Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (1952)

This is a story about money … remember it! Ageing heir-less millionaire Samuel Fulton (Charles Coburn) wants to leave his fortune to the unsuspecting family of his first love Millicent Blaisdell but not before testing his prospective heirs by living with them under the guise of a poor boarder under the alias John Smith.  He finds history repeating itself when he leaves them an anonymous bequest and observes Millicent’s daughter Harriet (Lynn Bari) losing the run of herself keeping up with the town’s richies and urging her own daughter Millie (Piper Laurie) to wed the son (Skip Homeier) of a wealthy family instead of Dan (Rock Hudson) who works in her dad’s (Larry Gates) pharmacy while studying at night …  Five minutes with him and a girl has a past!  Set in Tarrytown, New York at the end of the Twenties, this nostalgia-fest was one of several smalltown films made by Douglas Sirk and his first in glorious Technicolor.  Not quite a musical, it takes its song and dance cues from diegetic sources so we have singalongs courtesy of the wireless and a windup travelling pianola.  This has a sharp moral lesson under the fun and it’s the kids who are smarter than the parents – little Roberta (Gigi Perreau) is the one who knows the value of friendship and paints alongside ‘John Smith’ while he starts working as a soda jerk in the store.  Twenty-one year old James Dean makes his infamous debut as the kid ordering a super-complicated malt to which Coburn makes the disarming retort, Would you like to come in Wednesday for a fitting? Handsome William Reynolds as Howard, the son who gets a gambling habit, would make another notable appearance for Sirk in All That Heaven Allows (a film which serves as a syncopated commentary on this regarding Sirk’s Fifties suburban satires) along with There’s Always Tomorrow, while Hudson and Dean would both make another film together – the legendary Giant. Hudson of course became a star under Sirk’s direction in a handful of productions for Universal. Here he’s comfortable in a funny ensemble piece that charms in a colourful sendup of flappers, speakeasies and ludicrous clothes as well as having a dig at pretentious moderne stylings.  Adapted from a story by Eleanor H. (Pollyanna) Porter by Joseph Hoffman, this is an utter delight, camouflaging its social comment with an abundance of witty lines and smart playing. What else can you expect from the nouveau riche?

Monkey Business (1952)

The language is confusing, the actions are unmistakable.  Absent-minded chemist Dr. Barnaby Fulton (Cary Grant) is developing a pill that will defy the ageing process for the pharmaceutical company run by Oliver Oxley (Charles Coburn). When a loose chimpanzee mixes chemicals together that produce this effect, Fulton tries some on himself. This prompts him to act like a teenager, making passes at Oxley’s beautiful buxom secretary, Lois (Marilyn Monroe). Soon everyone, including Fulton’s wife, Edwina (Ginger Rogers), is feeling the effects of the formula and Edwina doesn’t enjoy the effects of youth when she finds herself reliving their honeymoon in the exact suite they spent their wedding night.  When Barnaby goes AWOL she awakes to find a baby beside her in bed … Harry Segall’s story was adapted by director Howard Hawks, Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer and I.A.L. Diamond and has a lot of bright moments.  It starts in stilted fashion however and the lack of a score (Hawks generally couldn’t abide them) leaves the unpunctuated action wanting. Monroe’s supporting role is underlined by Coburn’s declaration, Anyone can type! when he sends her to find someone to produce a letter; while Grant’s physicality is thrown into relief with a buzzcut. Their day out in his fast-moving roadster as he loses his sight behind his Coke-bottle glasses would be paid homage six years later with Tony Curtis and Monroe in Some Like It Hot.  Never quite reaches the apex of screwball that Hawks himself had pioneered fifteen years earlier but it’s good for filling in a filmography that was at times sheer easygoing genius and there are points here when it recaptures the genre’s extraordinary vitality. Coburn and Monroe would be reunited with Hawks in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Where to start with this midcentury Marilyn classic? She’s showgirl Lorelei Lee, gold digger supreme, who takes a transatlantic cruise with BFF Dorothy Shaw (Russell) to wed her naive heir of a fiance Gus (Tommy Noonan) in France. His father sends a private eye Ernie (Elliott Reid) to catch her doing anything untoward. But while he falls in love with Dorothy, Lorelei attracts a silly old diamond mine owner ‘Piggy’ (Charles Coburn) who’s travelling with his no-nonsense battleaxe wife, who happens to have a rather eyecatching tiara. There’s the US Olympic men’s athletics team, a very wealthy boy with a very deep voice and some amazing songs – including ‘Diamonds Are a Girls’ Best Friend,’ that iconic Marilyn showstopper the opening notes of which are trilled by Marni Nixon, whose death was announced yesterday. Howard Hawks directed Charles Lederer’s adaptation of the stage show by Anita Loos and Joseph Fields, which had been staged on Broadway with Carol Channing. Loos had of course written the source novel in the 1920s. It’s a brilliant excavation of class through satire and there are amazingly risque lines and gags and despite what everyone says, it’s really the men who are being objectified. The girls are the whole show. Sublime.