This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) is a Comedy/Musical/Romance starring Marilyn Monroe as Lorelei Lee and Jane Russel as Dorothy Shaw. The 2 showgirls, Lorelei and Dorothy, are on their way to Paris via a transatlantic cruise working as showgirls while being followed by a private detective. On their way, they chat up as many eligible men as possible. This movie is a wonderful classic because of the remarkable performances, authentic costume designs, and wonderful musical numbers.Marilyn Monroe will steal your breath away at the start of the show. She is not only stunning. She also portrays her character in an excellent manner. Lorelei is a smooth, soft-speaking, dramatic, well-dressed woman who is very interested in money and all the pretty things it will buy her. She is also able to convince people of her opinions even if they are commonly disapproved opinions. Her best friend, who she considers to be an amazing and loyal friend, Dorothy, is quite the opposite. Dorothy is not interested in money, and especially not in men with money as is shown when she first meets Ernie and she is angered when he tries to brag about his wealth. She also portrays her character as an intelligent, strong- willed and tough woman.The costumes are great. I just love the 1950s era. All of the men are dressed classy in their suit and ties. The women are wearing gorgeous elegant sparkly long dresses and long gloves. In one scene, Dorothy is wearing an expensive looking black dress and her curled black hair and dazzling earrings look so beautiful that you will want to get into a time machine and go back to the 1950s. When she puts the girly white robe around Ernie, it is quite funny.I thoroughly enjoyed all of the songs of the film and I like to listen and sing to them even when the film is over. The songs are sweet and sultry and very clear. As Lorelei and Dorothy sit together at a table in the restaurant, Lorelei begins to sing. After the tempo begins to increase and more people join in the song until Lorelei and Dorothy are singing up-tempo and in unison. The two give a stunning performance together by dancing and acting to this song. By the end of the song, the tempo slows down and the audience is watching them drive off.I would recommend that anybody who enjoys Musicals to take the hour and a half to watch this one. If you enjoyed movies like Grease or Mamma Mia because you like to sing along to catchy and entertaining songs, then this movie is for you. I enjoyed this film as much as I usually enjoy musicals, especially ones that were made decades before I was born. If you like old films, like Breakfast at Tiffany's or other old films that star a beautiful and class maiden like Monroe, then you will probably enjoy it. The film is not just for adults, older children may be able to enjoy this film as well. Overall, I thought that this movie was beautiful and it's among my favourites. The ending was superb and the romances of the lead characters were intriguing and sweet. I'm always a fan of the musical genre and I thought that this movie did it right. It had me rooting for the main characters, imagining their thoughts, singing along to the songs, marvelling at the gorgeous costumes and set designs, and becoming captivated by the performances of Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Shaw.

This was Marilyn's first musical comedy, and my favorite, partly because is includes Jane Russell as an equal, making a musical comedy team. Generally, when you have a comedy team, you want them clearly differentiated from each other, both physically and personality -wise, but not so different that they can't relate to each other. Here, their hair color is as different as can be, Jane is a little taller, has a more elongate face, and MM tends to often quint her eyes vs. Jane's round eyes. Jane tends to be forthright and loud. Marilyn tends to be more devious, often with a naïve little girl persona. This contrast is most vividly displayed in how they sing "Bye Bye, Baby". Jane is prancing around in front of a men's Olympic team, singing loud and up tempo. MM then sings it slowly, softly, sexily, with feeling, to her shy nerdy fiancé(Gus), who is prohibited by his father from sailing to France with Marilyn. Besides his father being rich, Marilyn feels comfortable with Gus because he's shy, brings her gifts all the time and is easily manipulated. Also, Jane's attitude in what she most wants in a husband superficially is as different from Marilyn's as their hair color. Marilyn is a gold-digger first. If they happen to be young, handsome and/or athletic, as Jane likes, that's an added bonus.The script has Marilyn traveling to Paris, as a showgirl. Jane, also a show girl, accompanies her as a sort of chaperone, charged with trying to keep her out of compromising situations, to satisfy Gus's father, who suspects she is just a dumb blonde gold digger, who doesn't love Gus. Gus's father secretly sends a detective(Mr. Malone) to check up on Marilyn's doings. Thus, Jane and Malone have opposite goals as relates to documenting some scandalous incident. At first, Jane hates him, but then she realizes she's attracted to him.Malone takes a seemingly compromising photo of Marilyn being embraced by an elderly monocled diamond mine owner(Charles Coburn, as Piggy). By trickery, the girls steal the roll of film and have the picture developed to show to Piggy, inducing him to give Marilyn his wife's expensive tiara(headpiece) to keep her quite about the apparent incident. Apparently, even without the photo, Malone communicates what he saw to Gus's father. As a result, his financial support of the girls is cut off and Gus tells Marilyn their relationship is finished. Well, Piggy's wife discovers her tiara missing, and assumes Marilyn stole it, because she was so impressed when shown it. In turn, Marilyn discovers it missing from her jewelry box....The rest of the story I leave for you to discover for yourself, except to say that there is a predictable happy ending.Despite the most memorable song being "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend", we might think of the theme song being "Two Little Girls from Little Rock", since the pair sing it in the very beginning, before the title shows up, and again at the end. Marilyn sings "Diamonds are..." in a lavish stage production, dressed in flashy pink, as are the chorus dancers, Marilyn being surrounded by their male partners. This is later followed by Jane's very dynamic version in a courtroom, with blonde wig, to resemble Marilyn whom she was impersonating. This scene will probably be the comedic highlight of the film for you.The 3 songs I have mentioned in the above were composed by Jule Styne and Leo Robin for the prior stage version of this story. Two lesser songs were composed by Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson for this film version: "When Love Goes Wrong", sung by Marilyn, and "Anyone Here for Love?", sung by Jane in the presence of the Olympic team.Malone asks J.R. how 2 girls so different in their attitudes toward men can be such good friends? I don't remember her response, but I will say they trust each other and don't compete for the same men.Marilyn is characterized as being ignorant about most things, but claims she tries to act dumb, because that's what men want.Available as part of the Marilyn Premier DVD Collection, as well as on it's own.The subsequent "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" I haven't seen, but is said to be a spoof of the musical comedy genre, with Jane sometimes trying to imitate Marilyn. It's rating is very low, but some reviewers say it is nonetheless quite entertaining.

I haven't watched that many Howard Hawks movies. The only one I have watched is The Thing From Another World and my thoughts are that it's a pretty good monster movie but it's also based on a book with a much better adaptation. I also haven't really seen Marilyn Monroe in anything except for Some Like It Hot and she was serviceable in that movie. However, I don't really like this movie.The plot... Marilyn has seduced a young, socially awkward millionaire into marrying her, which considering Marilyn's image gives off the impression she's kind of a gold digger... That's not true, she's exactly a gold digger, even telling her friend that she really should consider going after a millionaire because "money=true love". However she's also a complete airhead and even has the millionaire's angry father hire someone to take incriminating looking photographs of her with another millionaire. To make matters worse when Marilyn's friend uncovers what's going on with her help she gets the innocent millionaire to give her his wife's diamond tiara. When they get to Paris they're obviously in deep sh#t as the wife thinks they've stolen it and the millionaire takes the photographs the wrong way.Neither of the lead characters are sympathetic at all. Marilyn Monroe's character is a gold digger and Jane Russel goes after any "tall dark and handsome man" she can find. I can't sympathize with a character that wants to spend years in prison because she doesn't want to part ways with a diamond tiara, even though she's marrying a millionaire! She even admits outright at the end that all she's after is money. Maybe this character might have flown in 1953 but I really struggle with this. Jane Russel is more likable to me but that's not saying a goddamn thing.So everything about the lead characters are unappealing, but honestly - that's probably where my problems with the movie begin and end... Seriously, Monroe might have had this constant image but she does what she can and while I honestly didn't care for the music, I wouldn't say any of them are horrible (except Ain't There Anyone Here For Love, sorry if my maturity is brought into question but I'm inherently a straight male and I don't want to see muscular men flex their muscles, lift weights and exercise while wearing nothing but peach coloured shorts), I didn't mind the cinematography either.All in all, this is something I will probably forget immediately after seeing it. This really doesn't have anything to come back to, except maybe "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend". I'd say watch it if you want to but for me personally, this is just really unmemorable.

Two singers, best friends Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) travel to Paris pursued by a private detective hired by Lorelei's fiancé's disapproving father to keep an eye on her, a rich, enamored old man and many other doting admirers.German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder declared this one of the ten best films ever made. I do not share that opinion. While I liked it, and some of the humor is pretty good (especially the kid), the musical numbers did not suit me. Well, there was that issue of the unfortunate color for the men's swim trunks, coupled with a very suggestive dance number I enjoyed...As a result of the film's success, Monroe and Russell were given the chance to put their hand and feet prints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre; a spectacle that got a lot of publicity for both actresses. Interestingly Russell was the film's star but today this is thought of as a Monroe film.