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How to Marry a Millionaire | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Jean Negulesco |
Screenplay by | Nunnally Johnson |
Based on | The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins Loco by Dale Eunson Katherine Albert |
Produced by | Nunnally Johnson |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Joseph MacDonald |
Edited by | Louis R. Loeffler |
Music by |
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Production company | |
Distributed by | 20th Century-Fox |
Release date |
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Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1.9 million [1] |
Box office | $8 million [2] |
How to Marry a Millionaire is a 1953 American screwball comedy film directed by Jean Negulesco and written and produced by Nunnally Johnson. The screenplay was based on the plays The Greeks Had a Word for It (1930) by Zoe Akins and Loco (1946) by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert.[ citation needed ]
It stars Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Lauren Bacall as three fashionable Manhattan models, along with William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, and Cameron Mitchell as their wealthy marks. Although Grable received top billing in the screen credits, Monroe's name was listed first in all advertising, including the trailer.[ citation needed ]
Produced and distributed by 20th Century-Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire was the studio's first film to be shot in the new CinemaScope wide-screen sound process, although it was the second CinemaScope film released by Fox after the biblical epic film The Robe (also 1953). It was also the first color and CinemaScope film ever shown on prime-time network television (though panned-and-scanned) when it was presented as the first film on NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies on September 23, 1961. [3]
The soundtrack to How to Marry a Millionaire was released on CD by Film Score Monthly on March 15, 2001.[ citation needed ]
Resourceful Schatze Page, spunky Loco Dempsey, and ditzy Pola Debevoise are three women on a mission: each wants to marry a millionaire. To accomplish this task, they rent a luxurious Sutton Place penthouse in New York City from Freddie Denmark (who is avoiding the IRS by living in Europe) and together hatch a plot to court the city's elite. On the day they move in, Loco arrives with Tom Brookman, who purchases her groceries for her because she "forgot her pocketbook". Tom shows interest in Schatze but she dismisses him, stating that "The first rule is, gentlemen callers have got to wear a necktie" and, instead, sets her sights on the charming, classy, rich widower J.D. Hanley. While courting the older J.D., she fends off Tom, who eventually wins her over. After every date, she insists she never wants to see him again.
Meanwhile, Loco meets grumpy businessman Walter Brewster. He is married, but she agrees to accompany him to his lodge in Maine, thinking it is a convention hall of the Elks Club. Just as Loco discovers her mistake, she comes down with the measles and is quarantined. Upon recovering, while Brewster is now bedridden with measles, she begins seeing the forest ranger, Eben Salem. Loco mistakenly believes Salem is a wealthy landowner instead of a civil servant overseeing acres of forestlands. She is disappointed, telling off Brewster on the drive back to New York.
Pola is myopic but hates wearing glasses in the presence of men. She falls for a phony oil tycoon, J. Stewart Merrill, unaware that he is a crooked speculator. When she takes a plane from LaGuardia Airport to meet him in Atlantic City, she ends up on the wrong plane to Kansas City. On the plane, she encounters the mysterious Freddie Denmark again, having unknowingly met him when he entered his apartment to retrieve his tax documents as proof that his crooked accountant stole his money and left him in trouble with the IRS. Freddie also wears glasses and encourages Pola to wear hers as well. They fall quickly in love and get married.
Loco and Pola are reunited with Schatze just before her wedding to J.D. Hanley. Schatze is unable to go through with the marriage and confesses to J.D. that she loves Tom. He agrees to call off the ceremony. Tom is among the wedding guests and the two reconcile and marry. Afterwards, the three happy couples end up at a greasy spoon diner. Schatze jokingly asks Eben and Freddie about their financial prospects, which are slim. When she finally gets around to Tom, he casually admits a net worth of around $200 million, which no one takes seriously. He then calls for the check, pulls out an enormous wad of money, and pays with a $1,000 bill, telling the chef to keep the change. The three astonished women faint, and the men drink a toast to their unconscious wives.
Nunnally Johnson, who adapted the screenplay from two different plays, produced the picture. [4]
20th Century-Fox started production on The Robe before it began How to Marry a Millionaire. Although the latter was completed first, the studio chose to present The Robe as its first CinemaScope picture in late September or early October 1953 because it felt the family-friendly The Robe would attract a larger audience to its new widescreen process. [5]
The film's cinematography was by Joseph MacDonald. The costume design was by Travilla. [6]
Between scenes, the cinematography has some iconic color views of mid-20th century New York City: Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the United Nations Building, and Brooklyn Bridge in the opening sequence following the credits. Other iconic views include the Empire State Building, the lights of Times Square at night and the George Washington Bridge.
A song extolling the virtues of New York follows the Gershwin-like music used for the title credits, after an elaborate five-minute pre-credit sequence showcasing a 70-piece orchestra conducted by Alfred Newman before the curtain goes up. [7]
The score for How To Marry a Millionaire was one of the first recorded for film in stereo. It was composed and directed by Alfred Newman, with incidental music by Cyril Mockridge, and orchestrated by Edward B. Powell. [8] The album was released on CD by Film Score Monthly on March 15, 2001 [9] as part of their series Golden Age Classics.
The film's theatrical version begins with a nearly six-minute overture of Newman's symphonic piece "Street Scene", which he wrote in the style of George Gershwin. It is played on-screen by an 80-piece studio orchestra (billed as "The Twentieth Century Fox Symphony Orchestra"). Newman wrote the piece for the 1931 film Street Scene, which featured his first complete film score.
The film premiered at the Fox Wilshire Theatre (now the Saban Theatre), in Beverly Hills, California on November 4, 1953. [10] It was a box office success, earning $8 million worldwide [2] and $7.5 million domestically, second that year only to The Robe . [11] It was the fourth highest-grossing film of 1953, whereas Monroe's previous feature, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , was seventh.
The New York Times 's Bosley Crowther wrote "the substance is still insufficient for the vast spread of screen which CinemaScope throws across the front of the theatre, and the impression it leaves is that of nonsense from a few people in a great big hall." [12]
Award | Category | Subject | Result |
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Academy Awards [13] | Best Costume Design – Color | Charles LeMaire and William Travilla | Nominated |
British Academy Film Awards [14] | Best Film from any Source | How to Marry a Millionaire | Nominated |
Writers Guild of America Awards [15] | Best Written American Comedy | Nunnally Johnson | Nominated |
In 1957, the film was adapted into a sitcom also titled How to Marry a Millionaire . It starred Barbara Eden (as Loco Jones), Merry Anders (Michelle "Mike" Page), Lori Nelson (Greta Lindquist) and as Nelson's later replacement, Lisa Gaye as Gwen Kirby. It aired in syndication for two seasons.
In 2000, 20th Century Fox Television produced a made-for-TV remake, How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale . It reversed the sex roles, and had three men looking to marry wealthy women. It starred John Stamos, Joshua Malina and Shemar Moore.
In 2007, Nicole Kidman bought the rights to How to Marry a Millionaire under her production company Blossom Films, intending to produce and possibly star in a remake. [16]
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a pop culture icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her as the sixth-greatest female screen legend from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Elizabeth Ruth Grable was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model and singer.
CinemaScope is an anamorphic lens series used, from 1953 to 1967, and less often later, for shooting widescreen films that, crucially, could be screened in theatres using existing equipment, albeit with a lens adapter.
Betty Joan Perske, professionally known as Lauren Bacall, was an American actress. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute. She received an Academy Honorary Award in 2009 in recognition of her contribution to the Golden Age of motion pictures. She was known for her alluring, sultry presence and her distinctive, husky voice. Bacall was one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a 1953 American musical comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and written by Charles Lederer. The film is based on the 1949 stage musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1925 novel of the same name by Anita Loos. The film stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, with Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid, Tommy Noonan, George Winslow, Taylor Holmes and Norma Varden in supporting roles.
River of No Return is a 1954 American Western musical film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe. The screenplay by Frank Fenton is based on a story by Louis Lantz, who borrowed his premise from the 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves. The picture was shot on location in the Canadian Rockies in Technicolor and CinemaScope and released by 20th Century Fox.
"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" is a jazz song introduced by Carol Channing in the original Broadway production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949), with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Leo Robin.
The Robe is a 1953 American fictional Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that is responsible for the Crucifixion of Jesus. The film was released by 20th Century Fox and was the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope. Like other early CinemaScope films, The Robe was shot with Henri Chrétien's original Hypergonar anamorphic lenses.
Merry Anders was an American actress who appeared in a number of television programs and films from the 1950s until her retirement from the screen in 1972.
We're Not Married! is a 1952 American anthology romantic comedy film directed by Edmund Goulding. It was released by 20th Century Fox.
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American Technicolor adventure film directed by Robert D. Webb and starring Robert Wagner, Terry Moore and Gilbert Roland. The screenplay was by A.I. Bezzerides. The film was the third motion picture made in CinemaScope, coming after The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire. The supporting cast features J. Carrol Naish, Richard Boone, Peter Graves, Jay Novello, Harry Carey Jr. and Jacques Aubuchon.
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress who appeared in 29 films between 1946 and 1961. After a brief career in modeling she signed short-term film contracts, first with 20th Century Fox, then Columbia Pictures, and appeared in minor roles for the first few years of her career. In 1950, she made minor appearances in two critically acclaimed films, The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve. The parts in the two films were against many of the roles into which she was typecast, that of the dumb blonde. Margot A. Henriksen, her biographer with the American National Biography, considers the typecast "an unfair stereotype that bothered her throughout her career".
Woman's World is a 1954 American CinemaScope and print by Technicolor drama film about corporate America directed by Jean Negulesco and starring Clifton Webb, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Lauren Bacall, Fred MacMurray, Arlene Dahl and Cornel Wilde. The screenplay concerns three men who compete for the top job at a large company.
How to Marry a Millionaire is an American sitcom that aired in syndication and on the NTA Film Network from October 7, 1957 to August 20, 1959. The series is based on the 1953 film of the same name starring Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall.
How to Be Very, Very Popular is a 1955 American comedy film written, produced and directed by Nunnally Johnson. The film starred Betty Grable in her final film role and Sheree North in her first leading role.
Marilyn is a 1963 documentary film based on the life of the 1950s to early 1960's actress and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. The film, directed by Harold Medford, was released by 20th Century Fox, and was narrated by Rock Hudson.
Doe Avedon was an American model and actress.
This is a complete filmography of Betty Grable, an American actress, dancer, and singer. As a major contract star for 20th Century-Fox during the 1940s and 1950s, she starred in a succession of musicals and romantic comedies.
How To Marry a Millionaire: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the official soundtrack album for the 1953 20th Century-Fox film How to Marry a Millionaire. The score was composed and directed by Alfred Newman, with incidental music by Cyril Mockridge. The album was originally released on CD by Film Score Monthly on March 15, 2001, as a limited edition of 3,000 copies, and then it was re-release on January 4, 2005.
Katherine Albert was an American screenwriter, playwright, and TV writer.