Films A to Z

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Runtime:
91 min.
Year of Production:
1953
Country:
USA
Director:
Cast:
Marylin Monroe
Jane Russel
Charles Coburn
Production Company:
Sol C. Siegel
Berlinale Section:
Retrospective

As New York showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw travel to Europe, they are shadowed aboard
ship by private detective Ernie Malone, hired by the disapproving millionaire father of Lorelei’s fiancé.
Lorelei’s material girl behaviour makes it easy for Malone to find proof of her alleged “infidelity”.
Meanwhile, Dorothy falls in love with the detective … Much like the private eye’s preferred potable
(“just equal parts of scotch, vodka, brandy, and gin”), the film mixes the seemingly incompatible
for Marilyn Monroe’s stunning performance of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” in this case the
colours hot pink, red, violet, and orange. The result was the birth of “camp”. What its trailer called “the
most glamorous musical of our age” celebrated Technicolor as one component of a dazzling work
of art or, as Cole Porter put it in a verse cut from the final version of Silk Stockings (1957) because
it was deemed “unacceptably vulgar”, “If Zanuck’s latest picture were the good old-fashioned
kind, / There’d be no one in front to look at Marilyn’s behind / If you want to hear applauding hands
resound / You’ve gotta have glorious Technicolor / Breathtaking Cinemascope and / stereophonic
sound”.
 

BIOGRAFIE Howard Hawks

Howard Winchester Hawks (* May 30, 1896 in Goshen, Indiana; † December 26, 1977 in Palm Springs, California) was an American director of the classic Hollywood era. Hawks distinguished himself across genres as one of the most important American film directors of his generation. He created important classics such as Scarface (Gangster film), Leopards don't get kissed (comedy), The Dead Sleep Soundly (film noir), Rio Bravo (western) and The Thing from Another World (science fiction). For his life's work the director received an honorary oscar in 1975; two years later Hawks died at the age of 81.

source: wikipedia.org

FILMOGRAFIE Howard Hawks (selection)

1967 El Dorado  1964 Ein Goldfisch an der Leine  1959 Rio Bravo  1953 Blondinen bevorzugt  1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes  1948 Red River  1946 Tote schlafen fest  1944 To Have and Have Not  1938 Leoparden küßt man nicht  1932 Narbengesicht 



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