LogFAQs > #933131640

27. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

JONA: 11
Scarlet: 17
Inviso: 18
Karo: 18
KBM: 24
Johnbobb: 34
Genny: 35

JONA - Both Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are fantastic here. Theyve got great chemistry and are great in their roles. Just some solid comedy with a fun story and characters.
Favorite Song: Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend

Scarlet - I prefer good musicals, personally. But this is fine.
Best Song: Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend

Inviso - This is a tough one to rank, because Im watching it so early that it stands out as being more coherent in its plot than prior movies, but I still dont care for it that much. I mean, Marilyn Monroe plays one of the two female leads, andmy GOD do I hate her. Shes not the MOST detestable character weve watched, because My Man Godfrey exists at the very least, but shes just such an unlikable person. So many of the inciting incidents come from her being incapable of being anything other than a selfish, gold digger. And its just frustrating because of how INSISTENT she is on behaving as reprehensible as she does. Meanwhile, her friend gets dragged into all the bullshit she pulls. Sure, this all leads to some comedic scenarios, but its just hard to overlook such a horrible protagonist.

Karo - A dizzy gold-digging woman and her nymphomaniac best friend take a cruise ship to France, where scandal ensues as she almost instantly starts up an affair with an even less sexually appealing man than her fiance.
After destroying several marriages and committing felony larceny she pretty much learns absolutely nothing and lives happily ever after.
Lorelei is such an incredibly vile person, and it really speaks for Marilyn Monroe's acting skills that she can make such a character interesting without the audience rooting for her to be burned alive in the ship's boiler.
Most of the songs are these forgettable and generic cabaret numbers, and they certainly are not a reason to see the movie. Rather it is the humor of watching the female equivalent of Sterling Archer trainwreck her way though life, and while I would have rather not seen her rewarded in the end for the way she behaves, it is still somewhat entertaining.

Score: 60/100

Best Song: 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'

KBM - Why I Chose It: Marilyn Monroe was, needless to say, one of the biggest stars of the 1950s. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes remains one of the most iconic examples of her work, irrevocably establishing her as one of the most famous sex symbols in pop culture to this day. Her performance of the Jule Styne standard Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend in particular is one of the most well-remembered (and oft-parodied) scenes in '50s cinema. Monroe and Jane Russell have received near-unanimous praise for their performances as Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, both from contemporary critics and modern audiences, and generally even from those who found the rest of the film lacking by comparison.

My Thoughts: The humor is dated, the story not that interesting, and some of the supporting performances are honestly quite bad (particularly the annoying rich child who's with them on the ship), but Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe absolutely carry this movie on their backs. The Jule Styne musical numbers are very good, but there are a couple long stretches without a song that tend to drag, and the movie would probably have kept my interest a bit more consistently had they thrown in a couple more of the songs from the stage show, given the obvious talent, charisma, and chemistry of the two leads. I am glad I watched it, but I probably won't ever feel compelled to watch it again outside of song clips on YouTube.

Favorite Song: Two Little Girls from Little Rock

Johnbobb - God this hasn't aged well. Really just not particularly enjoyable the whole way through. The songs are mostly forgettable aside from Monroe's "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend," which is ultimately memorable for more bad reasons than good. The whole thing just kinda reeks of an underlying sexism; the two main characters are "woman who only likes men for their looks" and "woman who only likes men for their money" and the film barely makes any attempt to flesh them into anything more than that by the end. There's really just not much to go for here.
Favorite song: n/a

Genny - There's so much wrong with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes it's difficult to compose all my thoughts, but I'll try my best. The main issue I had with it was its ending. This was the second film I watched that featured a double wedding as its grand finale, but unlike the former this one felt completely undeserved. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters, but Lorelei was particularly offensive. I realize the concept of a protagonist who's only interested in the love interest's inheritance is not meant to be taken completely at face value, but even beyond that she has very little substance.