04/17/06 How To Marry A Millionaire

How To Marry A Millionaire (1953), directed by Jean Negulesco

watched w/ Leslie; VHS (personal copy) @ home

Returning from her Easter holiday break (where she didn't have to endure Critters 2 with me), my girlfriend has brought home some old frolicking classics of Tinseltown's heyday. This one is a bastion of the battle-of-the-sexes style comedies that definitely harks from a different era that's a bit more innocent and naive. Yeah right! That's just what they would like you to believe. I'm sure all these Hollywood types like Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable (along with their male counterparts) were wild & crazy & doing things that would never make it into a G-rated movie fare of the time. All the debauchery aside, this film is completely silly in nature. The premise is that all three screen sirens decide to take it upon themselves to scheme their way into renting a posh Manhattan penthouse, put up airs at their wealthy galas they frequent, and try to each score a millionaire so that can live happily ever after off the sappy sugar daddy. Gold diggers, plain and simple. All the romantic shenanigans lead the girls into false hopes of beauty, love, living arrangements, wealth, and marriage...I'm sure destroying the female mindset of young aspiring girls for years to come after the film. In the end, the women are supposed to all realize how the money wasn't the point if you truly love someone and can spend forever with them, but I'm still not sure if they got it. Heck, it's fun watching this film though, if you remove yourself from the social connotations. Gold diggers. Pre-nup is all I'm saying rich guys. I think contemporary rap artist Kanye West said it best, when he said "'cause when she leave yo ass she gone leave with half."

3 out of 5 stars