"How To Marry A Millionaire"** 1\2 (out of ****)
There's an old belief among movie buffs that remakes are rarely as good or better than their original source. As far as I'm concerned
"How To Marry A Millionaire" (1953) is one more example.
Oh I know what some readers might say. I'm being too hard on this movie. What was I expecting? In a way you are right. Tomorrow I may hate myself for giving this movie a low rating. It's not an offensively bad movie. It's not one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It is "popcorn entertainment". And I like "popcorn entertainment" just as much as the next person. It isn't even hard for me to believe that many people would like this movie. It is a light, breezy piece of entertainment. But for some reason the Devil is in my veins tonight. I don't want to be nice to this movie.
"How To Marry A Millionaire" is a remake of a movie I have recently reviewed, "Three Blind Mice" (1938) with Loretta Young, which itself was a remake. I don't think "Three Blind Mice" is a great movie either, but, it was slightly better than this if only because it creates more comedic situations.
The plot is ripe for good comedic developments. I had a similar complaint about "Mice" but "How To Marry A Millionaire" does an even worst job. This is a movie that is merely interested in the big picture not the small details. That's where it goes wrong. Those small details are where we should be finding the humor.
The movie follows three models; Schatze (Lauren Bacall), Pola (Marilyn Monroe) and Loco (Betty Grable). Schatze, the leader of the group, has hatched a plan for the ladies to marry a millionaire. Having been recently divorced, to a gas pump attendant, Schatze no longer wants to fall in love with poor men. Only marry for money is her new outlook on life. So she and her friends rent out a flashy apartment where they hope to lure wealthy single men into marrying them.
But here's the problem with the script. As soon as Pola finds out Schazte has rented the apartment she calls Loco. Loco comes to the apartment with four bags full on groceries, despite the fact all she had was a quarter. You see, she managed to get Tom Brookman (Cameron Mitchell) to pay for everything. What's wrong with this sequence is, why not show us how she did it! It those kind of small details I'm talking about. The movie only focuses on the big picture. A poor girl walks into an apartment with bags of food someone else bought her. I guess it is a funny visual gag but imagine all the laughs that could have been found if we could have seen how Loco seduced Tom into buying them.
In another scene the ladies meet a rich older gentlemen, J.D. Hanley (William Powell). He invites them to a party where bankers and oil men will attend. The ladies agree. The next scene shows them each in a restaurant with a man they picked up. Again, why not show us what happened at the party!? How did the ladies manage to attract the men's attention? What happens when the ladies don't understand the business talk? That's where the humor is going to come from, the viewer seeing their plan in action. How they go about it. The details!
For a movie called "How To Marry A Millionaire" we never really see how they plan to do it. Everything is simply too easy. Everything falls into their lap. It would have been much funnier if we see the women work more to make things happen.
But again I should point out I am being unusually harsh. If I had to say something nice about the movie I would say I find the Pola character funny. She wears glasses but is ashamed. Men, she thinks, won't find her attractive. So she walks into a lot of objects. And the fact that Monroe is blond only adds to the cliche of the "ditsy blond".
There are also moments when the movie wants to be "cute". At one point Loco listens to the radio, she thinks it is the band leader Harry James playing "You'll Never Know". Younger viewers might not know this but Grable was married to Harry James. In another scene Schatze makes a reference to that older guy in "The African Queen" (1951). She means Humphrey Bogart. Take a guess to who Bacall was married to.
The movie was a box-office smash. One of the last for Betty Grable. This is now the third time I have written about her. The other times were for "Down Argentine Way" (1940) and "That Lady in Ermine" (1948). Her performance is fine and we do get to see those "million dollar legs" which I suppose is all we can ask for. But because Betty is sharing the screen with two other ladies she has to split screentime. I wouldn't mind seeing more of her.
Marilyn Monroe was already a becoming a star at this point. No longer would she have small roles as in "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950) and the Marx Brothers comedy "Love Happy" (1949). Before this movie she appeared in the Howard Hawks comedy "Monkey Business" (1952) with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers and in the same year as "Millionaire" the movie "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (1953) was released.
But of the three ladies I must say I think Lauren Bacall is all around the better actresses. I love Betty Grable, but, I think Bacall had a stronger and more diverse acting range. "How To Marry A Millionaire" is actually a step down for her. Consider the films she had appeared in before this movie; "To Have & Have Not" (1944, her debut film), "The Big Sleep" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947) and "Key Largo" (1948). Each one of those films I would argue is a masterpiece. "How To Marry A Millionaire" is nowhere near the same league as those movies. In fact it's pointless on my part to even bring it up. No one would debate that point.
The men in the film are; Freddie (David Wayne), Eben (Roy Calhoun), Waldo (Fred Clark) and J.D. (Powell). Of all the male performances I must say Powell comes out looking the best. This was his second to last performance but he still had a way of bringing the screen to life. He is one of my favorite actors so I am a bit bias. Still watch him in movies like "I Love You Again" (1940), "Love Crazy" (1941), "Double Wedding" (1937) and "Libeled Lady" (1936) and tell me he wasn't a great actor. His character is the only one which almost feels like a real person. That actually has a decent background story.
SPOILER ALERT:
Of course the character Tom Brookman could have had an interesting background story if the movie, once again, would have went into more detail. He is actually a millionaire but the ladies don't know it. He wants to keep it a secret. Here's my problem. Why not tell us why. Why not have a scene where Tom complains he can't meet a woman who isn't after his money. Why not play around with what could have been an interesting plot device.
END SPOILER
Surprisingly the writer was actually behind some decent scripts. Nunnally Johnson wrote a very wide range of films from "The Dirty Dozen" (1967) to "The Three Faces of Eve" (1957, which he also directed) to "Roxie Hart" (1942), which was based on the play "Chicago".
The director was Jean Negulesco. Born in Romania, lived in America and died in Spain, he too directed a wide range of films. His best in my opinion is "Humoresque" (1946). He also directed "Daddy Long Legs" (1955) and "Johnny Belinda" (1948).
The movie was nominated for one Oscar, "Best Costume Design".
Also worth mentioning is Betty Grable was in another movie based on this same material, the 1941 musical "Moon Over Miami".
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