How to Marry a Millionaire

The script draws for partial source material on two plays, Zoe Akins' The Greeks Had a Word for It and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Nunnally Johnson has blended the legiter ingredients with his own material for snappy comedy effect.

The script draws for partial source material on two plays, Zoe Akins’ The Greeks Had a Word for It and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. Nunnally Johnson has blended the legiter ingredients with his own material for snappy comedy effect.

The plot has three girls pooling physical and monetary resources for a millionaire man hunt and as the predatory sex game unfolds the chuckles are constant. Each winds up with a man. One is David Wayne, a fugitive from Uncle Sam’s Internal Revenue agents whose apartment the girls have leased as a base for the chase. He gets Marilyn Monroe.

Another is Cameron Mitchell, a young tycoon who dresses like a lowly wage slave. He winds up with Lauren Bacall. Third is Rory Calhoun, a poor but honest forest ranger who gains Betty Grable as a fire-watching companion. None is what the femme trio expected to get when the hunt started.

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Certain for audience favor is Monroe’s blonde with astigmatism who goes through life bumping into things, including men, because she thinks glasses would detract. Also captivating is Grable’s Loco, a friendly, cuddly blonde who turns situations to advantage until the great outdoors overwhelms her. As the brains of the trio, Bacall’s Schatze is a wise-cracking, hard-shelled gal who gives up millions for love and gets both.

A real standout among the other players is William Powell as the elderly Texas rancher who woos, wins and then gives up Bacall.

[Pic is prefaced by a 51/2-min. sequence of Alfred Newman conducting his own composition Street Scene.]

1953: Nomination: Best Color Costume Design

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