"Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" is sometimes regarded as a sequel to "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" from two years before, but introduced a completely new set of characters. I have never read either of the Anita Loos novels on which the two films are based, but understand that her "But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" was indeed a true sequel to its predecessor in that it follows the further adventures of Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw. Neither of these characters appear in the film. The only things the two films share are a broadly similar plot and the presence of Jane Russell as one of the leads.
As in the earlier film, Russell plays an American showgirl, here named Bonnie Jones who performs as part of a double act with her sister Connie. The two sisters decide that their careers on Broadway are going nowhere and that they should try their luck in Paris. Once in the French capital they achieve greater success and fall in love with two young men. And that, more or less, is the plot, although there are also flashbacks featuring another pair of Jones sisters, Mimi and Mitzi (the mother and aunt of Bonnie and Connie) who were the toast of Paris in the twenties.
As in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" the emphasis is very much on the female stars; the two male leads, Alan Young and Scott Brady, are even more bland and anonymous than their opposite numbers in the first film. Russell's co-star in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" was, of course, the blonde Marilyn Monroe, and an important part of the storyline of that film was that their two characters had not only contrasting looks but also contrasting personalities. Monroe's Lorelei was a quite unashamed gold-digger and Russell's Dorothy, despite a string of cynical wisecracks, was the idealistic "good girl".
Here, Russell is teamed with another brunette, Jeanne Crain. The visual contrast from the earlier film is lost as the two women were similar in looks, although Crain was slightly shorter and less voluptuous. There is an attempt to give their characters different personalities, Bonnie being more flighty and impulsive and Connie more level-headed, but these differences are never brought out well either by the script or by the acting. Russell is not as good here as she was in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"; Dorothy seems to have been a character much more suited to her style of acting than is Bonnie. Perhaps, also, after "Blondes" and "The French Line", she was getting fed up with being typecast in scantily-clad showgirl-type roles. As for Crain, she is, quite frankly, a poor substitute for Marilyn.
The film contains some famous songs, although many of these such as "My Funny Valentine" and "Ain't Misbehavin'" have been appropriated (some would say misappropriated) from other contexts. The latter song here suffers from being performed in the context of a bizarre sketch in which Russell and Crain are chased by spear-wielding African cannibal tribesmen and end up in an enormous cooking-pot, a sequence which today seems almost hilariously politically incorrect. Even in the fifties it probably seemed rather off-colour to anyone more sensitive than the average Hollywood film-maker; political correctness is not always a bad thing. The Mimi/Mitzi scenes also get a bit annoying. There is a running joke that the older Jones sisters achieved their immense success despite a total lack of talent, and this is the sort of running joke that quickly outstays its welcome.
As a musical, "Gentlemen Marry Brunettes" contains some attractive music, but its mediocre acting, unmemorable dialogue and virtually non-existent plot means that, as a film, it is in nothing like the same class as its more illustrious predecessor. 5/10, mostly for the music.
