Early Cross-Dressers

Rating: 7/10 (22 October 2005)

I was 11 years old when this film was made, and I remember bunking in to our local cinema in London to see it!I'd been smitten by Marilyn a couple of years before after accidentally seeing her in the easily forgettable Prince And the Showgirl when my family went to the movies on a wet holiday afternoon in Ramsgate! I got the idea of the men dressing as women, in order to escape mob execution, but to discover at the end one of them was prepared to go through with the charade in order to "marry" a rich playboy, who'd been quite taken with him/her, I was disgusted! I now have this movie in my library at home and have watched it enough times to form the impression that these two guys actually enjoyed their predicament! I recall watching another film made in the same era, where Tony Curtis played a slave to the Laurence Olivier Roman nobleman, in which the latter was explaining that some people like oysters and some like snails, but it was possible to like both! Was this just a subtle attempt to tell the public, it's OK to live in both worlds? Even so, this was quite a presentable show piece, and was all the better for displaying the delightful Marilyn Monroe, who would've lit up any boring script.For this I give 7 out of 10.