Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)

(On Cable TV, April 2020) From the get-go, Gentlemen Marry Brunettes start with significant handicaps compared to its predecessor Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Howard Hawks is not directing, Marilyn Monroe is not featured, and even the characters of the original film can’t return due to rights issues. At least Jane Russell is back, at least. What follows is a competent attempt at recreating the atmosphere and basic elements that ensured the success of the first film. It sort-of works, but we’re clearly more in a comfortable recreation than an attempt to build anything more ambitious. (Also: blackface.) The core conceit of having two girls gallivanting around Paris is there, as do musical numbers. Jane Russell does well here in a dual role as both the sister and niece of her own character in the first film, but it’s Jeanne Crain who impresses more in another dual role. The musical numbers are fun but rather forgettable, and the comedy is very light. Gentlemen Marry Brunettes is not terrible, but it’s clearly not up to the stratospheric level of the first film, and feels second-rate when measured against the kinds of musicals they were producing in the 1950s. And if you want to compare it to the first film, well — as a gentleman who usually prefers brunettes, in this case I vexingly have to give my vote to the blondes.