How to Marry a Millionaire | | Cast : | Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall | | Director : | Jean Negulesco | | Studio : | Twentieth Century Fox Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | November 05, 1953 | | DVD Released Date : | May 29, 2001 | | Language : | French (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | NR (Not Rated) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 06, 2005 | | Summary | Whimsical comedy starring 3 gorgeous gals | Content
 | Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe star in a Broadway play adaptation, as three New York models who together rent a Sutton Place apartment in order to attract rich husbands. Their plan appears to go awry when after a few months they are forced to sell the furniture in the lavishly appointed pad for living expenses.
The girls fortunes appear to turn when Bacall meets elderly Texas cattle baron J.D. Hanley played by the debonair William Powell. Grable gets lured to Maine by wealthy but married Fred Clark but winds up falling for and marrying penniless forest ranger Rory Calhoun. The visually challenged but super sexy Monroe winds up on the wrong plane when going to meet her prospective beau in Atlantic City. She winds up enamored with and marrying tax cheat and previous owner of their apartment David Wayne, who is equally blind.
Throughout the film Bacall is pursued by a Tom Brookman played by Cameron Mitchell. She dismisses him as being a poor gas station attendant. Bacall and Powell are all set to be married but at the last moment she can't go through with it. Mitchell, who Bacall really cares for, stands in for Powell and marries her. They are all shocked when they learn that Mitchell is actually worth 200 million.
The gals have their plans dashed but wind up marrying for the right reason...........LOVE. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 03, 2005 | | Summary | What is Burger worth? | Content
| Three women, Bacall, Monroe and Grable make a pact to marry millionaires. They have a limited budget for the project and find unique ways to stretch their funds. They rent a hotel sweet and work their operation from there. As they hone in on their quarry, hamburgers from a gas pump jockey are fortifying one. Another is spying out the land and forests. A third checks out a lodge.
This movie is packed with many haps and mishaps as they maneuver and are maneuvered.
As zero hr approaches will they land their potential husbands?
And is a millionaire what they want?
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| Rating | | | Date | February 01, 2005 | | Summary | Dull glamour | Content
| Good gracious, we just watched the VHS version of this movie last night. Hmmmm. I'm not quite sure how I feel, so I'll just spill it: Tedious, dull, had trouble following a story, with a slapped-together ending. We truly were sighing before the movie actually began, as the makers spent such a huge amount of time portraying a full-blown orchestra playing the entire theme song. This, we suppose, was to showcase this "amazing" Cinemascopish thing they did. By the by, there was absolutely no reason to Cinemascope this movie; there was no action whatsoever, no panoramic shots, no nothing to warrant anything widescreen at all. Go figure. What were they thinking? Money, I suppose. Anyway, after they finally started the movie, there was a drawn-out scene with all three actresses (Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe) lying around on chaise-type furniture talking about their millionaire-man dreams, during which more than half of the time you could not see at least one of the actresses! So, we ask ourselves, why the "widescreen" effect? Anyway, we were viewing in standard format from VHS. That's that for you.
None of these three actresses could portray being "in love" at all, even when they were supposed to be in love with the three men they married in the end. As for their personal personas: Bacall is always just plain weird looking and always with a weird personality. She looked like she was supposed to be the mother, not the friend, of Monroe and Grable. Bacall was too harsh (as usual); Monroe was too impish (as usual); Grable was too stupid. All were irritating and unbelievable characters, bordering on unlikeable.
However, the goodish things about this movie: (1) The fashion show that Mr. Brookman requests (though it does seem a bit voyeuristic by today's standards) is cool, as it showcases some of the finer women's fashions of 1953. (See also Bob Hope's "Paris Holiday" for some stunning 1950s fashions on beautiful women.) (2) Seeing Marilyn Monroe in those groovy fashionable-even-today eyeglasses--what glamour! (She's pretty sexy in that little red diamond-studded number at the fashion show as well!) (3) The two special features at the beginning: One is showcasing "Movietone News" clips of Marilyn Monroe in I believe 7 or 10 of her movies from "The Marilyn Collection." The second special feature is the original theatrical trailer for the movie "How to Marry a Millionaire," and gives us a glimpse of Bogey and Bacall at the movie's premiere. (4) Lauren Bacall in the grey jumper dress with those huge billowy sleeves on that white blouse--a knockout outfit for her!
I may change my mind on this movie if I ever watch it again, but I just can't help my first impression. I respect the legacy of her, but I'm not a great fan of Marilyn Monroe, and this movie was too dull to get excited about. It is a good study in Hollywood history, especially of these three actresses, the fashions, the sensibilities of the 1950s, etc.
See also: Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot" with Tony Curtis (one of her husbands) and Jack Lemmon. Lauren Bacall in "The Big Sleep" (probably her best) with, of course, Humphrey Bogart (one of her husbands). Can't help you with Betty Grable: To my knowledge, this is the only movie I've seen her in. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 15, 2004 | | Summary | Innocent years | Content
| HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE was made in the "innocent" years before movies became cheap and sensationalized. If it were made today, well, I'd hate to think how it would be made. Nothing and no one could beat the three stars of yersteryear. Marilyn, Betty and Lauran were one of a kind and each has a great scene of their own. Together they are really delightful. It's a shame they didn't share more scenes. The Fox look in those days was well...quite wonderful as well as a nice background score. Does the picture hold up today. Yes, but barely. It's just too innocent and clean fun. That's not for todays audiences. Thank God we have DVD. These memories down nostalgia can last forever. The DVD is clear and sharp with nice stereo sound. Too bad the extras weren't better. Someone should have given a commentary. Miss Bacall would have been an excellent choice. Would have been nice to hear how the filming went, how certain shots were established and what scenes were cut from the final print. I think she's the lone survivor who had anything to do with the film, at least as of this date. This is a must see for Marilyn fans as this is my second favorites of her films. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 26, 2004 | | Summary | bad early use of cinemascope (at least for tv viewing) | Content
| This is a fun movie, but if you have a regular size tv, I don't recommend buying the dvd. I normally like letter box viewing, but this was the second Cinemascope movie made, and the director shot almost 80% of it (or more?) in medium long shot. So every shot shows the actors from the top of their heads down to mid-calf, usually clumped in the middle two-thirds of the shot, with lots of extra space on the far sides of the screen, filled with such interesting things as furniture and curtains. Close ups are rare, as are mid shots. It's like the director, faced with the new screen shape, shot it like a play viewed from the 22nd row. If you have a regular size tv, it means you can barely see the talented actress's faces. This is one of the times it's too bad that the dvd wasn't released (as some used to be) with BOTH widescreen and the "pan and scan", formatted-for-tv versions. Normally I way prefer the letter box -- but this movie is pretty hard to watch that way. So that's my warning. The movie itself is commercial fluff, but Lauren Bacall is a lot of fun in her smart, edgy mode; and this was Marilyn Monroe's break-through year, with this charming, funny performance, and also "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (which is not in Cinemascope and looks just great on dvd). |
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