Film Forum

U.S., 1953
Directed by Howard Hawks
Starring Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn
Approx. 91 min.

“Suppose the ship hits an iceberg and sinks. Which one of them do you save from drowning?” “Those girls couldn’t drown.” Marilyn Monroe’s Lorelei Lee (iconic flapper of Anita Loos’ original novel and countless incarnations) warbles “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” amid human chandeliers and candelabra and a clashing color scheme of cerise and scarlet, while Jane Russell perplexedly queries “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” as indifferent muscle-bound bodybuilders work out. Yes, it’s Gold Diggers of 1953, with 75-year-old Charles Coburn as the mining king in pursuit of Lorelei. Studio head Darryl Zanuck had to be persuaded to cast Monroe: even after a screen test of her performing “Diamonds” was deemed “too sexy,” she still had to sing for him in his office to prove it was her voice (though the high notes were touched up by voice genius Marni Nixon). As legendarily difficult as ever with Hawks, she bonded with Russell and only came late once for song and dance sessions with demanding choreographer Jack Cole, who ended up basically directing the musical numbers—40% of the picture.

Presented with support from The Robert Jolin Osborne Endowed Fund for American Classic Cinema of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s and The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film

Reviews

“The setup could as easily spark a film noir as a musical comedy; the flamboyant use of color, mainly fiery reds and sumptuous purples, masks the potential for blackmail and betrayal.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“As electrifying as the opening of any Hollywood movie that comes to mind, this jazzy materialization so catches us by surprise that we are scarcely aware of the scene’s fleeting modulations as the dynamic duo makes it through a single chorus. The black curtain changes to a lurid blue, then a loud purple; and the complex flurry of gestures they make toward each other makes the spectator feel assaulted by them as a team as well as individually: a double threat.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, Sight and Sound