How to Marry a Millionaire

As a nearsighted, knockout gold digger who's convinced she looks frumpy in glasses (and so won't wear them), Marilyn Monroe scores a comic bull's-eye every time she totters into this otherwise dim bit of '50s ephemera. And thanks to laser's speedier-than-tape scan-forward capabilities, this disc edition makes it easier to hit Monroe's blond highlights while skimming through the lackluster courtship of Lauren Bacall and William Powell — and skipping entirely Betty Grable's scenes (she's at sea in the role of a simpering, deceitful dodo-date who prattles on about clothes and home life like a feminist's worst nightmare). But the disc's biggest advantage over tape and broadcast TV versions is that letterboxing restores the movie's wide-screen images. On disc, in shots where the man-hunting models drape themselves across the entire frame to plot strategy, you can see all three of them, instead of a torso here, a leg there — though no matter which version you watch, How to Marry a Millionaire never treats its leading ladies as anything more than the sum of their body parts. C

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