Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer-1.33:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 (2:26) Featurette-Movietone News: Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Cement Featurette-Restoration Comparison (3:09) Gallery-One Sheet Post Card; One Sheet
Rating
Year Of Production	1953
Running Time	87:41 (Case: 91)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:51)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Howard Hawks
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Marilyn Monroe Jane Russell Charles Coburn
Case	?
RPI	Box	Music	Jule Styne Leo Robin

    Well, here is a genuine jaw-dropping DVD! What else can you say about a DVD that features a great film, featuring two of the all-time hottest actresses in Hollywood, with a quite stunning video transfer for the age of the film?

    Asking that eternal question, we have in the blonde corner of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes none other than the blonde bombshell herself, the legendary Marilyn Monroe. In the brunette corner we have the statuesque Jane Russell, to offer the counter that Gentlemen Actually Prefer Gorgeous Women! On a purely sexist level, you would be hard-pressed to find two such perfect physical specimens of womanhood in all the history of Hollywood to play the lead roles in any film. So here we have what is arguably the finest film that both ladies made and nearly fifty years later it remains a terrific film to watch and enjoy - on any level your mind desires.

    Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) and Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) are two nightclub singers from the wrong side of the tracks (Two Little Girls From Little Rock). Lorelei has a unashamedly gold digging aspect to her life and is determined to find and marry a wealthy man. She can only love a wealthy man it seems. Dorothy on the other hand has no hankering for money and would rather marry for love, irrespective of the financial state of the man. Lorelei has found a suitor in Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan) but marriage may not be possible until she gets on the right side of his father. So the two girls find themselves heading to Paris by ship, Dorothy supposedly chaperoning Lorelei in order to keep her out of trouble and away from any compromising incidents that private detective Malone (Elliott Reed) can report back to old man Esmond. Once aboad ship, though, Lorelei is certainly seeking wealth and eyes off the passenger list to ensure that her dinner table is graced by the wealthiest man available - for Dorothy of course. That man is Henry Spofford III (George Winslow). Dorothy would however be more pleased with the U.S. Olympic Team! Enter into the picture the owner of a diamond mine in South Africa, a dirty old man by the name of Sir Francis "Piggy" Beekman (Charles Coburn), who soon finds himself attending upon Lorelei. Lorelei for her part has a desire for a rather nice piece of jewellery, a piece that will create some problems when they get to Paris. Only in Paris will this little tale be told.

    The whole film begins and ends with the two female leads. Marilyn Monroe was very much the second star here, for she takes a role that was originally intended for Betty Grable. It was only after the success of Niagara that it was decided to ditch the expensive Betty Grable in favour of the union-rate Marilyn Monroe. That change not only saved the studio a pile of money in wage costs but also added chunks to the profitability of the film! Irrespective of being first choice or thirty first choice, Marilyn Monroe ends up upstaging her then more famous, and much dearer, co-star. Marilyn Monroe does what Marilyn Monroe does best - turns on the sex appeal and pretty well melts the celluloid in the process. Jane Russell was the bigger star at the time but by the end of this film's theatrical run she probably was not, which is not to say that she did not do her own celluloid melting! The rest are just along for the ride - and what a ride it is! Howard Hawks had previously directed Marilyn Monroe in Monkey Business (in which Charles Coburn and George Winslow had also appeared) so had some inkling of the problems that he was going to cause, but one supposes that such problems could be lived with when the end result is some of the hottest non-nude celluloid ever filmed.

    With a host of iconic moments, some of which pretenders have since tried to emulate with a complete lack of success, the film is a classy and classic comedy from start to finish. You will never see Marilyn Monroe looking any better than she did here, and as a bonus you have Jane Russell thrown in too, and the result is as sharp and witty a comedy as we have seen in the past fifty years. Marilyn Monroe at her best, and a film that should be in every collection.

Video

    Well, this is certainly a jaw-dropping DVD indeed, and not just because of the presence of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Whilst it might be the fact that this was reviewed using my new player, the bottom line is that this video transfer is a pearler, and by far the best seen of the releases making up the Marilyn Monroe Diamond Collection to date.

    For a change we do not have a CinemaScope film this time, and we hearken back to the earlier days of Academy ratio films here - that is, 1.37:1 aspect ratios. The transfer here is 1.33:1 Full Frame, which is about as close to Academy ratio as you can get without being terribly pedantic. The transfer is not 16x9 enhanced.

    In this instance the restoration has done a stunning job in returning the film back to its original glory. Apart from a few lapses where soft focus has been used, as well as a few places where the short depth of field is quite obvious, this is a sharp transfer indeed. Perhaps just a little too sharp in places as the edge enhancement gets a little too obvious - notably around 6:55 and 7:10. Where the transfer really scores, though, is in the detail and nowhere is this more evident than during the opening seven minutes or so. This is the song Two Little Girls From Little Rock and the ladies are wearing bright red sequined dresses. I would swear that you can see every sequin on those dresses! The level of detail that has been achieved here is quite amazing for a fifty year old film. Shadow detail is pretty good, too, although to be honest I really don't think the film was shot in such a way as to create any problems in this regard. Apart from some rather obvious grain in the background around the 38:25 mark, there is nothing much else to worry about as far as grain goes, and as a result this is a wonderfully clear looking transfer. There is nothing in the way of low level noise in the transfer.

    If the detail in the transfer is stunning, then wait until you see the colours! Early Technicolor is usually a nightmare as far as colour consistency is concerned, but not here. This is a gorgeously vivid transfer with tonal depth in abundance. Oversaturation is constantly looking like breaking out, but never does and the result is about as colourful as we are likely to get for a film of this vintage. This is a really gorgeous looking transfer from the outset with plenty of consistency and depth to the dark colours, beautifully handled skin tones and a general quality that reeks of a film half its age. It is not an especially vibrant, glossy transfer but then again it does not need to be: what we have here is a terrific display of bold, bright matte colours that is very natural looking. Highlights are everywhere but if you check out two iconic scenes - the girls' entrance to dinner on the ship and Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend - you will immediately understand the quality on offer. The only real issue is some sight, but noticeable drop-off of in tonal depth around the 71:30 mark. There are no obvious problems with oversaturation nor undersaturation.

    There are no significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are no significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. There are no significant film artefacts in the transfer.

    This is an RSDL formatted DVD with the layer change coming at 63:51. The change point is during a black scene change and is not disruptive to the flow of the film at all.

    There are twenty two subtitle options on the DVD, including three titling options for the extras package. Once again they are pretty good with only relatively minor dialogue omissions in general.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are five soundtracks on the DVD, being Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. I listened only to the English soundtrack.

    The audio transfer is very good and the dialogue, as well as the vocals, are generally clear and easy to understand. There were some hints of audio sync problems during the songs but I am suspecting that these were the result of Marilyn Monroe lip-synching during the actual filming and then having the vocals actually inserted later. This is reinforced by the fact it is only her vocals that seem to be out of sync. No matter - it is not that distracting even if it is a tad obvious to me.

    The original music comes from Jule Styne and Leo Robin, with the more famous additional vocal numbers coming from Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson. Whilst the music is okay, it is certainly overshadowed by the musical numbers - most especially the iconic Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend.

    One thing that stands out like a sore thumb is the clarity of the soundtrack. There is nary an indication of any sort of distortion or background noise problem here. Considering the age of the source material, the remastering has obviously done a great job. Whilst you don't need much beyond the front speakers for this soundtrack, and in a perfect world we might have asked for a bit more bite to the sound, there really is nothing much wrong here at all.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Certainly well within keeping with most of the DVDs making up the Marilyn Monroe Diamond Collection, this is a decent package all things considered.

Menu

    Fairly basic efforts, although classy looking and they are 16x9 enhanced.

Theatrical Trailer (2:26)

    If you want to know how bad the feature could have looked, then all you have to do is check out the trailer. This is not a pretty sight at all - grainy, full of film artefacts and constantly oversaturated. As I checked this out before the feature, you can well imagine the dread I felt when I finally sat down to watch the feature! Not at all a good technical effort. It is presented in a Full Frame format which is naturally enough not 16x9 enhanced. It comes with some fairly centrally focused mono Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Featurette - Movietone News: Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell In Cement (0:48)

    Considering the source, this actually is not bad looking stuff. It of course features the ceremony outside Manns' Chinese Theater (if you have to ask you are no movie lover) when the two screen sex symbols were enshrined in the concrete. It is presented in a Full Frame format which is not 16x9 enhanced, and comes with some fairly hissy mono Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Featurette - Restoration Comparison (3:09)

    In the same format that we have seen in every release in the series thus far, this one features two split screen comparisons after the obligatory self running notes about the extent of the restoration required. Both utilise the same sequence from the film: the famous stuck in the porthole scene. The first comparison is between the original film restoration and the original film restoration plus video restoration. The second compares the latter item with the previous video master. I can attest to the fact that the video master actually looks worse than it does here, especially after you have watched the VHS tape a few dozen times! The whole thing just demonstrates the remarkable improvement in picture quality that results from film restoration - making it even more worrisome when films are not properly restored and preserved.

Gallery - One Sheet Post Card

    Well, it is one postcard of a one sheet!

Gallery - One Sheet

    Which is exactly the number of one sheets we actually get - one one sheet!!

    As far as we can ascertain the Region 4 release misses out on:

• Additional trailers for four other Marilyn Monroe films

    The Region 1 version misses out on:

• Additional language soundtracks

    In broad terms there is nothing significantly different between the two releases, so call this one even.

    One of the rare films that I still own on VHS that I can actually still sit down and watch, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is in many ways the peak of the careers of both Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Whilst both to some extent are considered leading ladies purely for their physical traits, which one has to agree are quite impressive indeed, this is the film that showed both actually were quite decent actresses. With enough iconic moments to grace a dozen films or more, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes remains one of the best examples of both their filmographies and a film that I can never tire of watching. With it being presented with such a wonderful video transfer, and what is a quite decent audio transfer, this is a DVD that is certainly well worth checking out. I understand that Fox Home Entertainment do not intend to release the films in the Marilyn Monroe Diamond Collection individually but only in the box sets. When they finally decide to toss away that idea, you can bet that this will be the film that will lead the individual releases.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall