Blonde Leading the Blonde

"Blonde" is shorthand for "pretty but stupid" more often than not, but it wasn't always this way. OK, maybe it was. Marilyn Monroe's breathy, simpleton voice implied stupidity, but Faye Dunaway's turn as a determined killer in Bonnie and Clyde showed that beauty could be brutal instead of banal. The Iconic Blonde Film Festival, part of the Beauty and the Blonde exhibition at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, screens three films that present fair-haired women in very different lights. Monroe's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes opens the series at 7 p.m. Tuesday, December 4, at the Tivoli Theatre (6350 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-935-4523 or kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu); Vertigo (with Kim Novak) follows on Wednesday, December 5; and Dunaway's Bonnie and Clyde is the finale on Thursday, December 6. Admission is free for all films.
Dec. 4-6, 2007