So this is a film that when I picked it up. I had a subconscious reaction, I vaguely knew of its existence but I knew had never watched it. I had pretty much the same reaction to everyone on the cover Howard Hawks, Jane Russell and Charles Coburn. They were people I knew existed but I couldn’t have named anything they’d done. The exception to this is Marilyn Monroe and even today around 50 years later is still the ultimate blonde style icon. So one of the things I was asking when watching this film was can Marilyn Monroe actually act, I only really knew her for being an icon and although I was aware of her being an actress, I’d never seen her act so this was interesting in that respect.
Let’s start with the plot, Lorelai Lee and Dorothy Shaw are two presumably successful showgirls who are looking to find love and get married. So Lorelai’s fiancée pay for them to go to Europe unfortunately for him. Lorelai was born with the most advanced diamond tracking system in the world and ends up being attracted by Piggy, who owns the 2nd biggest diamond mine in Africa. He’s probably set up at least two military coups and caused the death of thousands but stuff like this doesn’t bother Lorelai. Because to Lorelai, love is great and all but diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Dorothy who having no luck with the Olympic team falls for private detective Ernie Malone but unfortunately for her, he’s been hired by Lorelai’s fiancé’s father to keep an eye on Lorelai and tell him of any scandal. Unfortunately for Lorelai it seems that letting a guy grab you as he pretends to be a python and flirting with the same man to get a tiara cputns as a scandal. So he decides to cut her off, so both girls, betrayed by the men they love, decide to sing their ticket home in a nice Parisian club presumably that’s their goal, it’s not actually made clear. Piggy’s wife however wants her tiara back but it’s been stolen back by Piggy. The race is on to get the money, whilst Dorothy tries to sort this out in court. Ernie Malone decides to help her because money’s great and all but he’s got a chance of checking out her rocks, so he switches sides. The tiara is returned and we end on a double wedding. There are plenty of funny moments throughout this movie but at the same time there are a few jokes that just don’t work for example “sometimes I think there’s only one of you in the whole world”. But the plot does deliver some good laughs and the movie manages a quite relaxed pace despite it’s running time of 87 minutes.
But let’s not forget that this is a musical so let’s look at the songs in this film, first we have “two little girls from Littlerock”, a catchy little number and sung brilliantly by our two stars. The song does a good job of establishing the friendship but also the immense differences between the two leads. Jane Russell sings in a way that she knows she’s entertaining and she doesn’t take what she’s singing seriously meanwhile Marilyn Monroe sings a lot more seductively and while she’s having fun, she’s still actively working her assets to impress Gus Esmond. “Bye Bye baby” is even catchier than “two little girls from Littlerock” and again emphasises the differences between the two leads Dorothy is just flirting meanwhile Lorelai is trying to comfort Gus and convince him that she won’t cheat. Then we have "ain’t there anyone here for love" which is a very funny song with the Olympic team dancing in flesh coloured swimming trunks ahhhhh, the homo eroticism. But Russell dominates this song with her amazing comedic expressions and plain voice and pretty much set up her character’s motivations throughout the rest of the movie. Then we have “when love goes wrong, nothing goes right” which is unique throughout this movie because it’s the only song that doesn’t try and be funny again it’s sung beautifully but whereas the other songs Dorothy and Lorelai sing together emphasise how different they are. This one focuses on how similar they are. Lorelai’s not trying to impress anyone and Dorothy’s not having fun anymore. They’ve both been hurt by love but as the song goes on there is an air of hope even if they don’t have engagement rings they have a love for entertaining and ironically as they start to sing things start to go right for them. Love may go wrong but music never does. God that was corny. Last but certainly not least is diamonds are a girl’s best friend which is without a doubt the most well known song in this movie. It is fantastically staged and costumed with a great pink and black theme to which I really have to nod my head to the director. "Ain’t there anyone here for love" gave us a look into Dorothy’s character and this song does the same for Lorelai. It’s basically her whole philosophy, why should she bother with love when she can have diamonds and love, she’s not going to live forever and she just wants to enjoy life while she can and you can’t blame her. Later on Jane Russell reprises the song brilliantly and it makes fun of this philosophy that Lorelai is basically ok to sell herself to the highest bidder. So there is no song that I dislike and each song and adds great emotional depth to the plight of our stars 
So let’s talk about the two main stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. According to IMDB when Marilyn was told she wasn’t the star of this film she said “Well whatever I am, I’m still the blonde” and that pretty much sums up her character. She’s extremely blonde from her simpering voice; her doe eyed expression and her quite generous curves. By all rights, I should hate this character, I’ve grew up in an age where the blonde bimbo was nothing but an object of ridicule in most movies especially when the blonde is only after money, which but I don’t hate this character. You can’t hate Lorelai in this film, what she says throughout makes sense; I especially love her honesty at the end “I want your money.” She also delivers all her lines in this soft simpering voice and while it should be annoying it just isn’t, it adds a whole extra layer of comedy to her already funny lines and she is just so iconic throughout this film, she also emotes quite well and she has little expressions that add something to her performance like how she tries to smile when Dorothy invites the Olympic team to her room. However I preferred Jane Russell’s character Dorothy, She just has a no nonsense attitude and she delivers her lines brilliantly, one of my personal favourites is “no one chaperones the chaperone” and she’s such a perfect contrast to Lorelai. She’s not trying to find a rich husband she just wants to fall in love and have fun and she’s quite successful at doing this although they are a few mishaps. I just fell in love with her care free attitude but also her fierce determination to look after her friend. Russell and Monroe have a great chemistry together and you really believe these two are really good friends which really sells the movie. 
The supporting cast is also brilliant, the two love interests do a brilliant job of being more than bland love interests, and Elliot Reis plays the wisecracking private dick Ernie Malone with such style that you can’t help but love him. Yes he’s here to bring down Lorelai but he’s only doing his job and his down to earth attitude and dry wit makes him a perfect match for Dorothy because they just want love. On the other hand we have
Tom Noonan playing Gus Esmond who gets the amazing fortune to play opposite Marilyn Monroe. He does a pretty good job and unlike everyone else it never seems like he’s lusting after her but that he’s just madly in love and his reactions during "bye bye baby" are just brilliant and he manages to convey that he is genuinely worried about her. He doesn’t want anything to happen to her. Charles Coburn didn’t really impress me in this film, he does an ok job but he’s really only there as a plot device and isn’t very interesting. The real scene stealer is George Winslow as Henry Spoford the 3rd. This kid is amazing, I love his dead pan voice, his dead pan expression and just about everything this kid does. He’s only in two scenes but he just steals them completely. The way he says you’ve got a lot of animal magnetism with no passion just makes the line all the more funny. This kid is either a comedic genius or a really crap actor. I really can’t figure this kid out.
Lastly special features, well we’ve got the trailer which is good. A film of Monroe and Russell signing their names in cement which is good if you like watching celebrities write their name in cement. We also have a small feature about the restoration of this movie which I don’t recommend unless you’re really interested in film restoration. Lastly we have two pictures which I assume were movie posters and they look quite nice. So yeah, the special features really aren’t worth buying the DVD.
To conclude Gentlemen prefer blondes satirises high society and also points out the hypocrisy in a system that looks down on women for only wanting money, when there are men that want women because of their looks. But first and foremost, this is a comedy about love, how much it hurts, how much fun it is. But if this film had a message I think it would be figure out what you want and go for it. But this film is mainly about fun and you’ll be humming the songs for weeks and that’s what it’s all about.
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