HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox, 1953) Fox Home Video
Had she lived to see the day, Norma
Jeane Mortenson (better known to the world as Marilyn Monroe) would have been
96-years-old this year. That one of the most luminous - and voluminous - sex
kittens of the 20th century met with an untimely end just 36-years into
this tenure was an epic loss to American movies. As no sexpot before or since
Monroe’s time has had such a legendary influence on virtually every major starlet
desiring to capture and re-bottle the Monroe mystique. Aside: I sincerely wish,
fewer would try. Because there will never be another Marilyn Monroe. Even the shameless
knock-offs from her own time (Mamie Van Doren, Jane Mansfield, Sheeree North,
Stella Stevens) were no match. Why?
I suspect, because the real kernel
of sexual satisfaction to be gleaned from Monroe had little to do with her
looks, and far more with that unquantifiable enticement emanating from the
peripheries of what was going on inside – the image of the bubble-head, simply
that: image, studio-bound and self-created to illicit an ‘idea’ about the blonde
that all gentlemen would eventually come to preferred. In her early years, Monroe
cultivated this silliness, mostly to conceal tortured fears about becoming her
mother, Gladys Pearl Baker – a woman felled by mental anguish, to eventually
wind up in an asylum. However, as her own image took hold on the screen, Monroe
fought like hell to expand upon its finer points, taking classes at the famed
Actor’s Studio, establishing her own film company, and truly, to be invested in
her own self-improvement and her craft. Regrettably, and mostly due to studio
intervention, Monroe’s ability to exercise the girth of her talents was only
intermittently shared with movie audiences in pictures like The Asphalt
Jungle (1950), Don’t Bother To Knock (1952), Niagara (1953), Bus
Stop (1956) and The Misfits (1961). For the rest, Monroe played to
the Monroe-stereotype audiences loved best, achieving one of her most joyously
dumb triumphs in director, Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire
(1953).
The very first comedy to debut in
Fox’s newly patented Cinemascope, How to Marry a Millionaire remains a ‘dreamy’ enough bonbon to bring together three of the 20th
century’s most bankable stars for the first and only time. Immediately
following Darryl F. Zanuck’s announcement, all subsequent 2oth Century-Fox
movies would be shot in Cinemascope to combat the onslaught of television (this
had resulted in a mass exodus of audiences from their local Bijous in the late
1940’s) Zanuck laid down an ambitious spate of projects to capitalize on the
studio’s newly patented widescreen wonder. Cinemascope was Zanuck’s response to
the more cumbersome 3-camera Cinerama process. And although touted as revolutionary,
Cinemascope was neither a ‘new’ technology (physicist, Henri Chrétien had tried
to interest Fox in his creation as early as 1929, but to no avail), nor was it
the most ideal of the widescreen processes to emerge from the 1950’s, though
arguably, it was the most successfully to be launched, promoted and exploited
throughout this decade.
But Cinemascope had a host of
shortcomings derived from its concave Bausch & Lomb lenses. These caused
any vertical object situated nearer the edges of the screen to acquire a severe
inward curvature. The process also created a rather queasy unease when
attempting to shoot close-ups – the actors’ faces suffering from what was then
quaintly referred to as the Cinemascope ‘mumps’ – a horizontal stretch fattening
and flattening faces – not at all flattering! In hindsight, the real star of How
to Marry a Millionaire is Cinemascope, Fox merely tossing two of its
biggest assets – Bette Grable and Marilyn Monroe – with a third box office draw
– Lauren Bacall, the latter, borrowed as a free agent, into a light and frothy
confection. And Negulesco is quite adept at finding ways to have each of all
three of these luscious ladies distended on a horizontal plain to show off
their assets from end to end in ‘scope’s 2.35:1 ratio as each takes her turn
answering a perpetually ringing telephone on a chaise inside their
uber-fashionable Sutton Place apartment.
Cinemascope’s girth did not
necessarily translate into more substantive cinema. In point of fact, How to
Marry a Millionaire is pretty par for the course of the stories that would
follow it: simpler, with more static camerawork befitting the expanded
horizontal plain. Initially, Cinemascope was perceived – ironically – as a
cost-cutting measure, with less need for camera set-ups as the expanded frame
meant directors could merely ‘set up’ a shot and then let their cast maneuver
back and forth through ‘scope’s expanded proscenium without panning or
readjusting their focus. While early Cinemascope came with its own set of
drawbacks, including its less than vibrant hues in DeLuxe color and an
amplification of film grain, to Negulesco’s credit, most of these technical
hindrances are kept at bay in How to Marry a Millionaire. One great
advantage of Cinemascope was its utilization of true stereophonic sound. How
to Marry a Millionaire takes full advantage of this with Cyril J.
Mockridge’s frothy score, winningly conducted by Alfred Newman. To kickstart
the magic, Zanuck ordered an orchestral prelude to the picture with Newman, the
studio’s resident composer, conducting the Fox Studio Orchestra – all 75 pieces
of it, immaculately attired in black tuxedoes and playing an expanded version of
Newman’s own famed ‘Street Scene’ - an oft re-purposed ‘anthem’ at Fox,
this time set against a backdrop of painted blue sky framed in a pantheon of
Roman columns.
This is immediately followed by Mockridge’s
bombastic main title and then, the aperture opening up on several stock shots
of that ‘fabulous, glamorous wonderland’ – Manhattan, in all its
concrete and glass uber-urbanity. The screenplay by Nunnally Johnson is a
spritely concoction of merriment and mix-ups that are cleverly naïve as our
three conspiring cohorts, forthright, Schatze Page (Bacall), clueless, Loco
Dempsey (Grable) and blind as a bat, Pola Debevoise (Monroe) become inveigled,
respectively, with a debonair tycoon (William Powell), an opinionated drip
(Fred Clark) and a kooky investor on the lamb (David Wayne). On route to true love,
Pola encounters a con artist (Alexander D’Arcy), and Schatze, a brash young man
(Cameron Mitchell), who perpetually needles her into finding him attractive.
The kicker here is the man, Tom Brookman, really is a millionaire. In
hindsight, How to Marry a Millionaire is a transitional piece in more
ways than one, the dawning of ‘scope’ and the quiet ‘unofficial’ farewell to
Betty Grable’s supremacy at Fox as its reigning blonde pin-up of the 1940’s.
Grable, who had done right by the studio and had been well-rewarded for her
efforts was hardly bitter in stepping down from this hallowed top spot. Every
bit the star and the lady, Grable told Monroe, “I’ve had mine. Now, go out
and get yours.”
How To Marry A
Millionaire is a film that could only have been made during the 1950’s, its flighty
escapades and dippy threesome, par for the course of that decade’s sexual
stereotyping, regurgitating the ‘lamb bites wolf’ scenario of many classic
screwball comedies from the 1930’s – to render its three hapless schemers just
out on a seductive lark. Nunnully Johnson’s screenplay is one giant cliché that
begins in earnest when resourceful fashion model, Schatze Page arrives as a
grand dame, dripping in furs, to inspect a fashionable Sutton Place penthouse
recently come on the market. It is
Schatze’s plan to rent this high-profile piece of real estate – fully
furnished, no less – as a sort of haughty and exclusive lair in which to ensnare
a ‘rich’ husband. Loco cannot wait to get started and has invited fellow model,
Pola Debevoise to partake of their experiment – the more the merrier, and,
pragmatically, more gals to cover the costly rent. However, without her glasses, Pola is
virtually blind. This leads to all sorts of interesting screw-ups along the
way, especially since Pola is convinced men do not like women who wear glasses
because it makes them appear too intelligent. No fear of mistaken identity
there, as Monroe is playing to her comedic strengths as the bubble-headed
blonde with nothing but air between her ears.
As the girls move in, they are
unaware their present digs once belonged to Freddie Denmark (David Wayne), who
has dodged the IRS and has been living obscurely in Europe, but infrequently
making house calls, skulking around while the girls are out, in search of
evidence that will exonerate him of the charges of tax evasion and fraud.
However, as autumn fades into winter money becomes scarce. To keep up
appearances, Schatze begins to liquidate the apartment’s furnishing to a pawn
broker, Mr. Benton (Percy Helton). By the first few flakes of winter, the girls
are living off a card table with only a few fold-out chairs. Things have
definitely ‘not’ turned out the way they planned. Loco brings home Tom Brookman
– a congenial enough guy who helped carry her groceries, but whom Schatze,
deducing solely by her immediate attraction to Tom he is ‘the wrong sort’,
because her taste in men skews to penniless ‘gas pump jockeys’, quickly – and
rather rudely – sends him away. Of course, nothing could be further from the
truth. Tom is actually heir to a vast holding company, with investments to buy
half of Manhattan.
Undaunted by her brush-off, Tom
pursues Schatze without revealing his true identity to her. He even crashes a
fashion show at Mr. Antoine’s (Maurice Marsac) design house, where all three
ladies are working as models, under the pretext of looking to buy a gown for
his mother. Schatze deflects her attraction with a modicum of contempt,
determined Tom will not get the best of her. Besides, who needs Tom Brookman
when there is J.D. Hanley (William Powell), a recently widowed oil tycoon, much
too old for Schatze, but infinitely cultured, and quite capable of giving her
the lifestyle she is after. In the meantime, Pola – without her glasses – has
mistaken Freddie as a friend of Schatze’s with whom she infrequently flirts
while trying to get a little closer to J. Stewart Merill (Alexander D’Arcy), a
one-eyed would-be Arab prince, actually a con artist out to bilk rich women of
their life savings. Stewart tells Pola to take a plane and meet him in
California where presumably they will be married. Mercifully, Pola misreads the
flight itinerary without her glasses and books herself on a plane to Kansas
City instead.
Seated next to Freddie on the
plane, Pola strikes up a conversation. He thinks she is ‘quite a strudel’ and
encourages her to put her glasses back on. It’s love, at first - ‘clear’ -
sight. Meanwhile, another budding romantic
prospect is about to unravel when married banker, Waldo Brewster (Fred Clark)
decides to take Loco as his mistress, up to his hunting lodge for a fun weekend
of skiing. Too bad the stuffy old philanderer contracts the measles instead,
leaving him bedridden. So handsome, strapping forest ranger, Eben Salem (Rory
Calhoun) puts the moves on Loco. Although she resists, at first, Loco cannot
help herself. In another ‘neck of the woods’, Tom and Schatze spend a romantic
weekend together. He wants Schatze to love him for himself. So, he still does
not tell her he is wealthy. Alas, she repeatedly tells Tom she never wants to
see him again, even though she realizes it is no use. The two are inseparable,
and bad timing too, since Schatze has already accepted a proposal of marriage
from J.D. Determined to go through with her marriage to Hanley, Schatze’s final
rejection leaves Tom resentful. Realizing she cannot marry Hanley, Schatze
pulls out of their wedding literally moments before vows are exchanged. Given
his humiliation, J.D. is completely understanding, even gracious, as he bows
out and paves the way for Schatze’s reunion with Tom. Afterward, Schatze and
Tom join Pola and Freddie, and, Loco and Eben at a local greasy spoon where
they laughingly joke over corn beef sandwiches and beers how close they each
came to landing millionaires. However, when it comes time to pay the bill, Tom
pulls out a wad of hundreds from his pocket, instructing the proprietor to
‘keep the change’. Schatze, Loco and Pola faint dead away as Ebon, Tom and
Freddie propose a toast to their wives.
How to Marry a
Millionaire is an utterly obtuse, yet strangely intoxicating entertainment. At some
point – and I am not exactly certain where in the film that point is –
its improbable campiness becomes just too over the top and joyously silly to be
scoffed. So, it rather miraculously translates into something of a sparkling
champagne cocktail of good antiseptic fun. The best scenes in the picture cater
to Monroe’s dim-witted Pola – without her glasses – navigating her way past the
wolves pawing at her, even as she walks into a wall inside the ladies’ powder
room. There is also some ribald jest to be gleaned from Loco’s joyous defeat as
she and Brewster, having taken every precaution to remain anonymous for the
weekend, wind up being the ‘lucky’ one-millionth couple to cross the
George Washington Bridge, receiving a police escort, followed by a barrage of
photographs taken by an eager press awaiting their arrival at the toll
booth. The most fully-developed of the
early romances - Schatze and J.D – is also rather sweet and charming, owing to William
Powell’s generally underutilized, though never anything less than debonair
finesse. J.D. astutely determines from the get-go Schatze is not in love with
him. But he kindly accepts her as a companion in friendship for a little while,
and with no strings attached as she desperately tries to convince herself
marriage to a much older man will work out the lingering kinks in her
apprehension, even as she pines for Tom’s touch.
But again, the real star of this
movie is Cinemascope. Cinematographer, Joseph MacDonald exploits the
horizontal plain to stellar advantage throughout, photographing his leads in
interesting (albeit static) compositions, occasionally finding clever ways to
fill the entire screen with the extended limbs of one star exquisitely lying on
a settee. This is Cinemascope at its most frivolously decorous. But it works
for this story in unexpectedly glamorous ways. If the women here are mere
window-dressing, then their menfolk are incidental necessities at best,
inserted as the most cardboard and one-dimensional lovers. The worst of these
is Rory Calhoun’s robust forest ranger. William Powell, in his farewell to the
movies, provides an elegant link to Hollywood’s bygone era of champagne and
caviar screwball comedies he and Myrna Loy ushered in the 1930’s. I adore
Powell, who exudes an air of sophistication, seemingly without trying. He just
is every bit the gentleman any woman of a certain age and era would desire
for an elegant husband. Given Marilyn Monroe’s runaway popularity at the box
office in 1955, Pola is rather undeveloped. Monroe is eye-candy at best, and,
in form-fitting costumes by Travilla, she fits this bill superbly, in one
scene, strutting in transparent platform heels and a one-piece bathing suit
that makes rather ravishing projectiles of her ample bosom, and, in another,
looking positively stunning in an ultra-violet, off the shoulder evening gown
with sequins. In the final analysis, How
to Marry a Millionaire is more a movie of its time than a timeless movie.
That said, it remains light-hearted and entertaining and very sincerely played.
Fox’s Blu-ray of this
problematically archived classic is fairly impressive, given the limitations of
early Cinemascope and limitations in source material. We get a bright and
generally colorful 1080p transfer with some solid detail throughout. How to
Marry a Millionaire underwent an extensive photochemical restoration back
in the late 1990’s to resurrect its thoroughly faded and well-worn image. Unlike
many later Fox ‘scope’ product, the color processing here was done by
Technicolor rather than DeLuxe. Alas, by 1953, the 3-strip process had given
way to monopack negative, with certain limitations. The Blu-ray image, while
still sporting a few curious anomalies, looks years younger in hi-def than it
ever has on home video. Fades, dissolves and other transitional scene changes briefly
suffer from tonal shift and a distinct drop in overall saturation levels. There
is also some curiosity over the tuxedoes worn by the 2oth Century-Fox studio
orchestra in the orchestral ‘overture’. They ought to be black. But herein,
they adopt a deep navy sheen. Otherwise, what’s here will likely not disappoint
the casual viewer, although it would behoove Disney (the current custodians of
Fox’s catalog) to invest in a bit of remastering and color correction for a
hi-def reissue. We get a 5.1 DTS audio. Stereophonic sound was one of Cinemascope’s
big selling features. But many vintage stereo tracks do not survive today. How
To Marry A Millionaire’s does, allowing us to bask in the afterglow of the
Mockridge/Newman score. Like Marilyn Monroe – it’s dreamy! Newman’s ‘Street
Scene’ is sublime, as are the main titles and other orchestral cues scattered
throughout, especially the fashion show sequence. Dialogue is front-and-center,
and occasionally ‘directionalized’ (meaning, if follows the action on the
screen), well-represented, sounding crisp and clean. Fox, alas, has fumbled the
ball on extras. Given Marilyn Monroe’s enduring legacy and importance as an
irrefutable icon of the 20th century, not to mention How to Marry
a Millionaire’s landmark status as ‘the first’ Fox comedy to emerge in
Cinemascope, one would have anticipated a featurette or, at least, an audio
commentary. But no – just a brief Movietones newsreel and some trailers.
Ho-hum. Short-changed again. Bottom line: 60-years on, it’s still a cute and
entertaining movie, holding up remarkably well, despite today’s jaundiced
scrutiny. The Blu-ray is better than adequate, but still falls short of
expectations. Judge and buy accordingly.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
3.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
1
Comments