Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: A Critical Edition

Transcription of Life Review, April 8, 1926

Rhymed Reviews

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”
By Anita Loos
Boni & Liveright

I seem to think that “Lorelei”
  Is not the tragic malefactor
Her nom de guerre might well imply,
  But just a little gold-extractor.

The Mr. E., the Button King,
  Who bought her oysters, wine and mutton,
Though tied upon her button-string,
  Was not the one and only button.

That's why he shipped her off to bloom
  Among the European roses;
And what she did and how and whom
  Her artless diary discloses.

Her victims simply flocked and paid;
  She didn't need to go a-gunning—
A fair, alluring, heartless jade
  Without brain but with ample cunning.

And when she called on “Dr. Froyd,”
  A famous Viennese physician,
He found her psyche unalloyed
  With any kind of inhibition.

Deciding then to settle down
  A while, she seized a chance that offered
And married of one great renown,
  The many-millioned Henry Spoffard.

And since her witless husband's bent
  Is binding life in rigid structures,
She lets him give his genius vent
  In making moral moving pictures.

Which fact should leave the right excuse,
  Before another season's warning,
For turning Miss Anita loose
  On something else as entertaining.

Arthur Guiterman.

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