Review of How to Marry a Millionaire

Schatze (Lauren Bacall) was briefly married to a gas station employee. But, fresh from her divorce, she is determined to do things differently the next time. No more nickle and dime husbands for her, she is going to marry a millionaire. Concocting an unusual scheme, she sublets a Manhattan apartment that belonged to a businessman who had to flee the country. As it is doubtful he will ever return, she begins selling the expensive piano and furnishings to afford the rent. Then, she convinces two other women to join her in a plot to find money-dripping mates. Pola (Marilyn Monroe) is a near-sighted beauty who rarely wears her spectacles because men don't make passes on women with glasses, as the saying goes. Very often, she doesn't have a clue about what her date looks like. Loco (Betty Grable), herself a blonde beauty, wants to marry well but is easily distracted by a handsome face, even if the gentleman is as poor as a churchmouse. In short order, Schatze is romanced by a great-looking, tie-less, seemingly poverty-stricken wisecracker, Tom (Cameron Mitchell) and Loco, intending to spend a weekend with a rich old coot, meets an attractive forest ranger in the woods of Maine. Meanwhile, Pola is supposed to hook up with someone in Atlantic City but boards a plane to Kansas City by mistake, where she meets a handsome, four-eyed, two-bit businessman. Will the gold digging schemes of these three ladies go out the window? Here is a film my three sisters and I adored when we were teenagers in the late fifties-early sixties. Made in 1953, it is a wonderful romantic comedy and looks sensational to boot. Bacall, Grable, and especially Monroe are total delights as the women who would be glad to make matches with millionaires, if only true love was not around to rear its head. The rest of the cast, including Mitchell, is quite nice, too. Naturally, the costumes are gorgeous and the settings among the uppercrust are first class as well. As for the script and direction, they are both snappy, memorable and fun. If you have a hankering for romantic comedy, do see one of the groundbreaking romcoms of all time by renting this film (or buying it for 50 cents, which is what I did!). Any viewer who does so will turn a dull evening at home into an experience worth a million bucks.