Musical Watch: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Watched:  03/14/2025

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Howard Hawks

It had been a minute since I'd watched Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), one of those movies they used to play more often on TCM and where I'd just stop and usually watch it from wherever I came in.  It's still a favorite.  

No doubt the movie's gender politics play badly for The Youth, but in context, this is a movie about two women on either side of the coin - asking whether one pursues money or not when it comes to matrimony and romance.  And, in 1953, we are very much still in an era where a marriage is going to make or break the vast majority of women.  We're only a handful of decades from women being able to vote, and they still can't have their own credit cards.  

The gag, of course, is do you play the men?  And, if so, how?  

The movie is very loosely based on a 1949 musical, which, in turn, was based on the second best-selling book of 1926 - so thinking about the flapper era, some of this makes a wee bit more sense in that cultural context.  And while much is similar, plenty is different from both the book and musical.  But it is *likely* that adults seeing this movie in 1953 would see this as "oh, they made a movie of that book".  In our lifetime the movie is detached from the other cultural touchpoints (the book, the comic strip!, the 1920's play or the separate 1949 play, or the silent movie), and remembered for launching Monroe to her final echelon of stardom and reminding folks that Jane Russell is an excellent idea.

I think the thing is - if you're looking from the outside at the film, you're going to assume that this is a movie about ogling Russell and Monroe.  But that's for the men *in* the movie.  This is a movie with two lead women who are true best buds, just with a difference of opinion about who to romance.  They *know* what they look like, and know its their only advantage as two girls from Little Rock trying to make it.  But it also doesn't make them stupid.  Rather, this is about outwitting the men underestimating an underdog - and in that, you can feel the Broadway DNA in the story.

Anyway, if you've not seen it, it's very watchable.  It's funny, ridiculous and has some terrific musical numbers, not the least of which is "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" (spot the part where Monroe's hair is messed up and wonder why they used that shot.  I always do.).  The film's palette and wardrobe is iconic, and a lot of the gags are timeless.  

Mostly, I think it stars two of the best talents of their era - the established Jane Russell and the soon-to-be-a-legend Marilyn Monroe.  And it's a showcase and argument for why both still have their fans 70-something years later.

By the way, apparently the actual literal reason the original was called Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is kind of lost in this movie, but it is what you think it is.  The idea is that someone like Jane Russell would get passed up for Monroe based solely on a preference for hair color, and that lets blondes get away with whatever they want.  Which is kind of in the film, but not really.  By 1953 I'd guess the title was just enough in the zeitgeist that folks would overlay that idea into the film.