Loos was a part of a generation of Jazz Age writers with a more progressive attitude toward womanhood, and it’s telling how modern the forward-thinking material still manages to seem in the film. The Hawks film was an adaptation of Anita Loos’s sensational novel from 1925, where the character of Lorelei Lee is a savant who can’t spell to save her life - the stereotypical “dumb blonde” showgirl - but her internal monologue, as written by Loos, sharply lampoons men’s desire to control women, censorship, and the sexual pieties of the powers that be. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was both a critical and commercial hit, with one reviewer commenting that Marilyn was so luminous that she could practically glow in the dark. In Howard Hawks’s sparkling, joyously witty musical romantic comedy from 1953, Monroe distinguished herself as not merely a blonde bombshell with a lot of studio publicity buildup but as a dynamite comedienne about to be catapulted to superstardom. If I had to choose a favorite line from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes - a high distinction in a film full of quips - it would have to be “I can be smart when it’s important, but most men don’t like it.” It comes from the pouty mouth of Marilyn Monroe’s righteous gold-digging dame Lorelei Lee, and I think it’s the one that most easily could have come out of the actress as well. Photo: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Images
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |