Gentlemen Marry Brunettes: A Review

 

GENTLEMEN MARRY BRUNETTES

This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is Jeanne Crain.

Despite the title, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is not a sequel or connected in any way to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Though everyone tried their best, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is a slog to sit through, making the viewer wonder why it even exists.

The Jones Sisters are a double act fallen on hard times. Bonnie Jones (Jane Russell) is forever falling for and accepting marriage proposals. Her younger sister Connie Jones (Jeanne Crain) is forever pulling her out of the fire. Things look up when they've received a surprise booking to perform their act at the Casino de Paris. 

The man who sent the booking, David Action (Scott Brady) wants to capitalize on how The Jones Sisters are a second-generation act. Their mother Mitzi and aunt Mimi were the toast of Paris in the Roaring Twenties, wild blonde flappers who had everyone in a whirl. Most in a whirl was the Vagabond Lover himself, Rudy Vallee (Rudy Vallee). David, Rudy and Biddle (Alan Young), Action's Boy Friday, are all astonished at how restrained, even demure, the second Jones Girls are. 

This is Paris, so the men will mold the women into vixens. Bonnie instantly falls for David, Connie warms to the sweetness of Biddle, and Rudy Vallee serves as their mentor. Will the Jones Sisters replicate their mother and aunt's wild success, or will they find them a hard act to follow?

I do not know why Gentlemen Marry Brunettes opted to be. Probably attempting to cash in on the wild success of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I think people might have expected a direct sequel where Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' brunette, Dorothy Shaw, would be center stage. That Jane Russell is in both films would lend credence to that idea. Unfortunately, while Russell is in both films, she is not the same character.

Far from it. Jane Russell appears to play a variation of Marilyn Monroe. The strongest suggestion of that is how Russell's voice is surprisingly breathy in the Monroe style. Moreover, the character of Bonnie is forever catching men, not deliberately but never saying no. That it is Jeanne Crain who is watching out for the sister puts Russell closer to Lorelei than Dorothy.

One watches Gentlemen Marry Brunettes in slight frustration. Everyone does appear to be giving it their all to make things work. A big surprise is Crain as Connie. One of her first lines to her sister is, "Are you a sex maniac?", which is surprisingly daring for the time. She is sensible and able to throw a quip at people with ease. After seeing the barely-there costumes for the Casino de Paris, both sisters are shocked at the near-total lack of actual material. "No thanks, the Breen Office will never pass it," Crain remarks. That too surprised me.

Crain is one of two highlights in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes. She is sensible but also able to be coquettish, flirtatious and fun. While her singing was dubbed, Crain showed off wonderful dance skills to go along with her comic abilities. Any woman who could make you believe Alan Young made her weak in the knees is a skilled actress.

Young, to be fair, was pleasant to watch as he kept going from job to job. He too was working his best to make things interesting. The duet with Crain for My Funny Valentine was good and effective. I do not know, however, how one feels about seeing Alan Young in drag playing his mother. Brady was perhaps the weakest point in the film. Generally nondescript, he seemed to forced in his efforts to be scheming when he was anything but.

Everyone in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes was efficient but there was no real sense of fun or frivolity. The film has what I call "forced frivolity", where everyone wants us to think they (and us) are having a good time but there is no truth or feel to that idea. The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Rudy Vallee. The Vagabond Lover did not have to act as he was playing himself, or perhaps an exaggerated version of himself.  He got a chance to sing a few numbers, such as Have You Met Miss Jones and I Wanna Be Loved by You (which would, ironically enough, enjoy greater fame in the Marilyn Monroe film Some Like It Hot). At the very last minute, we see Russell in a third role as the older Mitzi Jones (she and Crain playing their mother and aunt). Russell had a bit of fun whacking Vallee, using his full name "Hubert Prior Vallee" to scold him for interfering in her daughters' lives. 

As for the other highlight in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, we get some beautiful shots of Paris. 

The musical numbers, choreographed by Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' Jack Cole, were surprisingly dull and lifeless. The Ain't Misbehaving number, with its African setting complete with our chanteuses about to be cooked in a pot, might be ghastly to modern audiences. However, I think contemporary audiences would not have found it fun and splashy. Oddly, more numbers took place in flashbacks to the 1920's Jones Sisters than in the present setting. More bizarre was director and cowriter Jack Sale (writing with Mary Loos) deciding to cut the You're Driving Me Crazy opening number with shots of a fistfight outside the stage door. While it is later established how one connects to the other, to start the film with this was a poor decision.

Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is a surprisingly dull and lifeless thing despite everyone really trying to make it fun. Apart from Jeanne Crain and Paris, and possibly a self-mocking Vallee, it is not worth the time. We know why Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, but this is one brunette anyone would skip.

DECISION: D-