Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

That's the tune you'll be singing after the movie's over... and not because of it's catchy chords and great lyrics, I assure you...

This is the kind of movie that drives anyone to the brink of insanity... for it tries to cover all genres, and it flops in each and every one of them - it's not a good musical... the orchestrations are awkward, far from easy listening, and can manage to ruin even the most enchanting songs ever composed - 'My Funny Valentine', for instance, and 'Ain't Misbehaving', executed on a hilariously ludicrous 'cannibal african tribe' setting (!).

A good comedy...? No, I don't think so... the amusing lines uttered by Jeanne Crain can't solely carry a feature film... by the by, can anyone believe that those legs actually belong to darling youth, 'Margie'...? :)

A good romantic flick? Again, I doubt it... the romantic interludes are ridiculous, featuring Jane "The Girl That Can't Say No" Russell and Scott Brady, and Jeanne "Tough Gal" Crain and Alan "Filthy Rich Hiding Behind A Social Outcast Mask" Young...

A good drama? Only if your notion of drama is reduced to Scott Brady's supreme could shoulders aimed towards Jane Russell... :)

Well... all things considered, this is a plodding, mindless affair that has it's good moments, but is not to be compared to the classic 'Gentleman Prefer Blondes' in any way.

As the brunettes that gentlemen prefer to marry Jane Russell and Jeanne Crain at least got a working vacation in Paris. The cinematography of the city of lights is dazzling..

A rather thin plot with many flashback sequences and one dream sequence are packed into Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. Jane and Jeanne play themselves a pair of sister showgirls who are tired of the New York scene and go to Paris hoping to strike it big as their motherand aunt did back in the Roaring 20s.

One remnant of the 20s is in Paris. Rudy Vallee is there and he remembers the old sister act well. With his patronage and a rich secret admirer the new sister act hits it big.

They even pick up a couple of earnest courters, Scott Brady and Alan Young. t all ain't quite enough.

A bit more of a coherent story and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes would have been a classic.

This movie is growing on me, I didn't like it the first time but, it has some great parts. If you are looking for another Gentlemen Prefer Blondes it is not as good as that movie but it does have some fun numbers like "Have You Met Miss Jones" Some great scenery, and Jane is funny in this. It does have some parts that are goofy and the "I've Got Five Dollars" sounds like it was made up on the spot, just singing about any trivial thing. The "AINT MISBEHAVING" is the topper with a jungle tribe ready to feast on the girls and Alan Young in that gorilla suit doing the Marlene Dietrich Hot Voodoo bit. this may take more than one viewing to be appreciated.

The "Ain't Misbehavin'" number is so bad its almost good.

Dancing African spearchuckers played by white guys in purplish black body paint with red fright wigs with bones in their hair carrying zebra shields. Got the picture? No you don't, not yet. Alan Young in a monkey suit sitting in a tree singing "Ain't Misbehavin" for no discernible reason. Jane Russell dressed up as an African queen sings the second chorus as a duet with the monkey man (again for no logical reason, is she in love with a gorilla?) while the dancing "Africans" sing along in unmistably WHITE voices! Oh man its so bad you won't know whether to laugh, cry or run out of the room screaming.

"Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" is sometimes regarded as a sequel to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" from two years before, but introduced a completely new set of characters. I have never read either of the Anita Loos novels on which the two films are based, but understand that her "But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" was indeed a true sequel to its predecessor in that it follows the further adventures of Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw. Neither of these characters appear in the film. The only things the two films share are a broadly similar plot and the presence of Jane Russell as one of the leads.

As in the earlier film, Russell plays an American showgirl, here named Bonnie Jones who performs as part of a double act with her sister Connie. The two sisters decide that their careers on Broadway are going nowhere and that they should try their luck in Paris. Once in the French capital they achieve greater success and fall in love with two young men. And that, more or less, is the plot, although there are also flashbacks featuring another pair of Jones sisters, Mimi and Mitzi (the mother and aunt of Bonnie and Connie) who were the toast of Paris in the twenties.

As in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" the emphasis is very much on the female stars; the two male leads, Alan Young and Scott Brady, are even more bland and anonymous than their opposite numbers in the first film. Russell's co-star in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" was, of course, the blonde Marilyn Monroe, and an important part of the storyline of that film was that their two characters had not only contrasting looks but also contrasting personalities. Monroe's Lorelei was a quite unashamed gold-digger and Russell's Dorothy, despite a string of cynical wisecracks, was the idealistic "good girl".

Here, Russell is teamed with another brunette, Jeanne Crain. The visual contrast from the earlier film is lost as the two women were similar in looks, although Crain was slightly shorter and less voluptuous. There is an attempt to give their characters different personalities, Bonnie being more flighty and impulsive and Connie more level-headed, but these differences are never brought out well either by the script or by the acting. Russell is not as good here as she was in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"; Dorothy seems to have been a character much more suited to her style of acting than is Bonnie. Perhaps, also, after "Blondes" and "The French Line", she was getting fed up with being typecast in scantily-clad showgirl-type roles. As for Crain, she is, quite frankly, a poor substitute for Marilyn.

The film contains some famous songs, although many of these such as "My Funny Valentine" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" have been appropriated (some would say misappropriated) from other contexts. The latter song here suffers from being performed in the context of a bizarre sketch in which Russell and Crain are chased by spear-wielding African cannibal tribesmen and end up in an enormous cooking-pot, a sequence which today seems almost hilariously politically incorrect. Even in the fifties it probably seemed rather off-colour to anyone more sensitive than the average Hollywood film-maker; political correctness is not always a bad thing. The Mimi/Mitzi scenes also get a bit annoying. There is a running joke that the older Jones sisters achieved their immense success despite a total lack of talent, and this is the sort of running joke that quickly outstays its welcome.

As a musical, "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" contains some attractive music, but its mediocre acting, unmemorable dialogue and virtually non-existent plot means that, as a film, it is in nothing like the same class as its more illustrious predecessor. 5/10, mostly for the music.