How to Marry a Millionaire-1953

Director Jean Negulesco

Starring Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable

Scott’s Review #381

Reviewed February 28, 2016

Grade: B

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) is a light-hearted, fun, romantic comedy featuring three famous leading ladies: Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, and the legendary Marilyn Monroe.

The film’s backdrop is warm, sophisticated, and pleasing: 1950s New York City. This setting is appropriate, as all three women featured are models searching for wealthy suitors.

Schatze (Bacall), Loco (Grable), and Pola (Monroe) are blatant gold-diggers. They are set on using their looks and charms to seduce wealthy men into marriage. They rent an enormous and lavish apartment (the owner is out of the country and avoiding the IRS) and slowly sell the furniture to pay the rent.

Each woman encounters potential beaus, rich and poor, and must choose between true love and marriage for money. Or can they achieve both?

I noticed similarities to the 1980s television sitcom The Golden Girls. The ladies on The Golden Girls constantly pursued men—albeit not always rich men. Schatze resembles Dorothy in her directness, leadership skills, and height.

Loco has qualities attributed to Blanche, such as sexiness and a flirty manner. Finally, Pola is dizzy and blonde, a close match for Rose. Unquestionably, How to Marry a Millionaire influenced the iconic television series.

How wonderful the setting is. Interspersed throughout the film are shots of Manhattan, not to mention the visible New York City skyline from the lady’s luxurious apartment where men come and go in attempts to pursue the eligible women.

The city skyline is a set. However, other locales are not.

Numerous cinematic shots include the Empire State Building, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, the lights of Times Square, Rockefeller Center, and the United Nations Building.

As a lover of New York City, it struck me as both fantastic and melancholy to think about how many people have come and gone throughout the iconic city, yet here it remains and always will. A slice of 1950’s Manhattan- another time entirely- was terrific.

The film itself is arguably fluff—lightweight, to be sure. But How to Marry a Millionaire has a 1950s innocence and a sense of fun that has become tainted and is missing in today’s romantic comedy genre. Everything is now so crude and cynical, which is why this film works for me. There is a wholesomeness to it.

Sure, the women are manipulative (specifically  Schatze), but they yearn for true love and are kind women. Their escapades are humorous. Pola- frightened of being seen by a man wearing her glasses- and blind as a bat without them- constantly bumps into walls and navigates rooms by feeling her way around.

More humorous still is when she mistakes a flight to Atlantic City for Kansas City, thereby changing the course of her life.

Loco (Grable), clearly the oldest of the three, and, by this time, Grable was looking flat out matronly, decides to go on a trip to Maine with her married beau, expecting to attend a convention filled with rich and eligible men.

Misunderstanding the situation, she engages in hilarious hijinks with her beau and meets dashing but poor Eban.

Light, fun, with bright colors and sets, How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), when watched now, brings me back to a more pure day when films were innocent and fresh- filled with glamour and sophistication.

A trip down memory lane in the film is a nice thing.

Oscar Nominations: Best Costume Design, Color