Jean Harlow is the "bombshell" of the title, a popular movie actress named Lola. Though she seemingly has everything a girl could possibly want, Lola is fed up with her sponging relatives, her "work til you drop" studio, and the nonsensical publicity campaigns conducted by press agent Lee Tracy. She tries to escape Hollywood by marrying a titled foreign nobleman, but Tracy has the poor guy arrested as an illegal alien. Finally Lola finds what she thinks is perfect love in the arms of aristocratic Franchot Tone, but she renounces Tone when his snooty father C. Aubrey Smith looks down his nose at Lola and her profession. Upon discovering that Tone and his entire family were actors hired by Tracy, Lola goes ballistic--until she realizes that Tracy, for all his bluff and chicanery, is the man who truly loves her. Allegedly based on the career of Clara Bow (who, like Lola, had a parasitic family and a duplicitous private secretary),
Bombshell
is a prime example of Jean Harlow at her comic best. So as not to mislead audiences into thinking this was a war picture, MGM retitled the film
Blonde Bombshell
for its initial run.