Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

The "Ain't Misbehavin'" number is so bad its almost good.

Dancing African spearchuckers played by white guys in purplish black body paint with red fright wigs with bones in their hair carrying zebra shields. Got the picture? No you don't, not yet. Alan Young in a monkey suit sitting in a tree singing "Ain't Misbehavin" for no discernible reason. Jane Russell dressed up as an African queen sings the second chorus as a duet with the monkey man (again for no logical reason, is she in love with a gorilla?) while the dancing "Africans" sing along in unmistably WHITE voices! Oh man its so bad you won't know whether to laugh, cry or run out of the room screaming.

This movie is growing on me, I didn't like it the first time but, it has some great parts. If you are looking for another Gentlemen Prefer Blondes it is not as good as that movie but it does have some fun numbers like "Have You Met Miss Jones" Some great scenery, and Jane is funny in this. It does have some parts that are goofy and the "I've Got Five Dollars" sounds like it was made up on the spot, just singing about any trivial thing. The "AINT MISBEHAVING" is the topper with a jungle tribe ready to feast on the girls and Alan Young in that gorilla suit doing the Marlene Dietrich Hot Voodoo bit. this may take more than one viewing to be appreciated.

Have you ever seen such an awful movie that despite how bad it is it's still very entertaining? Well, welcome to the world of Anita Loo's and find out why Gentlemen may Prefer Blondes, but they don't neccessarily Marry Brunettes.

Here we have Jane Russell giving a very bad imitation of Marilyn Monroe with Jeanne Crain doing a very bad imitation of Jane Russell whose singing is dubbed by Anita Ellis who had dubbed Vera Ellen in the movie "Three Little Words". Then we've got Rudy Vallee who looks like he's a zombie on his last leg, ready for the grave, but still trying to sing "Have You Met Miss Jones" and a very bad, but hilarious rendition of, "I Wanna Be Loved By You" with Jane and Jeanne impersonating brainless idiot chorus girls, singing in high-pitched brainless notes through their noses, and on the soundtrack album it states that the singing for this particular number is sung by Miss Crain herself, and if I had been Miss Crain I, in no way, would have admitted to it by allowing that to appear on the album, but she's justified by a wonderful rendition, even though dubbed by Anita Ellis, of "My Funny Valentine"! Then you've got "You're Driving Me Crazy" which is fun, especially when the girls are expected to lift their fans at the end of the number saying, "I Couldn't Care Less!", and appear nude in front of the audiance, and Alan Young is booing them with the rest of the audiance, and Jane Russell later defends their actions by saying that they thought the French had a sense of humor!

Then you've got Scott Brady who didn't do his own singing [Robert Farnon the director of the orchestra did the dubbing for Brady], but Alan Young did do his own singing, but I really have to admit that even though the final number in the film has to be the worse musical number ever filmed for a movie, I really enjoyed it! Well, it WAS different! Here's Jane and Jeanne dressed up like birds of paradise standing in a pot ready to be cooked for dinner by the restless hungry natives in Africa and Alan Young is up in a tree dressed up like an Ape, and he, the girls, and the natives are all singing Ain't Misbehaving which makes about as much sense as an adajio dancer trying to dance on a hot rock, but pulling this whole ridiculous number together with the singing which isn't really that bad even though the natives sound like their singing Tarzan's favorite line OOM-GOW-WHAH during the chorus - dumb as it was - I LIKED IT, especially when Jane Russell does her sultry sexy rendition of Ain't Misbehaving like only she can do with the natives in the background still sounding like their singing OOM-GOW-WHAH!

But, the ending is priceless with Scott Brady starting out saying:

SCOTT: Bonnie! Will you marry me? JANE: [Imitating Marilyn Monroe] No! SCOTT: Bonnie! Do you really mean that? JANE: [Imitating Jane Russell] No!

Then she breaks into song singing some of "I Got Five Dollars" and when she gets to "Everything" Scott Brady asks, "Everything?" and she answers "Everything" and while they kiss, Jane Russell appears aboard as her older gray haired, wrinkled up, Aunt or Mother or whoever she is, and she sees what's happening, and she says, in her crackly old-age voice, to the Captain of the ship:

WHERE'S THE BAR!

And that's exactly how you feel when the movie is ending:

WHERE'S THE BAR!

Make mine a double vodka on the rocks with a twist of lemon, thank you very much so that I can justify, with what's left of my mind after viewing this two-hour fiasco, why I found this very bad, awful, musical so entertaining!

Jane Russell proved to be a delightful musical-comedy performer in the similarly titled "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"… but, sadly, this film squanders those skills. There is a budget, and nice Paris photography, but the film just doesn't work. Ms. Russell seems to be playing Marilyn Monroe. That leaves nobody to adequately play Jane Russell. Some of the other players are WAY out of their element.

There are several embarrassing scenes; most of all, be warned: there is a musical number where boneheaded African cannibals "cook" the brunettes in a pot, after Alan Young sings in a gorilla suit.

This is an interesting, at times embarrassing, waste of resources.

*** Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (10/29/55) Richard Sale ~ Jane Russell, Jeanne Crain, Alan Young, Scott Brady

In this sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Jane Russell maintains first billing and takes Jeanne Craine as her sidekick. As the title song tells you, men may go crazy for blondes, but they marry brunettes. Needless to say, Marilyn Monroe is not in this movie.

As is the case with most sequels, this isn't nearly as good as its predecessor. The songs are okay, instead of adorable and catchy, and Jeanne Craine is no Marilyn. I sat through it, because the original is one of my favorite old movies and I wanted to give the sequel a chance. However, if you're looking for a better "sequel" to the 1953 classic, try The French Line. Jane Russell plays a girl from Texas-instead of Arkansas-who goes on an ocean liner to France and tries to dodge smooth players while singing about it. Sounds like a sequel, doesn't it?