Monroe at 100 Watch: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Watched:  06/13/2026

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jean Negulesco

I'd always heard that How To Marry a Millionaire (1953) wasn't very good.  In the end, it was not as bad as I figured, a nicety of someone telling you something is horrible which is just not great.  But...  eh.  

The problem for modern viewers is that this movie was the spiritual sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and people generally see GPB first and this film second, and HtMaM just isn't anywhere near as memorable, funny or entertaining.  

In my opinion, anyway.  

The studio clearly thought this movie was a gold mine, and they were right.   In 1953, this movie did better box office than Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and got pretty nice reviews.  It seems critics were warming up to Monroe's sense of comedy, and they were already fans of Lauren Bacall (who isn't?), and Betty Grable (she's fine).  It was clearly seen as a way to appeal to adult audiences in an era where TV was nosing in around the edges.  A wide-screen, color feature with big stars, fun and kind of sexy with a lot of innuendo - and packaged a bit like going to a Broadway show.

On a budget of less than $2 million, the movie initially made $8 million worldwide, which made it a top earner for the year.  To draw in those audiences with the new CinemaScope format, and went kinda nuts by insisting on including an unnecessary overture - essentially five minutes of an orchestra seen from maybe three shots.  

It is both pretentious (oooo...  this is just like going to the theatre!) and boring.

After a divorce from a gas station attendant (she says they always "send" her, and it is the weirdest kink of all time) Lauren Bacall teams up with two other models to also pretend to be rich and basically lie their way into at least one of them marrying a millionaire.

Some of the targets include an older William Powell, now 60ish and sounding not unlike one of my grandfathers.  There's also, deep sigh, Cameron Mitchell as someone the girls mistake as a poor, but who is a zillionaire - probably a gag best saved for the last minute but revealed at the opening of the film, making some of the movie not make sense. We also have Rory Calhoun and everyone's favorite movie grump, Fred Clark.

It's all frothy camp and not to be taken seriously, an extended cartoon.  Oddly, it is not a musical, so we're dealing with zero show stoppers and a plot as light as a dandelion in late spring.  I don't know that the theme has ever entirely disappeared from the reality of any society - but here in the US it's become declassee to utter out loud, and to have a movie with leading women who are looking for easy street by marrying the wealthy is maybe not smiled upon in all corners.   

This is a movie that wants you to think that blue cat-eye glasses are an unattractive addition to a blonde, and I can tell you with absolute certainty and merely by gazing over at Mrs. The Signal Watch, this is a damnable lie.  But specs also do nothing to take away from Ms. Monroe.

It has some zany moments, but I am unsure I ever actually did much more than produce a vague smile.

Everything about the movie feels safe - there's no twisty logic like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or anything to make anyone feel off on their night out with the missus.  Even the potentially scandalous Betty Grable plotline is anything but.  And it's that safety that makes it all kind of dull, like a joke in Reader's Digest.  

Fortunately - this is a movie that cruises on charisma and vibes, and that it has.  So, it kind of survives in spite of itself.