Amusing musical – widescreen, color, full of marilyn and better than its reputation. Written by playwright Arthur Miller (married to Marilyn) and one of the Normans from White Christmas (also wrote Lang’s Fury).
Unexciting frenchman Yves Montand (Tout va bien, The War Is Over) is mega-rich, hears of a low-key theater production in the hipster part of town that will be making fun of him, heads down there with employees Wilfrid Hyde-White (Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady) and Tony Randall (Rock Hunter, Down With Love and voice of the brain Gremlin in Gremlins 2). The director notices Yves and casts him as himself, a perfect lookalike. Yves isn’t interested in shutting the place down anymore because he falls for Marilyn during her outrageously sexy intro scene and aims to get her away from her boyfriend, pop star Frankie Vaughan. Yves hires comic Milton Berle, dancer Gene Kelly and singer Bing Crosby, playing themselves, to turn him into a star, but to no avail… so he tries to convince Marilyn that he’s the actual billionaire he’s playing in the play, also to no avail, until he takes her to his office and proves it at the end.
Cute movie, and title song and “my heart belongs to daddy” are hot tunes.
IMDB trivia: “Milton Berle placed ads in Hollywood trade papers seeking a Best Supporting Oscar nomination for playing himself.”