This one was picked for three reasons: it stars both Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, it has the single most famous musical performance over the course of Monroe’s entire career, and it was directed by Howard Hawks, the man who can and will seemingly direct anything. It isn’t generally considered one of Monroe’s or Hawks’ best films though the characters played by Russell and Monroe are now icons in popular culture.
As in Some Like It Hot, Monroe’s character Lorelei Lee is an unapologetic gold digger who dreams of marrying a wealthy man. Her best friend and fellow showgirl Dorothy Shaw however, played by Russell, is her polar opposite in personality and prefers to fall in love with a good-looking and well-built man. Fortunately for Lee, she already has a rich paramour, the nerdish Gus Esmond. Unfortunately for her, his father is absolutely opposed to their marriage. Lee hopes however that while she is away performing in France, Esmond will miss her enough to come and marry her in spite of the objections. This doesn’t stop her from flirting with any men of means however while her friend does her best to run interference.
It’s pretty clear from the onset that this is a much weaker film than Some Like It Hot. The writing and dialogue are lacklustre, the plot is pretty much nonsense and there is a distinct lack of male leads who can match up to the ladies. It says a lot that the highest billed male actor in here is James Coburn, who plays an elderly owner of a diamond mine targeted by Lee during the sea voyage. The plot exists only to support the musical set-pieces instead of the other way around. That’s why they play up the presence of an Olympics athletics team of male hunks on the ship so that Shaw can do an elaborate number with them but after that they’re abruptly dropped.
I guess this would have been acceptable if the musical pieces were good enough to compensate but this is largely not the case. I don’t even think that there are enough of them. There are a couple right near the beginning and then there’s a huge gap in the middle while the ship-board hijinks play out and nothing else until they arrive in France. Out of all of these, only the famous Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend scene is really noteworthy. Interestingly, there are actually two instances of it, the first one being the iconic Monroe version and the second time a shorter scene with Russell’s character impersonating her. It goes without saying that Monroe outshines Russell in every way. I think this was intentional and Russell played along even though from what I read, she received as much as ten times Monroe’s salary for her work here.
As much as I admire Hawks’ work, it’s clear that Monroe carries the entire movie and he’s just getting out of her way. Scenes magically come alive whenever she’s in the frame. However artificial her persona is, with the exaggerated hip swaying and breathy voice and sultry eyes, I can’t deny that the effect is magnetic. I especially loved how, when confronted by Esmond’s father, she drops the act and outright tells him that she pretends to be dumb because that’s what most men prefer. It just goes to show how carefully Monroe and her agents have cultivated her personal image while she is by all accounts a very different person in real life.
Still the movie as a whole is only so-so, making it difficult to justify sitting through the whole thing. You might as well just watch the famous performance on YouTube and be done with it.