Let's Make Love
Let's Make Love
NR | 08 September 1960 (USA)
Let's Make Love Trailers

When billionaire Jean-Marc Clement learns that he is to be satirized in an off-Broadway revue, he passes himself off as an actor playing him in order to get closer to the beautiful star of the show, Amanda Dell.

Reviews
Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen
SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
SnoopyStyle Billionaire Jean-Marc Clement (Yves Montand) is the result of a family fortune cultivated over generations. His PR guy Alexander Coffman (Tony Randall) tells him about an unflattering portrayal of him in a Broadway start-up and he decides to go see for himself. He is taken with leading lady Amanda Dell (Marilyn Monroe) as she performs a sexy number. When he's mistaken for an actor auditioning for the role of Clement, he decides to take the part as Alexandre Dumas while trying to woo the beauty.This is the second to last movie for Monroe and the first American movie for veteran French actor Yves Montand. Her husband Arthur Miller expanded her role to basically a co-lead of the movie. She still has that magnetic stardom but the movie lacks the ability to make something iconic. It's a little sloppy. Montand is playing a stiff billionaire and his heavy French accent doesn't help. Just as the movie seems to be stalling, Milton Berle comes in to inject a bit of humor like the story. It works best when Montand is actually funny. The problem is that his character is not suppose to be that good and he's restricted by this character flaw. Essentially, he is acting with both hands tied behind his back. He manages to throw in a few funny lines but this movie needs more. All the cameos are a fun idea but the execution is less humorous than expected. In general, this is less than expected.
headhunter46 This movie had its spots of humor due to the absurdity of the total differences between the real billionaire and the fake average guy. Some of the gags were just chuckle category but some elicited a real laugh. I enjoyed watching the people play the roles of those caught plying their deceit in the passing off of the rich man who was pretending to be poor so the object of his affection would hopefully like him for himself rather than his money. It was good to see the likes of Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, and Milton Berle in surprise roles trying to teach the stiff as stark rich guy how to sing or dance or be funny.I'm not certain why it did poorly at the box office, maybe it had some serious competition at the time. This was not Oscar material but it was good enough to keep me interested. I munched through a whole bag of Paul Newmans micro corn without stopping so it had to have something working for it.
williwaw Marilyn Monroe was at the top of the Hollywood star ladder as the Star of Stars when assigned this movie by her home studio 20th. Marilyn Monroe had just had the smash hit of her career with Some Like It Hot (A United Artists film) and 20th wanted to cash in on the MM popularity. Marilyn Monroe had been announced for another UA film John Huston's masterpiece The Misfits co starring Clark Gable and 20th insisted on a Monroe film before MM was allowed to do another film outside 20th. (between 1956 to 1960 while having the greatest star in Hollywood under contract 20th Century Fox did not cast MM in a movie however the very shrewd MM had a play or pay contract and when the studio announced her for Wild River and The Blue Angel but those deals did not materialize MM demanded and got her salary for those films!) Much has been written about this film and when it was released I was disappointed, having seen it recently on the Fox Movie Channel, I now find Lets Make Love charming and Ms Monroe enchanting. George Cukor among the "Approved Directors" on MM's short list ( others were Wilder, Huston, Hitchcock, Wyler, et al) was said to be a director aware of the nuances of a female star's personas ( Hepburn, Garbo, Crawford, Leigh, Holiday, Loren all raved over Cukor.Marilyn Monroe looks stupendous in this movie,and is given fine support by a cast of professional's such as Wilfrid Hyde White, Tony Randall and cameos by Milton Berle and Bing Crosby. Yves Montand, who had a legendary fling during the filming of the movie with MM, is fine as The Billionaire.
csrothwec I quite enjoyed the 'set pieces' with Marilyn doing her stuff singing 'My heart belongs to Daddy' etc. but watching the film turned increasingly more irritable through having to watch, ('endure' might be a more appropriate verb), the scenes between Marilyn's appearances. Montand is simply miscast and one begins to feel simply sorry for him after the first few scenes, (whilst remembering him in such movies as 'The wages of fear'), and, apart from the ever-reliable Wilfrid Hyde-White, I thought the inputs/cameos by the other 'stars' were either so short as to be inconsequential, (Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly), or just simply atrocious, (i.e. Merton Berl and Tony Randall! Churchill said Britain and the USA were 'divided by a common language' but how on earth Randall and Berl could ever be classified by use of the word 'comedians' remains, on the basis on their inputs to this movie, a total and complete mystery to this particular Brit! I began to cringe when they appeared for yet another squirm-inducingly UNfunny escapade, (Berl's walking on his heels or Randall looking lost and dejected yet again, for example)). Verdict: hardly worth the effort of viewing apart from Marliyn's set-pieces. Set the remote to 'FFW' in between these.