Three Classic Chick Flicks From the 1950s
How to Marry a Millionaire, Coins in the Fountain,Best of Everything
Jul 31, 2009
Movies from the 1950s still delight audiences with their glamorous clothes, rich colors, and romantic music. These classic chick flicks each feature three women roommates working together to try to find love and realizing that what makes them happy may not be what they thought they wanted.
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Starring Lauren Bacall (Schatze Page), Marilyn Monroe (Pola Debevoise), Betty Grable (Loco Dempsey), William Powell (J. D. Hanley), Cameron Mitchell (Tom Brookman), Rory Calhoun (Eben), Fred Clark (Waldo Brewster), David Wayne (Freddie Denmark), Alexander D’Arcy (J. Stewart Merrill)
In How to Marry a Millionaire, three models move into a penthouse apartment because they think it will help them meet and marry rich men. But this light-hearted comedy shows how happiness comes from marrying for love, not money.
Schatze, the brains behind the operation, has just gotten divorced but wants to get remarried because marriage is “the biggest thing you can do in life.” She is able to land the widowed millionaire J. D., but can’t help falling for the seemingly poor Tom. Flighty Pola almost gets entangled with a fraud but gets distracted by an on-the-lam Freddie. Fun-loving Loca, who seems the least committed to this scheme, happily wastes her time with a married millionaire while falling in love with poor forest ranger Eben.
Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)
Starring Dorothy McGuire (Miss Frances), Jean Peters (Anita Hutchins), Maggie McNamara (Maria Williams), Clifton Webb (John Frederick Shadwell), Louis Jourdan (Prince Dino di Cessi), Rossano Brazzi (Georgio Bianchi)
Based on the book by John H. Secondari, Three Coins in the Fountain features the Frank Sinatra song of the same name. The title is based on the legend that if you throw a coin into the Fountain of Trevi you will get your wish, and this story centers around three American women living in Rome and wishing for love. The movie was remade in 1964 as The Pleasure Seekers.
Young, naïve Maggie moves to Rome to work as a secretary in an American agency. Although warned away by her friends, she falls for the charming womanizer Prince Dino and pursues him relentlessly. Anita plans on moving back to America but instead falls in love with a translator at the agency. But the agency forbids its employees to date the locals and Georgio is poor, so love is not easy for this pair. Frances is older than her two friends and has been working for the ex-patriot American author Shadwell for fifteen years. He proposes to her in desperation when she says she wants to move back to America, and is shocked when he finds out that she is actually in love with him.
The Best of Everything (1959)
Starring Hope Lange (Caroline Bender), Diane Baker (April Morrison), Suzy Parker (Gregg Adams), Joan Crawford (Amanda Farrow), Louis Jourdan (David Savage), Stephen Boyd (Mike Rice), Robert Evans (Dexter Key)
Based on the book by Roma Jaffe, The Best of Everything centers around three women working at the Fabian Publishing Company who are conflicted between love and a career. This drama takes a harsh look at what can happen when someone is desperate for love.
Ambitious Caroline starts as a typist, but after being jilted by her fiancé she concentrates on her career and tries to fight her growing attraction to the charming editor Mike. Caroline also clashes with Miss Farrow, a demanding editor who has been with the company a long time and feels threatened by younger employees she thinks are trying to replace her. She is having an affair with a married man and is also attracted to the dashing director David. Her typist Gregg wants to be an actress; she thinks she is above love but ends up falling the hardest and soon becomes clingy and obsessed with David. Naïve April is desperate for love and suffers for it, falling in love with Dexter, a rich womanizer.
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