Musical version of Anita Loos' durable 1925 novel, via the Broadway stage, and updated from the jazz age to the 1950s. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell are two showgals from Little Rock, Arkansas. Monroe plays a gold-digger, Russell a sort of she-wolf, who sail by liner to Paris with the red blooded boys from the US olympics team, and an elderly gent (Charles Coburn) who owns a goldmine.
Predictable chaos ensues. Neither Monroe nor Russell were dancers and they kind of wiggle and sway through the film in synchronicity, singing half a dozen pretty good musical numbers, including the legendary showstopper, Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.
There's a very funny script by Charles Lederer, heavy with innuendo, and Howard Hawks is a legendary comedy director. But the film shines because of the performances of the two stars. They make dazzling, glittering magic, particularly Monroe, playing a sort of distorted femininity. Its look probably influenced the future of drag more than mainstream chic.
It's completely weightless, and its values are materialistic, mercenary and soulless. But it is hilarious, irreverent and unique. It's the film that made Monroe a major star and the original good time blonde that would be copied across the world. What she does here, I'm not sure it's acting at all, or even sexy. But as far as the Hollywood comedy is concerned, she heralded the hedonistic, consumerist fifties.