corktown common
Thursday, July 16, 2026

gentle prefer blondes

With the short film Ballet Jazz

Two showgirls walk onto a transatlantic cruise ship. One prefers men who are rich; the other prefers men who are handsome. What sounds like the set-up for a bad joke is in fact the set-up for what may be one of the greatest American musicals of the 20th century: Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The film stars Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in career-best performances as Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, two American showgirls who are travelling on a cruise ship to Paris, where Lorelei plans to meet and marry her fiancé. What should have been an uneventful voyage quickly becomes a madcap musical farce involving a private detective, stolen tiara, and a man named Piggy. Shot in rich and gorgeous Technicolor, come for Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in her iconic pink evening gown, but stay for the mile-a-minute jokes and Russell and Monroe’s truly laugh-out-loud (and perhaps a little queer-coded) repartee. 

Two aspiring actresses get into a station wagon. One is named Karine; the other is also named Karine. The two set out in a borrowed station wagon from a remote Québec suburb towards New York so they can audition for one of the most popular musicals of all time: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. So begins Maxime Robin’s Ballet Jazz, a screwball parody of Thelma and Louise. Like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, what should have been a long and uneventful road trip quickly devolves into an absurdist farce, culminating with the two Karines getting to dance in Cats, just not exactly in the way they had hoped.