GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953)

Originally published November 30, 2006

(1953, Colour) 97m. / Directed By Howard Hawks / Music by Jule Styne, Lyrics by Leo Robin / additional songs by Hoagy Carmichael & Harold Adamson / Starring Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reed, Tommy Noonan (Twentieth Century-Fox)

Anita Loos was known primarily as a writer of silent films when she wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes as a comic novel in 1926. The novel was a best-seller, and proved so popular that Loose and her husband John Emerson adapted it into a play, a Broadway hit in 1927, followed by a less successful silent film in 1928.  

The musical version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with a buoyant score by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin, opened on Broadway on December 8, 1949, and ran for 740 performances. Most notably, the show made an overnight star out of the actress playing Lorelei Lee-- Carol Channing.

But that Broadway season belonged entirely to South Pacific, so there were no Tony Awards to spare for the show. Channing would finally get a nomination for her version of the character when the show was revived in 1974, though she lost the award to Virginia Capers in Raisin. The revival, retitled Lorelei (with several new songs by Styne), also added bookend sequences with an older Lorelei reflecting on her past.

The novel, play, silent movie and musical were all set in the 1920’s, and concerned themselves with the misadventures of friends brunette Dorothy Shaw and zany blonde Lorelei Lee as they traveled to Paris aboard the ocean liner Ile de France. Along the way, Lee gets involved with button magnate Gus Esmond, while Shaw finds herself falling for wealthy fellow traveller Henry Spofford.

Song List:

It's High Time

Bye, Bye Baby

Bye, Bye Baby (Reprise)

A Little Girl From Little Rock / Two Little Girls From Little Rock*
Anyone Here For Love?**
I Love What I'm Doing
Just a Kiss Apart
It's Delightful Down in Chile
Sunshine
In The Champ de Mars
Sunshine (Reprise)

I'm A'tingle, I'm A'glow
House on Rittenhouse Square
You Say You Care
Act One Finaletto
Bye, Bye Baby (Reprise)
Mamie is Mimi
Coquette
When Love Goes Wrong**

Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend

You Say You Care (Reprise)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Homesick Blues
Keeping Cool with Coolidge
Button Up With Esmond
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Reprise)

Bye, Bye Baby (Reprise)

*This number was a solo for Lorelei Lee in the stage version; for the film, the lyrics were altered slightly to serve as a duet for Dorothy & Lorelei, which opens the film, and ends with a chorus of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” under the titles.

**Written for the film by Hoagy Carmichael & Harold Adamson.

BLUE indicates Broadway songs removed for the film version; RED indicates songs altered considerably from their original form; GREEN indicates songs added specifically for the film version.

As you can see from the list above's abundance of blue, almost all of the musical’s score went unused for the film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It’s a text book case of Hollywood’s standard approach to the Broadway musical into the 1950’s: take a pre-sold property, keep what the public likes most, and change the rest. This is why quite a few landmark Broadway shows have film versions that bear only a passing resemblance to what they were on stage (1956’s Anything Goes, retooled as a bland vehicle for Bing Crosby, is a particularly egregious example).

Fox acquired the rights to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, jettisoned all of the score except the most well-known numbers, and brought in Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson to “juice up” the score with a couple of songs that could play on the Hit Parade on radio and spur record sales. Only “Bye Bye Baby” (and its first reprise), “A Little Girl From Little Rock” (now a duet, so “Two Little Girls From Little Rock”), and the show’s signature hit “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” remain in the score. Carmichael and Adamson provided a new solo for Russell’s Dorothy, “Anyone Here For Love?” and a jazzy duet for the girls, “When Love Goes Wrong.” While these numbers have nothing to do with the plot, they do aid in the most startling adaptation choice of the film.

That big change was the decision to update the story to contemporary times and abandon the 1920s setting. This probably had more to do with budgetary concerns than anything else, since as a rule period films are by their nature more expensive to produce. 

Surprisingly, the change has almost no effect on the story, and works fine for the retained songs, especially since Styne’s score isn’t tied to that era musically, unlike, say, Sandy Wilson’s pastiche score for The Boy Friend (1954). Also, whereas Dorothy snags wealthy playboy Henry Spofford in the stage version, for the film Mr. Spofford is played (hilariously) by child actor George “Foghorn” Winslow. Dorothy’s paramour for the film is private investigator Ernie Malone (Elliott Reid). Otherwise, the story remains focused on Lorelei’s attraction to diamonds and her misadventures involving the hapless Sir Frances “Piggy” Beekman (Charles Coburn) and the missing diamond tiara belonging to Lady Beekman (stalwart character actress Norma Varden, perhaps best known as Frau Schmidt in The Sound Of Music-- her career includes parts in dozens of films, including Strangers On A Train, Casablanca and National Velvet).

It’s impossible to discuss Gentlemen Prefer Blondes without discussing Marilyn Monroe, who finds her most appealing starring role in this film. In spite of the impression Carol Channing made in her star-making turn on Broadway, Monroe’s scintillating performance of “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” has become iconic. Still on the rise at this point, she’s second-billed behind Jane Russell, who by this time had earned notoriety as the pinup girl discovered by Howard Hughes.  

But it is Monroe who is at the center of the film, and it is her blithe and commanding performance as the smarter-than-you’d-think Lorelei that makes the movie what it is, and continues to draw audiences to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. For once, Monroe inhabits a character who is never at the mercy of the men surrounding her. Though Gus Esmond may threaten to call off their engagement, neither Lorelei nor we the audience thinks he has a chance in upsetting her plans. In fact, the only help she needs comes from Dorothy, who manages to restore the missing diamond tiara to its rightful owner when it appears stolen.  

Credit must also go to Russell, too, for sharing the spotlight with Monroe when she could very easily have insisted on making Dorothy more prominent. It’s easy to see why a friendship blossomed there in real life; when they are on screen together, it’s hard not to feel as if we’re being let in on the great time they seem to be having.

The steady hand of director Howard Hawks is not to be dismissed, either. Known primarily as a director of more male-driven films, it’s easy to forget what terrific comic performances he had already coaxed from actresses like Barbara Stanwyk (Ball of Fire), Rosalind Russell (His Girl Friday) and Katherine Hepburn (Bringing Up Baby).