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HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE was 20th Century-Fox’s first CinemaScope feature, but the studio didn’t release it until after it opened THE ROBE.

ROBE, a biblical drama, started production before the romantic musical comedy MILLIONAIRE began shooting. Although MILLIONAIRE was ready first, Fox chose ROBE as its initial CinemaScope release on Sept. 16, 1953 because it would likely attract a bigger audience to experience the new widescreen process.

CinemaScope led the way as Hollywood fought new competition in the early ’50s from television, the then fast growing free home entertainment medium. Ticket sales plunged because of the small screen’s sudden popularity and studios decided that making theatre screens look bigger was the best way to fight TV.

Fox’s CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens process that came after the more complicated Cinerama, which required three large curved screens and specially constructed theatres. CinemaScope’s screen was an extended wide rectangle that only needed a lens adapter fitted to existing theatre projectors.

MILLIONAIRE teamed up Fox superstars Betty Grable & Lauren Bacall  with the studio’s new blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe. Grable’s contract  got her top billing in the credits, but Fox knew it was Marilyn who really had moviegoers’ attention and put her name first in the film’s trailers & posters.

Looking back at the CinemaScope technology, Bacall explained in her 1979 autobiography “By Myself” that it was challenging because actors couldn’t be too close to one another due to the long narrow screen. On the other hand, because of the technical demands of setting up CinemaScope shots, directors were now filming longer scenes. Bacall, with her theatrical background, liked that because it was more like working onstage.

Bacall also noted Marilyn’s insecurity and complete dependency on her personal acting coach rather than on MILLIONAIRE director Jean Negulesco, who went on to make such hits as THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954), WOMAN’S WORLD (1954) & DADDY LONG LEGS (1955). Marilyn, according to Bacall, would look at her coach for a nod of approval after every take — which explains why some shots wound up needing 15 or more takes.

Despite the pain this caused Bacall & Grable, they chose not to go to war with Marilyn. Instead, they tried hard to make the process easier for their inexperienced and insecure co-star so that, as Bacall put it, she’d “feel she could trust us. I think she finally did.”

It all paid off at the boxoffice. MILLIONAIRE, with a budget of $1.9M, had domestic rentals (about half of the boxoffice gross) of $7.3M, big money then. It was 1953’s fourth biggest film, per Wikipedia. The biggest — proving Fox was right — was THE ROBE, which cost $5M to produce and was #1 with rentals of $17.5M.