Apropos of yesterdays post featuring home movies (I think) of Jean Harlow in the early 30s, here’s documentary footage of the premiere of ‘Hells Angels’, Howard Hughes World War 1 aviation epic, in 1930. It was the first big time role of Harlow’s career which makes the announcers description of her as ‘beloved Jean Harlow’ a bit curiousp–she hadn’t yet had time to become beloved, had she? The premier is at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. and many stars of the day are in evidence–Gloria Swanson, Buster Keaton…oh, I don’t know, plenty more (I wasn’t taking notes when watching it). The antiquity of the footage–it’s ghostly black and white presence–is spooky and evocative; it’s like having a dream that you’ve time-traveled to a place that barely exists in the realm of reality, and that’s about to vanish once more into the thin air from whence it came…yes, I said ‘whence’. Wanna make something of it?