Monday 3rd JUNE   2002

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

Starring in this gaudy Technicolor drama are Jane Russell and a young Marilyn Monroe. Although second billed, Monroe as the gold digging Lorelei Lee is the real star.Her immortal pink-opera-gloved showstopper rendition of"Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend"is certainly the best song she ever did, at least in a film. It set a pattern for her roles: the ditzy, greedy blonde bimbo. Gentlemen may prefer blondes, but this blonde bombshell prefers diamonds, and lots of them! Russell is not to be outdone though,with a sexy & very funny number in which she disguises herself as Monroe (complete with black opera gloves) to fool a French courtroom. 

A glamorous showgirl engaged to a wealthy, boring beau  sets sail for France to evade his father  who is intent on stopping the union. Along to keep her dizzy friend’s excessive tendencies in check, Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) is Lorelei’s levelheaded singing partner & friend. She thinks Lorelei  (who has a creepy habit of referring to her boyfriend as “Daddy”) needs to find something other than money to love in a man, while Lorelei believes that Dorothy should be more materialistic. Much of the film takes place on the boat to France, where they encounter a series of men & have a generally wild time before reality sets in on the continent, interfering with Lorelei’s plans, and the duo must set things right. 

  Light-hearted  escapist fare; slick & frothy with a thin plot, but  some charm.   Hawks, master of films of masculine adventure,  seems an unlikely candidate to direct a big budget musical. Indeed, auteur critics have long attempted, for the most part unsuccessfully, to fit the film into the master's canon. According  to Todd McCarthy's biography, Hawks kept away from the  musical numbers,allowing them to be directed by choreographer Jack Cole.          

            Charles Coburn, as the rich old codger who becomes the center of Monroe's mercenary attention, is a hoot. The other men  however are  by any reasonable standard a dull lot and will be nameless here. To cite McCarthy, Hawks's recent films had all dealt to some extent "with the frustration & emasculation of the male lead, but here they (sic) are like toy popguns opposite the double-barreled dames."  McCarthy may not have his pronoun reference  correct, but he has the right idea.  Hawks himself is said to have preferred more subtle women.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes began as a 1925 novel by Anita Loos, a wisecracking dame who made a name writing scenarios in the silent period. Loos & husband John Emerson transformed it into a play a year later. Comedy director Mal St. Clair directed a 1928 silent version written by Emerson & Herman J. Mankiewicz (Citizen Kane) . In 1949, the play was recast as a successful musical which made a star of Carol Channing.

"Pardon me, please, is this the boat to Europe, France?"

" if a girl is spending all of her time worrying about the money that she doesn't have... how is she going to have time for being in love? I want you to find happiness and stop having fun." 

- Lorelei Lee

 http://us.imdb.com/Trailers?0045810

MARILYN MONROE:

 BEYOND THE LEGEND 

(1986)
   Award-winning look at the talented & beautiful MARILYN MONROE (1926 - 1962). This survey does not dwell on her private life,  but concentrates on the development of her star persona, with excerpts from some of her great moments on film - GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953), HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953), SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959), THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955), BUS STOP (1956), THE MISFITS (1961) - and more. Here too are the earliest films, home-movies, rare archival footage, & recollections from those who knew her, including DON MURRAY, SUSAN STRASBERG, SHELLEY WINTERS, CELESTE HOLM, SHEREE NORTH (one-time "protégée" of wacko HOWARD HUGHES), seen recently at SPLODGE! in EXCUSE MY DUST [1951] ), JOSHUA LOGAN & ROBERT MITCHUM. "This fine film looks at the brighter side of the Monroe story: her charm,talent, & fighting spirit." -Wall Street Journal. "An appreciation of a radiant  actress and the complicated young woman who worked so hard to put across that sense of wonder & delight that beguiled the world." -TimesPicayune. "Treats Marilyn's career with dignity, tact: not once in this commendable  documentary do you hear the words "Kennedy," "barbiturate" or "suicide." Instead of rehashing her political liaisons, drug use and other affairs of the heart & mind, film fans get a look at her brilliant career and what made her one of the best-ever." Miami News.   Prod Co:Wombat Productions/ Devillier-Donegan Enterprises. Dir: Gene Feldman. Prod, scr: Gene Feldman,Suzette Winter. Narr: Richard Widmark. 60 mins. NFVLS.

FIVE TIMES MARILYN (1973)

 A brief, excised segment from two MARILYN MONROE 'nudies' from the early 'forties (when she was about 19) is accompanied by the song I'M THROUGH WITH LOVE, ( which she sings in SOME LIKE IT HOT [1959] ), and repeated five times. (There is some dispute as to whether the woman in the extract is Marilyn; - Conner insists that she IS the Real Monroe.) The voyeurism is relentless.  http://cs.art.rmit.edu.au/projects/media/cteq/v1/FiveTimesMarilyn.html

Filmmaker: Bruce Conner. Song: I'M THROUGH WITH LOVE, by J. A . Livingston, Matt Malneck, Gus Kahn, sung by MARILYN MONROE . 13 mins. NFVLS.

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