Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) – 3/5

Marilyn money-grabber

„Gentlemen Prefer Blondes“ is an American film almost exclusively in the English language. It may be from the year 1953, which by the way means that the movie has its 70th anniversary this year, but it is in color and that is great and I personally would have found it less entertaining in b&w. Don’t be fooled by the black-and-white photos on imdb. Color certainly helps with comedy films and with musicals even more. I got to watch this film not because of its anniversary, but on the occasion of a Marilyn Monroe retrospective. The director is Howard Hawks (not Hughes) and this is the second and more known from the two films that he made in 1952/1953 with Marilyn Monroe at the center of the story. Or her character. Other than that, Hughes is mostly known for his western films nowadays, but quite some variety genre-wise in his body of work. This film we have here is evidence of that. At slightly over 1.5 hours, this is not a long film by any means. Charles Lederer are the writers here and their careers look similar. Pretty prolific overall, but they did not manage to score Oscar nominations, but still worked on some stuff that is far from forgotten today. The third writer is Anita Loos and also for her this might be the most famous work of her career. She is the one who wrote the book that this film is based on. Overall, she has almost 150 writing credits to her body of work and that is quite something for a female writer from this era. Highly impressive and this deserves a mention and some praise unlike female filmmakers being praised in 2023 because they are female and nobody cares if their work is any good. That is another story though.

Let’s look at the cast now: I already mentioned Monroe and she is of course the huge star here, but I also really want to mention her co-lead Jane Russell, who was five years older than Monroe, but as I am somebody who usually is into brunettes rather than blondes, I was definitely more into her than Monroe here. Her character was also far more likable. Russell also reached almost twice the age that Monroe did. We all know about the latter’s untimely death. At the same time, this also makes it a bit sad to see that Russell only appeared in 33 film and television projects, which is the exact same number for Monroe who had considerably less years for that though. The only bit of awards recognition for this film came for the writing. I guess it is okay. The WGA nominated Lederer for the screenplay, which is often a good indicator to find some consideration at the Oscars too, but it was not meant to happen here. It is an alright film though, also thanks to the decent supporting cast. Charles Coburn was an Oscar winner already at that point of course and he lightened up the screen in terms of the entertainment factor every time he was on, not only when his head turned into a diamond. Interesting to see he is credited before the two protagonist’s romantic interests, but I guess it makes sense given his achievements and status. Story-wise, I am not so sure, especially not on terms of Russell’s character’s love interest. Monroe’s admittedly was out of them completely except at the beginning and end, so it makes sense there and he also does not have a baity moment where he leads the police or court officials to the actual criminal. I will not give you all the actors‘ names now, but feel free to check out the list for yourself.

There were a few pretty funny moments in here though. One was definitely when towards the end Monroe’s character says that she is not interested in her man’s money, but in her man’s father’s money. I am not sure how much of an intentionally comedic approach this was meant to be, but I really had to laugh there and so did many others in the audience. Her explanation what she means with that was interesting and smart though. She has a point there, which really goes against the idea of independent women now in the 21st century. But of course you want to see your dear ones provided for, being nicely taken care of. There is nothing wrong with that. Her comment immediately afterwards about being (not) smart was also pretty memorable, more linked to Monroe herself in this context than to her character. I liked it. Another fairly funny moment is when we see the very rich man actually being just a boy. With old films like this, I frequently say that sadly nobody is with us anymore nowadays and they just left us the memories, but I wish I could say something else here because age-wise George Winslow could very well still be with us, but truth is he is not. May he rest in peace too. He also played in the other Hawks/Monroe collaboration „Monkey Business“ and these two films may be the most known from his career. However, the cast list is so endless long, at least the unofficial list with all the uncredited actors (I wonder who dug all of them out), that I think it could be very possible that there are still some people alive from the shooting of this movie and if I remember correctly, there was even a scene with a bunch of other kids, who would also be under 80 now, so probably not everybody here has died. Would be interesting to hear and see them reflect on the shooting of this film and what it was like to act next to Monroe and the others, even if it was just a tiny role. I should maybe mention Russell too in this context, still a bit baffled she got first credit here, but anyway I must say that I am not a big fan of the title from this movie. It has almost no connection to the story at all and I also do not like that Monroe is put on a higher pedal compared to Russell this way, so yeah they should have gone with something else, but maybe the title made more sense in the original book and they just did not really get the meaning across in a good manner here.

Before I elaborate a bit on the for me by far best inclusion from this film, let me say that I also found it interesting that they picked somebody as Monroe’s love interest here who was not as handsome as maybe the male people she ran into in other films. The moment when she kisses him and how he reacts early on was pretty funny and over the top. But this lack of handsomeness perhaps also has to do with the idea of her being all about the money here and there was absolutely nothing despicable to that in the 1950s apparently, like as if you had to choose between a house and apartment, a Black and White man, a rich and poor man etc. It was just normal and up to everybody themselves. Nothing wrong there at all. I mean Monroe even makes out a bit with Coburn’s character here almost, that animal metaphor scene was quite funny, but Russell’s character’s comment about the ancient pyramids in Egypt was even more hilarious. Or how they were undressing the poor fella there to find his tape. This was actually a really clever inclusion. As an audience member, you would definitely think there is another background story to this man and that he is not really somebody who is spying on Monroe’s character ordered by her lover’s father to destroy his romantic relationship, but turns out he is indeed. I guess this justified the girls‘ actions there. It was also hilarious how somebody entered the scene while they undressed him and yes this film did hit the right notes comedy-wise for sure. I could mention many other examples. It was also interesting and unexpected how it turned into a courtroom drama towards the end, well musical dramedy let’s say, there was nothing too serious about that. The film took quite a few unexpected turns and I surely liked that.

But what I liked even more and what I meant when I was talking about the aforementioned best inclusion, the highlight of the film for me here is of course the music, or maybe not even all the music, but the famous song „Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend“. This number has lost none of its charm, even after all these years, decades even. Already the first notes when it was about to be performed by Monroe had me on the edge of my seat and I could not have been totally sure here if it was really happening because, of course I knew the song, but I did not remember it was part of this film and I came a bit late, so I did not hear the melody at the very beginning. But it happened and it happened with a bang. By far the best inclusion of the film. Monroe’s character’s man is told by another character to go there and watch to understand what is on his girl’s mind and this suggestion you could say was given to everybody in the crowd. People were getting their cameras out to take photos. Me included. I was not the only one who absolutely adored this sequence and I said I prefer Russell from the two here (even if that makes me a non-gentleman), but there is no way her performance of the same song was remotely as good and memorable as Monroe’s turn. It wasn’t bad either. Takes a special absence of talent for sure to turn this song into a poor performance, especially if you have a stage at your disposal. Almost impossible there. And the filmmakers here surely realized quickly how great this song is, so they had both leads to sing it and we also hear it again at the very end, pretty much the very last scene of the film and there it is performed by a choir and as I already stated, we already hear it very briefly at the beginning where it was the shape of things to come. Maybe you could call it overexposure, but it was really this good that I cannot complain that they used it this often. On the contrary, I rather complain about the Academy Awards that they did not nominate it even. I guess it was an original song written for this film, but honestly, how in the world could they ever have ignored or overlooked it. Such a travesty. Has to be one of the most glaring Oscar snubs of the 1950s. So yeah, the song is great, maybe even a perfect 10/10 that I really do not give out to often and the film is solid overall. I recommend checking it out. Thumbs-up also for the inclusion of the Olympics.