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How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
5 November 1953 (USA)
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Tagline:
The Most Glamorous Entertainment Of Your Lifetime in CinemaScope. You See It Without Glasses!
Plot:
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
Nominated for Oscar.
Another 2 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(6 articles)
Lauren Bacall, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin: Governors Awards 2009
(From Alternative Film Guide. 15 November 2009, 5:04 PM, PST)
Lauren Bacall, Annette Bening, Jeff Bridges: Governors Awards 2009
(From Alternative Film Guide. 15 November 2009, 4:13 PM, PST)
(From Alternative Film Guide. 15 November 2009, 5:04 PM, PST)
Lauren Bacall, Annette Bening, Jeff Bridges: Governors Awards 2009
(From Alternative Film Guide. 15 November 2009, 4:13 PM, PST)
User Comments:
Ready, Willing and Grable
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Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Betty Grable | ... | Loco Dempsey |
 | Marilyn Monroe | ... | Pola Debevoise |
 | Lauren Bacall | ... | Schatze Page |
 | David Wayne | ... | Freddie Denmark |
 | Rory Calhoun | ... | Eben |
| Cameron Mitchell | ... | Tom Brookman |
| Alexander D'Arcy | ... | J. Stewart Merrill (as Alex D'Arcy) |
| Fred Clark | ... | Waldo Brewster |
 | William Powell | ... | J.D. Hanley |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
95 min
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.55 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording)
Certification:
France:U |
Iceland:L |
South Korea:12 |
USA:Approved (PCA #16443) |
Canada:G (video rating) |
Argentina:Atp |
Australia:G |
Chile:TE |
Finland:S |
Sweden:Btl |
UK:U |
West Germany:12 |
Norway:7
Filming Locations:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
On the plane, Pola is reading a book called "Murder By Strangulation" which is how Marilyn Monroe's character met her demise in Niagara (1953).
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Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: When Schatze is walking up and down on the roof her shadow isn't matching the shadows on the buildings behind - her shadow falls the opposite way due to the lighting not matching the supposed position of the sun.
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Quotes:
Pola Debevoise:
I want to marry Rockfeller.
Schatze Page: Which one?
Pola Debevoise: I don't care.
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Schatze Page: Which one?
Pola Debevoise: I don't care.
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Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Spin City: How to Bury a Millionaire (#4.8)" (1999)
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Soundtrack:
Home on the Range
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FAQ
This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.more (57 total)
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First, a warning. 'How to Marry a Millionaire' comes prefaced by an apparently random five minute orchestral performance of 'Street Scene', a Gershwin-lite piece treated with the full pomp and ceremony of, well, Gershwin. Sitting through it takes some patience. If you have the DVD, rest assured, you can skip forward. You won't miss anything.
The film itself is one of the perpetual disappointments of 50's Hollywood, a movie so bolstered by major star-power, opulent mise-en-scene and perfect high-concept that failure seems inconceivable. The title alone is perfect. Generation after generation, however, are forced to ask themselves - how is this so limp? The script is an albatross about the production's neck, a dead, smelling thing that chokes everything and everyone before they can really spark to life. There are no comic situations, just isolated moments that play for laughs. Whenever an actual comedy scene threatens to develop, the movie quickly moves on to other, less interesting things. A case in point - the scene where the three leading ladies each bring a date to the same fancy restaurant. One of them, short-sighted, refuses to wear her spectacles out of vanity. One of the dates is married. A classic Hollywood farce set-up, surely, complete with mistaken identity, angry wife, and probably a pie in the face for somebody? Well, no. Instead, we cut between the three dates as the ladies react 'comically' to things their partners say. Hit the punchline, and cut to the next limp joke. If in doubt, have Marilyn walk into a wall. Where's Billy Wilder when you need him?
The three stars are almost a perfect diagram of the life cycle of the classic Hollywood screen goddess. This was one of Marilyn Monroe's breakout films, and the camera just eats her up, even though the script gives her nothing to do. She's so luminescent she almost seems newly hatched. Lauren Bacall, on the other hand, had been a major star for nearly a full decade, and she knows how to dominate the screen even when in frame with Monroe. She gets the only thing passing for a real role, and delivers the few good lines with a cynical snap - given the right material, she could have brought this thing to life. She's a curiously ageless actress - when she lies about her age in the film and claims to be forty, it isn't instantly ridiculous - and far less girlish than her co-stars, giving her a convincing authority. Betty Grable was far from ageless, and had a good eight years on her co-stars, putting her near the end of her Hollywood career. There's an air of desperation about her at times, stranded on screen with nothing but a toothpaste smile and a few scraps of comic timing, unable to play her real age but fooling no-one as a contemporary of this new, sharper generation of actresses, relying on the same old schtick that had served her throughout her career (for Marilyn-doubters, seeing the two juxtaposed in this movie helps to throw Monroe's subtlety and - yes - intelligence into sharp relief). She's also lumbered with the dead wood in terms of male co-stars (although all of the men - even the great William Powell - are guilty of lazy performances); she's unable to strike any comic sparks off them. Better to have given her role to the under-utilised Monroe, who could be funny all by herself, and left Grable with the repetitive Mr. Magoo routine.
That the movie is as enjoyable as it is can be put down to the luscious Hollywood production, the sort that renders even the twee likes of 'By the Light of the Silvery Moon' watchable. But somewhere, buried beneath the flabby jokes and professionalism, lies the rough outline of a sharp, cynical comedy about the business of marriage that Bacall could have made sing - and new generations of movie viewers will sit down with 'How to Marry a Millionaire' in expectation of that movie, ready to be disappointed all over again.