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ROCKS OFF

You want to be ready for the beginning of today's NYTimes Best 1176 Film.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe appear on screen immediately—no titles—doing "Just Two Little Girls From Little Rock". And the screen does just that; ROCK.

There is a smile a minute in this lightweight musical adapted from the Broadway original and directed by Howard Hawks.

The two women make the picture. There is no way to convey the magnitude of their talent. This was an early Monroe film and she is dancing her ass off and certainly more than holding her own with the more star-encrusted Russell. Not that they compete. They are a great team as well.

It is hard to explain Monroe to anyone today. She was immensely talented in all departments including playing a dumb blonde. Which she was not.

She was a superb actress and comedienne.

Here she makes you forget the Carol Channing signature performance. Channing, looking like bad drag queen, drug the show and the songs behind her for decades. They are saved in this picture. Only the special numbers written for the film fail to ignite.

Oh. To those who might be so inclined, the Russell number done with the US Olympic team in training (tight flesh colored shorts only) is so deliciously balanced between camp and solid homo-erotics that you will cheer out loud.

The film also stars Charles Coburn as the old diamond miner 'Piggy'. I always loved watching him do his thing in the old films. We will see him in The More the Merrier when we get to the 'm's.

We liked it a lot and will give it a 4 out of Netflix5 because the script is so corny at times that it is hard to wait for the girls to take the screen over again. And we didn't need the extra tunes.