Gentlemen Prefer Blondes made its world debut in Atlantic City’s cinemas 70 years ago today, on July 1st, 1953. The rollout continued across the US over the next four weeks, although UK fans wouldn’t see it for another five months.
There was no official premiere, but then it hardly needed one, as leading ladies Marilyn and Jane Russell had already left their imprints outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (on June 26th.) And when the movie opened in Los Angeles on July 31st, publicists at Twentieth Century-Fox came up with the ingenious stunt of having a pack of brunettes and redheads ‘picket’ the Hollywood Boulevard cinema in bathing suits and high heels.
Today, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes seems sharper and fresher than ever, and is second only to Some Like It Hot as Marilyn’s most popular movie. Writing for The Guardian, Charles Bramesco pays tribute to this sexy, subversive rom-com and its empowering female stars.
“The general critical consensus in 1953 ruled that in spite of a substandard showing from Howard Hawks (who never showed up on set for the song-and-dance numbers he ‘didn’t have any desire to’ shoot), the undeniable charms and chemistry of the leading ladies salvaged a slight effort. From the vantage of the present, nothing seems minor about the satire on the anything-but-cold war between the sexes, an exemplar of ravishing Technicolor cinematography, extravagant mid-century haute-couture costumes, and impeccable production numbers. A winningly racy sensibility lights up each scene, past the odd double entendre to a more pervasive horniness suggesting that Monroe projects an intoxicating field on all those in her immediate vicinity … The woozy sexy-baby routine hinges on Monroe’s tendency to emote with her mouth – she can telegraph happiness, unsureness, confusion or confidence all with a drawing-back of the lips – more than her eyes, perhaps a contributing factor to her detractors’ charges of telegenic absentmindedness. But like the role of Lorelei, her cannier-than-it-may-appear actorly decision-making reiterates the eternal truism that just as the erudite can be boob-headed in the practical sense, the unschooled are nonetheless capable of great cleverness and insight.”
The Marilyn Report 