{"id":2699,"date":"2009-07-08T00:33:37","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T04:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=2699"},"modified":"2014-09-09T11:52:31","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T16:52:31","slug":"how-to-marry-a-millionaire-1953-jean-negulesco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/2699","title":{"rendered":"How to Marry a Millionaire (1953, Jean Negulesco)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ringleader Lauren Bacall (pre-Written on the Wind<\/a><\/em>) rents a super-expensive apartment (belonging to a millionaire on the run because of tax troubles, played by David Wayne of Losey’s M<\/em> remake<\/a>, but that’s only barely important) along with friend Marilyn Monroe (four months after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes<\/a><\/em>) and hanger-on Betty Grable (post-The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend<\/a><\/em>, in one of her final film roles). They’re all attractive models, so the idea is they’ll start frequenting hangouts of the rich and famous in order to, duh, marry a millionaire. I thought the point of the apartment was men coming over to pick them up for dates will think they’re already wealthy (not gold-diggers) but when it takes longer than expected to get hitched they sell all the furniture to pay their rent, so the place looks kinda desolate.<\/p>\n

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I thought the movie would be a musical, especially when it opened with an overture – but Katy thinks that was just to show off the mighty Cinemascope process (D.P. Joseph MacDonald would later shoot ‘scope favorites House of Bamboo<\/em> and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter<\/a><\/em>), and I thought it might’ve been a prestige thing for extremely oscar-winning composer Alfred Newman (father of Thomas, uncle of Randy). Looks like Katy was right – this was the first Cinemascope movie to be filmed (though somehow it was released second, after The Robe<\/em>). Anyway, not a musical, just a girl comedy.<\/p>\n

Cinemascope!!<\/em>
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Bacall is being stalked by Cameron Mitchell (Hell and High Water<\/a><\/em>, Ride in the Whirlwind<\/a><\/em>), who she suspects to be a gas pump jockey but is really one of the richest men in the world (she finds out after they’re married… oh, the 50’s).<\/p>\n

A lotta Marilyn:<\/em>
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The movie would’ve been 50% better without Betty Grable, whose every scene is annoying. She goes off to a cabin with a married man then gets all whiny about it then catches the measles then falls for a forest ranger. Her character was the stupid one, a welcome change for Marilyn I’m sure – though M. wasn’t too bright either. Marilyn’s gimmick is she’s blind without her glasses but vainly refuses to wear them. She gets involved with a fake-eyepatch-wearing scam artist while Bacall flirts with an elder William Powell (he’s still got the mustache), who invites them to the party where Betty meets the married guy – I’m way out of order now. Anyway, Bacall almost marries Powell but they call it off with a few minutes to spare because she’s not convinced by her initial millionaire-lust anymore and she’s in love with her gas jockey. Also, Marilyn marries David Wayne at some point.<\/p>\n

The girls with their false-alarm boyfriends:<\/em>
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Cute movie, better than it looked like it’d be, but nothing brilliant. TCM agrees, “entertaining but insubstantial.” Director Negulesco also made the 1950’s Titanic<\/em> and writer\/producer Nunnally Johnson wrote some John Ford films in the 30’s and 40’s.<\/p>\n

The girls with their new husbands:
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Ringleader Lauren Bacall (pre-Written on the Wind) rents a super-expensive apartment (belonging to a millionaire on the run because of tax troubles, played by David Wayne of Losey’s M remake, but that’s only barely important) along with friend Marilyn Monroe (four months after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) and hanger-on Betty Grable (post-The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[342,108],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1950s","tag-marilyn-monroe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9341,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions\/9341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}