‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’ at the Egyptian Theatre

In addition to the screenings at the Laemmle theatres on June 5, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes will return to another Los Angeles venue next month. At 2 pm on June 23 at the historic Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard (now part of the American Cinematheque), Kimberly Truhler of the GlamAmor website will introduce Blondes, as part of a ‘Fashion & Film: The Fifties’ series.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is one of those movies where everything was in alignment. At its helm was the great director Howard Hawks, one of my favorites … But he was also equally adept at comedy and loved strong women … so he was the perfect person to take this Broadway musical onto the big screen. A signature of all his films is the strong relationship of the leads and their witty dialogue, and he couldn’t do much better than he did in –he had the language of the great Anita Loos and Charles Lederer for stars Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe.

Without question, another signature of any Hawks production is its style. His films feature some of the best costume design and designers of all time … Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is no different … in fact, what people seem to remember most about the movie is its style. Marilyn is luminous as lead Lorelei Lee in costumes by her longtime friend and legendary costume designer William ‘Billy’ Travilla.”

Thanks to Elisa at Marilyn Remembered

Murray on Marilyn: Missing Her Marks

“When you worked with Marilyn Monroe [in ‘Bus Stop’, 1956], there was press around all the time. And everyone was so uptight. Like: ‘Is she gonna know her lines? Is she gonna show up on time?’ And she didn’t know her lines, and she didn’t come on time. But there was kinetic energy [during the shoot] from all of this.

We were all theater people and we knew our lines. She couldn’t put three sentences together. She did her scenes over and over, like, up to twenty takes. You had to be at your best, because, whenever she did it right, they might use that take. It was all start, stop, start, stop. We thought the film was a disaster, but the big impression came at a preview  — it was thanks to [director] Josh Logan and [writer] George Axelrod how good the film was.

Marilyn was experienced by then, she had done about 20 films. But she was missing her marks all the time. You know, there are marks — places to stand where the lighting, sound, camera angle are all correct. So the director [Logan] told me, every time [she wanders], put your hands on her hips and move her back into her marks. I was doing this the whole film!”

Don Murray, speaking with Stan Taffel at Cinecon