Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Director:

Howard Hawks

Writers:

Charles Lederer (screenplay)
Joseph Fields (musical comedy) ...

Release Date:

18 July 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Musical | Romance

Tagline:

The Two M-M-Marvels Of Our Age In The Wonder Musical Of The World!

Plot:

Lorelei and Dorothy are just "Two Little Girls from Little Rock", lounge singers on a transatlantic cruise...

Plot Keywords:

Singer | Diamond | Surveillance Device | Drugged Drink | Pier

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Jane Russell	...	Dorothy Shaw
Marilyn Monroe	...	Lorelei Lee
Charles Coburn	...	Sir Francis 'Piggy' Beekman
Elliott Reid	...	Ernie Malone
Tommy Noonan	...	Gus Esmond
George Winslow	...	Henry Spofford III
Marcel Dalio	...	Magistrate
Taylor Holmes	...	Mr. Esmond Sr.
Norma Varden	...	Lady Beekman
Howard Wendell	...	Watson
Steven Geray	...	Hotel Manager

Also Known As:

Howard Hawks' Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | French

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Iceland:L | Canada:14A (Ontario) | South Korea:15 | Canada:G (video rating) | Portugal:M/6 | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Chile:14 | Finland:S | Sweden:Btl | UK:U | USA:Approved (PCA #16244) | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Marilyn Monroe kept insisting on retakes despite approval of takes by director Howard Hawks. When Fox asked Hawks how production could be sped up he retorted: "three wonderful ideas: Replace Marilyn, rewrite the script and make it shorter, and get a new director."

Goofs:

Continuity: Lorelei's hair in her "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" number is straight. But when she is backstage, minutes after having finished, her hair is curly.

Quotes:

Lorelei Lee: If you've nothing more to say, then pray, scat!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Disconnected (1983)

Soundtrack:

A Little Girl from Little Rock

This film is NOT mindless

This film is most certainly not mindless fluff. Let's remember that in the 50's, it was not possible to talk about sex or even show any strong implications of sexuality in Hollywood. Therefore, clever writers would slip it in. This film is parodying everything that Hollywood was and stood for (and in many ways still stands for). Watch carefully and you will see that Monroe and Russell are fighting their way through a world that men have created for them. Is Loreli stupid? No. She just knows that men lust after her-she realizes how attractive she is-and she's also smart enough to know that men like this have made her the way she is (she even says this in the film). She knows how to use all of these things to work her way up and get things that women could not get in most cases if they didn't whore themselves to men. The film also turns over and parodies itself......as when Jane Russell breaks out in her own rendition of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the courtroom-clearly imitating Monroe. MANY women did this-after seeing films, especially Monroe's films-they would buy expensive clothes, makeup, hair products, etc to try to actually BE like her. Howard Hawks understood how absurd this was and incorporated it into the film. The musical numbers are anything but stupid-Jane Russell's "Is There Anyone Here For Love?" clearly emphasizes that. This film deals with male chauvanism, the dehumanization of women (look at the famous Monroe diamonds number where women are bound in leather and strapped to diamond-clad chandaliers in the backdrop, look at how none of the women on stage with Monroe have faces, etc). And the aforementioned Russell musical number is not only EXTREMELY sexual, but homoerotic as well as she swings tennis rackets that are nothing if not male genitalia while she walks through a team of olympians with nude bathing suits who don't even seem to notice she exists(and look at the Roman painting onthe wall behind the men swinging on trapeezes-talk about sick-minded). Monroe actually was not dumb-she was I.Q. points above Einstein and was an extremely intelligent woman. She just knew that it was a man's world-a world of lusting voyeurism that men had created to oogle women's bodies-not their brains or actual personality-she knew that men wanted this (and in many ways still want it) and slammed it all in their faces. Traditional Hollywood cliches are also slammed and parodied (watch how Paris is portrayed-this kind of Paris NEVER existed-Hawks and the writers knew that but previous Hollywood films showed Paris as a dreamlike wonderland). Look at the role reversals(men are weak, women are strong, Russell is masculine, Monroe is feminine) and costumes-especially how in the beginning, Russell and Monroe's dance number has them wearing white and red, while the background is pure blue-these are typical American values-looks, money, materialism, capitalism, lust, etc. Howard Hawks knew that people would flock to see this film and that next to no one would understand its intelligence-so he slammed it in everyone's face. (It's a good thing for him that not many did really understand the script subversion because if they had, the game would've been up and Hollywood would've banned the film, most likely). This is one of the most intelligent films of the 50's; showing not what women are, but what men WANT them to be.