Jane Russell’s early “Ain’t There Anyone Here For Love?” is a hoot. It is almost like a Village People video thirty years early and equally disturbing. Jane Russell plays the men cavorting through various calesthenics, etc. for the mental dullards they are, and making them the sexual objects of the number. So who is playing who?
As a second example look at Marilyn Monroe’s famous number “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Never mind that Madonna (among others) took this as the idea for her video to the song “Material Girl.” Early in the number the women Monroe dances with are masked and some are even part of the chandeliers.
The point being made about the chauvinism of men and the dehumanizing of women was lost of some, even perhaps most, but it is most certainly there. You wonder how such subtlety would far in a film today, not that anyone would do that mind you. Just suffice to say the film takes on a much more meaningful demeanor if you look at it beyond the superficial and, to be honest, fluffy plotline. It is so much more.
You wonder how much Betty Grable kicked herself for not taking this role. Fox put Marilyn Monroe in both as a cost saving measure. (Betty Grable was at the height of her earning power and Marilyn Monroe was for all intents and purposes, a nobody.) Fox also wanted to capitalize on the success of Marilyn Monroe in her most recent picture, the noir thriller Niagara.
As most of Marilyn Monroe’s films, this is readily available. Watch it- twice.