Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

“The opening shot — Russell and Monroe in sequins standing against a screaming red drape — is enough to knock you out at saur seat, and the audacity barely lets up from there…a landmark encounter in the battle of the sexes.” — Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

SYNOPSIS

One of the crowning achievements of Hollywood’s Technicolor era, Howard Hawks’s second and final musical transforms Anita Loos’s celebrated novel into a dazzling comedy of manners, obsession, and desire. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell star as Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, two American showgirls whose transatlantic voyage to Paris is complicated by suspicious fiancés, wealthy admirers, and an endless series of romantic misadventures. As French critic Jacques Lourcelles observed, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes combines the elastic exaggeration of American animated cartoons with Hawks’s characteristically relaxed rhythm, delighting in its heroines’ singular fixations (Lorelei’s unapologetic materialism and Dorothy’s carefree pursuit of romance) while observing their absurdities with wit, precision, and remarkable detachment rather than judgment. Overflowing with unforgettable musical numbers, including Monroe’s immortal rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” it stands as one of the brightest, funniest, and most visually radiant entertainments of Hollywood’s Golden Age.