Smith's death was suicide, which was not the most sensitive thing to have Harlow play three years after her own husband, Paul Bern, was found dead of what most believed was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.