Change Your Image
lawrencew-84729
Reviews
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Jane Russell is great!
I love Marilyn, but Jane Russell more than holds her own - a difficult task when sharing the screen with the mega-wattage that is Marilyn Monroe. it's THEIR team-work that makes this picture. It's been well documented in director Howard Hawks biographies that the famed auteur said that he couldn't have done this film without Jane Russell who was patient with Monroe's insecurity and often explained to Marilyn with gentle patiences the direction which has been instructed by Hawks. Marilyn, in her final interview (10 years after making GPB) with Life Magazine's Richard Merriman, was quoted as saying "[Jane} who, by the way, was quite wonderful to me." Marilyn remembered Jane's patience and friendship. But Jane's performance is the perfect corner-balance to Marilyn's. In one of Jane's interviews toward the end of her life, she stated the reason they made such a good team, "Marilyn was a sweet little thing and I was just 'BOOM'" That perfectly sums it up. Together these two woman along with Howard Hawks and choreographer, Jack Cole (who directed the musical numbers, not Hawks) make an otherwise routine movie into a truce classic worthy of watching over and over.
The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)
Jane is great
Although this movie was changed before it's initial release, the intent remains. Jane give a subtle performance full of nuance as Mamie. Although, the movie is often shown on the FXM channel, it's in a standard, non-widescreen version. As of this writing, (March 2018), plans are to release this gem of a movie on blu-ray sometime later this year!.
Because of censorship, the the original story point of Mamie being a prostitute servicing the military men who visit the brothel she works at has been changed to Mamie chatting with customers in the "champagne room" at a "dance hall." Modern audience will figure it out. But the real story line is Mamie trying to find a place in high-society by obtaining her own wealth without the help a man, is the focus. This ambition costs her respectability among the self-righteous society in Honolulu and it may even cost her the love of her life.
Jane is great and their is real heat between her and Richard Egan. Agnes Moorehead appears as the Madame of the brothel Jane works at, is wonderful plus to this movie as she is to any movie she appeared in. Check it out!