How to Marry A Millionaire (1953)

Due to a frustrating shut down of the Blogger website, my post for the movie that I had written days ago was erased. It's taken me several days to get over my annoyance and frustration to rewrite this blog. Again.

The time is night for finals and the frantic scurrying sounds of studying has commenced.In order to prevent myself from going brain dead, I try to give myself some time to relax and watch some movies on my endless DVD queue.

Now, I've had this movie for a very, very long time in my queue. I will make it no secret that I am not a fan of Marilyn Monroe. She was featured so prominently on the DVD cover(It irks me how she's on the cover when some of the movies don't feature her the lead actress) that I was reluctant to give it chance. Luckily through a lack of a desire to watch anything, I came to watch the movie.

I loved it.

Not because of Monroe. Oh far from it. It was because of Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. Ok, mostly Bacall. I loved her character, I loved her stubbornness, I loved her voice! Damn I am sucker for those actresses with deep voices that say high brow sentences ending with "Dawlin'" after puffing a smoke. Yeah, I know almost all of these actresses smoke (I hate smoking. Yup, it's a contradiction) and ended up with these husky voices. Bacall is seen puffing on some cigarettes on screen.

The plot for "How To Marry A Millionaire" is simply explained in the title. Three beautiful women use their beauty and most of their senses in nabbing themselves a rich husband. Schatze (played by Bacall) is the ringleader of the trio. She comes up with the ideas, the standards, and even the money to live on as they wait to ensnare their millionaire. Pola (played by Monroe) plays a ditz (surprise,surprise) who stumbles around blind as she's convinced that no man would date her if she wore her glasses. Then there's Loco who is so attractive that she can practically make any man buy her things such as groceries and what not. Their tactics and ideas on how to ensnare a millionaire is off and based on stereotypical ideas. What kind of men they end up with may not be shocking, but how they ended up with their matches is pretty entertaining.

This premise is nothing new. Even now we have reality shows based off of girls trying to nab millionaires. The desire has roots has far as the age old story of Cinderella. Where Cinderella wanted a prince, the modern cosmopolitan girl wants a millionaire. And if he's a prince too, will huzzah! (congrats to you princess middleton). Hell even I have participated in such fantasies. And before any male begins to roll their eyes, let me just list out why:

1. a millionaire offers the idea of sustained financial security
2. a millionaire is assumed to be raised on archaic forms of manners and etiquette.
3. a millionaire(with the exception of heirs) are believed to be hardworking and ambitious.

Buh buh, I must give out the cons:

1. a millionaire is always busy. He got achieved this status by putting everything second, namely relationships
2. such forms of manners and etiqutte would most likely end up alienating those that are not familiar with such customs
3. pre nups.

But namely, the fantasy is just a fantasy. In the US, anyone can be a millionaire. Be it through fortune, business, or luck. A millionaire could also be a jackass, abusive, or even worse. The point is, and the movie makes a small nod to this, a millionaire is just a person. They may not fit into the public mold but that's because their a person and every persons different.

This idea is strongly held with Schatzie and her journey. She continually turned her nose at a guy merely because of the way he dressed. According to her standards, since the guy never wore a necktie, means he is not a distinguished millionaire (which he is). She goes off and pursues them, even up to the point where she is about to take a dive and marry one of them. Somehow through her journey, she begins to think about love and life and ultimately makes her decision.

It is a predictable movie but I still enjoyed watching it nonetheless. The less Monroe was in it, the more I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy the mini concert in the beginning of the movie. A small orchestra starts off with the movie and launches into a song. I don't think the song lent anything to the movie since I am not familiar with it all. The only thing I can guess is from the trailer (which is long, uninteresting, and lame) that they were trying to show how cool the movie was since it was in Cinemascope. I have no idea what that means.

The one thing I did love about the movie was that it was another story about girls coming together to achieve a goal. So many dumb movies show women as catty and two faced. Which we are, I won't lie. But we do have our treasured friendships and comrades. Friendship wasn't a prominent theme in the movie but the chemistry was so awesome that it didn't matter.

So my friends, go off and try to find your millionaires. I hope you learn that money is not what's important. It's happiness and companionship. It makes living more enjoyable with someone to share it with. An empty mansion will only store echoes.