How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
#76 in my 2007 movie challenge was How to Marry a Millionaire, a classic good bad movie. Bacall, Grable, and Monroe play models who rent a posh NYC penthouse in order to lure a better class of suitor into marriage. Unsurprisingly, the scheme goes awry. They are forced to sell the furnishings in order to stay, and Grable and Monroe end up marrying for love, not money. Bacall thinks she does the same, but her ostensibly happy ending rang false, and her comeuppance was too slight.
The scheming sexism is a disappointment, as is the predictable story. For a film starring three beautiful actresses, there was a curious dearth of close-ups. And the seven-minute long orchestra intro, followed by long credits over loving shots of NYC, made me wonder if the movie was ever going to start. But there’s a sass and style that overcome the film’s faults. The costumes are by turns beautiful and deliberately outrageous, exemplified in a very funny modeling scene. All three end up renouncing their mercenary plan. And there are several surprisingly post-modern references to the stars’ previous famous work: Monroe wears an outfit named “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”; Grable re-enacts her famous over-the-shoulder pose; and Bacall, defending the attractiveness of older men, remarks, “Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at that old fella–what’s his name–in The African Queen. Absolutely crazy about him.”
Enjoyable, as long as your expectations aren’t high.