BEFORE: I'm back from Portland, I was there for the wedding of my friend and former co-worker, Amy. She left New York, moved to Texas, back to New York and then to Portland, OR. I don't do a lot of long-distance dedications, but since Casey Kasem's no longer around, somebody's got to pick up the slack. So this one goes out to Amy and Leopoldo, a couple of crazy cats in Portlandia who got hitched over the weekend. Not that there's a direct connection to this film, but hey, at least it's got "Marry" in the title. I meant to get to this one before heading out there, but circumstances prevented that.
Really tough to find an acting link tonight - between a 2011 film ABOUT Marilyn Monroe, to a 1953 film starring Marilyn. Impossible, right? Nope. Peter Wight, who was in "My Week with Marilyn", was also in the 1959 film "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with Ivan Triseault, who played a Swedish professor in that film, and he's in today's film playing a waiter.
THE PLOT: Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
AFTER: I'm kind of glad things worked out this way, this is a film set in New York in the 1950's, with lots of glamour shots of NYC skylines and huge NYC apartments - so it fits better with my return from Portland than with my trip out there. When you're away from NYC, even if it's just for a couple of days, there's no better sight than to see that skyline, I don't care if you're coming in by car, train, boat or plane, it's a thrilling sight.
But now we come to the subject matter of today's film, and that's where I'm finding myself a little dumbfounded. Oh, I know this was made during a different era, with different priorities for men and women, but have the sexual dynamics between men and women really changed so much over the years? Apparently, they have.
What I'm presented with tonight are three women looking to marry for money - and in an age where men held all the top executive jobs and women could only get so far in the workplace, I'm forced to make some allowances. But at the same time women were (supposedly) aspiring to be so much more - Rosie the Riveter and WWII proved that women could handle men's jobs, right? - why are we then presented with women who are only aspiring to be wives? Rich wives, sure, but still just wives.
Clearly, this is a film about women, discussing what women want, but it's made by men. How else to explain such a giant leap backwards for women's rights? At what point did women stop trying to marry the boss and start trying to BECOME the boss? And doesn't this come after all those Katharine Hepburn films where she played a lawyer or a reporter or a sports star? All that work down the drain, because in the 1950's, once the men came back from the war (?), it seems the best that they could do was marry well.
But here's where the slippery slope starts - any time a character (or a person in the real world, for that matter) thinks something that starts with "I'll be happy when..." I'll be happy when I get married, I'll be happy when I get rich, I'll be happy when I've got a better job, I'll be happy when I move to Seattle. That person isn't asking themselves an important question, which is "Why am I not happy NOW?" Maybe their situation is better than they think, maybe there's a lot to be happy about right now, maybe just a change in attitude or a small thing like a nice dinner or a night of relaxation would be enough to change their current outlook. If you're not happy, get happy. And if you can't get happy, figure out why you can't get happy. But (generally speaking, anyway) you shouldn't need another person or a better job or a lottery win to make you happy, or at least content.
Perhaps I'm over-simplifying things - because I know when I was between relationships I had a general feeling of uneasiness and some days that were downright depressing, but that just meant I needed to take positive steps to change my situation. But I also used the time to teach myself valuable skills, like going out to dinner alone, and being OK with that.
So I think what I'm saying is, enjoy the journey. The women seen in tonight's film are looking for a quick fix, and too many people today are looking for quick, easy solutions in a fast-paced, online push-button world. I'll take a plane to get to Portland or San Diego when I need to, but I can't help feeling I missed something by flying over the majority of the country - surely Indiana and Nebraska have something to offer, right? If it didn't take three weeks to get to the West Coast by car or train, I might consider it.
And I think I'll carry that metaphor over to relationships - you can't just skip to the wedding, to the part where you're married and spending someone else's money, or whatever the benefits of the relationship are. You've got to go through and appreciate all the steps in-between that lead up to that, and then there's that part after where you have to stay married to that person (or not).
I think, each of the three main characters in this film learn, in their own way, that there are no shortcuts. They date the rich men, but those men are either already married, or emotionally unavailable, or they just don't connect emotionally. They learn, perhaps the hard way, that marriage is empty without love or passion, and marriage without love is like eating without tasting your food - you might get what you need out of it, but you won't enjoy it as much.
NITPICK POINT: The lead girls here get called in at one point to do some modeling work in the fashion industry, for a rich guy (though they don't know that) who is interested in dating one of them. But this means they're connected, and probably paid well for modeling jobs - but most of the time they're portrayed as struggling, even selling off the furniture (which they don't own) to maintain their lavish lifestyle. So, which is it, are they poor or not? Very confusing.
Also starring Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Sex and the Single Girl"), Marilyn Monroe (last seen in "The Seven Year Itch"), Betty Grable, Cameron Mitchell, William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, Fred Clark, Alexander D'Arcy.
RATING 4 out of 10 Republican rallies
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