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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1953, Movie, NR, 91 mins

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Review

Garish good fun. The film version of Anita Loos's Broadway musical has scrapped the 1920s plot and most of the songs. If the plot of vacationing showgirls--one out for money, the other for love--sometimes lags in director Hawks's hands, it's compensated by a genuine sentiment and sweetness, the ironic and witty use of sex-symbol stereotypes, and the reduction of males to foils for the affectionate wisecracks traded by the femme leads. Both Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe act with the confidence of whales; it's the last time in Monroe's career you feel sure watching her work. In a way Russell steals BLONDES. She's certainly more at home in gaudy territory, and her Dorothy is loving and supervisory of Monroe's Lorelei at the same time. Certainly, BLONDES proves Russell's knockout instinct for deadpan sarcasm, rare among pin-up girls. BLONDES exploits her whole sex-symbol-as-earth-mom persona more than any of her films. An inferior sequel, GENTLEMEN MARRY BRUNETTES followed in 1955. leave a comment