Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is showing at Christie Pits Park in Toronto, Canada on Saturday, 22 from 6:00 pm – with the main event preceded by another short film, Ballet Jazz – as part of the Toronto Outdoor Picture Show, a summer series closing this weekend.
“Two showgirls walk onto a transatlantic cruise ship. One prefers men who are rich; the other prefers men who are handsome. What sounds like the set-up for a bad joke is in fact the set-up for what may be one of the greatest American musicals of the 20th century: Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953.) The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in career-best performances as Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, two American showgirls who are travelling on a cruise ship to Paris, where Lorelei plans to meet and marry her fiancé. What should have been an uneventful voyage quickly becomes a madcap musical farce involving a private detective, stolen tiara, and a man named Piggy. Shot in rich and gorgeous Technicolor, come for Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in her iconic pink evening gown, but stay for the mile-a-minute jokes and Russell and Monroe’s truly laugh-out-loud (and perhaps a little queer-coded) repartee.
Two aspiring actresses get into a station wagon. One is named Karine; the other is also named Karine. The two set out in a borrowed station wagon from a remote Québec suburb towards New York so they can audition for one of the most popular musicals of all time: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. So begins Maxime Robin’s Ballet Jazz (2017), a screwball parody of Thelma and Louise (1991.) Like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, what should have been a long and uneventful road trip quickly devolves into an absurdist farce, culminating with the two Karines getting to dance in Cats, just not exactly in the way they had hoped.”
The Marilyn Report 