"How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953) set the template--get three beautiful gals, throw 'em together in one impossibly huge apartment, and let the husband-hunting begin! But dated as "Millionaire" is today, it benefits from good casting, a reasonably witty script and solid comic performances. Its direct descendant, "Three Coins in the Fountain," camped the story up, and began a whole sub-genre of trashy flicks: Three Gals Lookin' for Love!
You know what you're in for as soon as Frank Sinatra, the studio orchestra, and a chorus of thousands begin blasting the swoony theme song, as the CinemaScope camera pans on countless smoochin' couples all around Rome.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS...The three girls in question are Dorothy McGuire (the sensible spinster), Jean Peters (the working girl), and Maggie McNamara (the perky one). Actually, only Maggie technically qualifies as a "girl," but this is 1954, and all women were "girls," doncha know. The ridiculous plot has each of them meeting their future hubbies in various picturesque settings; the weirdest and creepiest union has to be McGuire and ancient, effete Clifton Webb. That's one honeymoon that I wouldn't want to be privy to.
Considerably more eye-catching are Peters' and McNamara's beaux, the hunky Rosanno Brazzi and impossibly beautiful Louis Jourdan. Actually, these two slabs of Franco-Italo beefcake are better looking than the rather pedestrian female cast, and kinda make you wish that Peters and McNamara had been replaced by, say, John Gavin and Jeffrey Hunter. But I digress--
Anyway, a few melodramatic turns are provided by the fact that Webb is suffering from some Fatal Movie Disease, and Peters and Brazzi become persona non grata at the office they work at because of their lustful union. But all's well that ends well, and like every single women, er, GIRL, wanted in 1954, all three wind up married. This despite the fact that two gals will almost certainly wind up divorcees, and one will be a widow in what looks to be about 6 months at most. But hey--you wanted a happy, marriage-minded, 1954 ending, right?
You know what you're in for as soon as Frank Sinatra, the studio orchestra, and a chorus of thousands begin blasting the swoony theme song, as the CinemaScope camera pans on countless smoochin' couples all around Rome.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS...The three girls in question are Dorothy McGuire (the sensible spinster), Jean Peters (the working girl), and Maggie McNamara (the perky one). Actually, only Maggie technically qualifies as a "girl," but this is 1954, and all women were "girls," doncha know. The ridiculous plot has each of them meeting their future hubbies in various picturesque settings; the weirdest and creepiest union has to be McGuire and ancient, effete Clifton Webb. That's one honeymoon that I wouldn't want to be privy to.
Considerably more eye-catching are Peters' and McNamara's beaux, the hunky Rosanno Brazzi and impossibly beautiful Louis Jourdan. Actually, these two slabs of Franco-Italo beefcake are better looking than the rather pedestrian female cast, and kinda make you wish that Peters and McNamara had been replaced by, say, John Gavin and Jeffrey Hunter. But I digress--
Anyway, a few melodramatic turns are provided by the fact that Webb is suffering from some Fatal Movie Disease, and Peters and Brazzi become persona non grata at the office they work at because of their lustful union. But all's well that ends well, and like every single women, er, GIRL, wanted in 1954, all three wind up married. This despite the fact that two gals will almost certainly wind up divorcees, and one will be a widow in what looks to be about 6 months at most. But hey--you wanted a happy, marriage-minded, 1954 ending, right?