Rent Let's Make It Legal (1951)

Papa Liked the Roses - Let's Make It Legal review by CH

Chances are that a disc of Let's Make it Legal (1951) will have Marilyn Monroe on its cover. She is only in it for a few minutes, some of which linger upon her swimming costume. One should not feel short-changed. Here is a drama to whose proceedings screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond brings quite a bit of his natural wit (whether the scene involves a baby or outraged policemen).

Proceedings is an apt word, for the plot turns around the imminent divorce of Claudette Colbert and plant-loving, gambling addict Macdonald Carey, whose daughter, Barbara Bates, is keen to prevent this: self-interest is that motive, for she enjoys an easy living at home with her infant daughter, a situation which infuriates husband Robert Wagner. A further complication is the return to the town of Zachary Scott whose sinister moustache is an emblem of his business success and political aspirations in Washington, all of which pale beside his renewed hopes of wooing and marrying Claudette Colbert (hopes from which he is not deflected by a gold-digging Marilyn).

Directed by Richard Sale, things move at a pace – often inside the house itself - in this hour and a quarter, and one can only marvel at clothes which would now fetch a fortune on the vintage racks.

We should be grateful that Matilyn's prescence has kept this film in sight. Of course, she would soon be famous, and, within a decade was dead. Another book has just asserted that she was murdered. Be that as it may, her tragic end has overshadowed that of Barbara Bates who gassed herself in 1969. Bright lights have dark shadows.