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Unless otherwise noted,
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    		•

    FILMS

    How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
  • Starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable

  • Directed by Jean Negulesco

    • I had an idea for a short story quite a few months ago that involved the rise, and inevitable fall, of a Hollywood starlet. I've finally gotten around to doing some real work on it when I realized that I had never seen a Marilyn Monroe film before—and my main character was going to be loosely (very loosely) based on Monroe. So I rented this one, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot.

    I love Lauren Bacall. She has that slightly smoky voice that, well, frankly you can't blame Humphrey Bogart for marrying her. And I was a bit surprised, in that, I found myself being rather impressed with Monroe. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the general feeling I had gotten (from various people who've watch Monroe on screen before, and either loved her or hated her) is that she had more beauty than acting ability. Granted, she wasn't performing neurosurgery and, to be honest, her part seemed like nothing more than a short series of walk-ons with one-liners—but she still managed to add a few quirks to her character, the near-sighted Pola. And next to Betty Grable's character, Monroe was a virtual Einstein. I mean, holy crap! Grable's Loco made Jim Carey and Jeff Daniels from Dumb & Dumber look like they were ready to plan the next mission to Mars. And they'd do it successfully! Who the hell doesn't know what a lodge is? Someone should tell Grable to loosen that bun, I think it's constricting the blood to her brain.

    (As a side note: Humor that hinges around the supreme idiocy of the main characters usually makes me lose interest because my suspension of disbelief will collapses faster than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. "No one can be that dumb!" I say. But then, I invariably bow my head in shame because I know that there are, in fact, mouth-breathing thickies that are, indeed, exactly that dumb. Just open up the newspaper and you'll read all about them.)

    The plot is fairly straight forward: Three young women pool their money to purchase a fancy apartment and some nice clothes in hopes of attracting rich men to marry them. And, because the plot if fairly straight forward, it's also fairly predictable—which isn't necessarily such a bad thing. It's cute and nice and has a good message—everyday Joes of the world can bag broads like Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable. That's fantastic!

    At least I'm pretty sure that's the message. For purposes of this website, we'll completely ignore the fact that in real life that they all married famous people. (Or in Monroe's case, many famous people.)