How to Marry a Millionaire

35mm ARCHIVAL PRINT! ► CinemaScope splendour meets the snappy '50s sex comedy, with the high-wattage Hollywood trio of Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall as three marriage-minded blondes who pool resources to rent a posh Manhattan penthouse, the better to ensnare rich male prey. Monroe is short-sighted Pola, slavishly wedded to that old canard about gentlemen not making passes at ladies who wear glasses. 1940s pin-up queen Grable — she of the insured-by-Lloyd’s-of-London gams — has one of her last major film roles as cuddly Loco. Bacall is wise-cracking Schatze Page, the fashion model and divorcée who is the brains of the bunch. The frothy antics include some fabulously panoramic views of New York City; How to Marry a Millionaire was the first movie to be shot (and second to be released, after The Robe) in 20th Century-Fox’s CinemaScope technology. It opens with an extraneous pre-credit sequence — Alfred Newman conducting his composition "Street Scene" — designed to showcase both the new widescreen process and stereophonic sound. It was also one of three 1953 features (with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Niagara) that catapulted Monroe to major celebrity and established her as a big-time box-office commodity. Colour, 35mm. 95 mins.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
More Marvellous Monroe!
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Let's Make Love
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -