How to Marry a Millionaire
How to Marry a Millionaire is a
1953 film, directed by
Jean Negulesco and starring
Lauren Bacall,
Marilyn Monroe, and
Betty Grable. The first ever picture to be filmed in
CinemaScope (and the second released, after
The Robe), it features a sizeable
Manhattan apartment that three models rent, in hopes to end up marrying millionaires.
Lauren Bacall's character, nicknamed "Schatze", and her two friends rent an upscale apartment in New York City. Bacall's plan is to use it as a setting to impress men and to eventually marry a millionaire. Her friends pitch in on the rent; when money is tight Schatze hocks the furniture, and when times are good she reclaims it.
Schatze encounters a scruffy man known only as Joe, who seems interested in her but is obviously a "gas pump jockey", and thus she tries to brush him off, with no success. She is concentrating on a classy older man, played by
William Powell, whose worth is irreproachably large.
Betty Grable's character is a spunky type who meets a grumpy businessman; he turns out to be married, but she goes with him to the mountains thinking she's going to meet a bunch of Elks members so she can check them out. Unfortunately, his lodge is deserted and he ends up with the measles, so she has to stay and nurse him, with the help of a strapping young forest ranger.
Marilyn Monroe's character is hilariously nearsighted, but hates to wear her glasses where any man could spot her. As she puts it, "Men aren't attentive to girls who wear glasses." (The original adage, penned by
Dorothy Parker, was "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.") She falls for an Arab oil tycoon, not knowing he's really a crooked speculator. When she misreads an airport destination sign, she ends up on a plane with a man, also in glasses, who thinks she's "quite a strudel" and encourages her to wear her glasses.
All three women find true love through serendipity, and they meet again back at the re-furnished apartment for Schatze's wedding - but to whom?
*
1954 Academy Award nomination - Best Costume Design, Color (Charles LaMaire,
William Travilla)
*1954
Writers Guild of America (WGA) nomination - Best Written American Comedy (Nunnally Johnson)
*
1955 BAFTA nomination - Best Film (USA)
