How to Marry a Millionaire [VHS]

Nunnally Johnson's Broadway comedy was brought to the big screen by director Jean Negulesco, built around a trio of female stars, Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, and Betty Grable. They play friends who come up with a plan to find and marry rich men. They rent a lavish penthouse and use it as their launching pad to lure men with money in the bank. But each eventually finds that love is more important that material possessions, though it takes a while. One running joke has Monroe so insecure about her looks that she refuses to wear glasses, though this means she bumps into furniture and walls. The other has Bacall rejecting suitor Cameron Mitchell because he doesn't wear a tie, assuming this means he's low-class when, in fact, he's the Donald Trump of 1954. Pre-feminist comedy captures the mindset of an era in which women's identities were based on the men they married. It has its moments, but much of the humor seems dated, though its take on sexual politics is occasionally acute. --Marshall Fine

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