#277. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
- Year: 1953
- Country: USA
- Production: Fox, 91m
- Director: Howard Hawks
- Producer: Sol C. Siegel
- Screenplay: Charles Lederer, from the novel and play by Anita Loos
- Photography: Robert Taylor
- Music: Hoagy Carmichael, Jule Styne
- Cast: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan
- Blog Club Rating: 7.6/10
Abridged Book Description[]
Typical of the 1950s, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is an acerbic comedy about gold digging, unafraid to mix sentimental dreams with brittle sarcasm, glamorous magic and a materialistic sense of what a girl must do to get by - a set of merry contradictions immortalized in Monroe's oft-imitated "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend." As Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, the film is "an impossible object - a CinemaScope of the mind, a capitalist Potemkin"... Howard Hawks is generally regarded as a very classical, restrained director, but here he veers toward the crazy, spectacularly vulgar comedies of Frank Tashlin - a connection clinched by the presence of that wonderfully grotesque child, George Winslow. The excess and oddity of certain set pieces (such as Russell's deathless serenade addressed to indifferent musclemen, "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?"), and their frequently tangential relation to the nominal plot, are all part of what makes the film so enjoyable to a contemporary audience.