Trailer
Plot summary
Nathan Detroit organizes an unlicensed crap game in New York, but the police pressure has his usual locations turning him away. He needs a thousand dollars as a security deposit for a spot at the Biltmore garage, and his fiancée Adelaide, a nightclub singer, has been engaged to him for fourteen years and wants him to go straight. He bets Sky Masterson, a gambler who wagers on almost anything, that Sky cannot take a woman Nathan selects to dinner in Havana. Nathan picks Sergeant Sarah Brown, who runs the Save a Soul Mission. Sky poses as a repentant gambler to meet her, then offers a bargain: he will bring a dozen sinners to her Thursday meeting if she dines with him in Havana. Because General Matilda Cartwright may shut down the mission's Broadway branch, Sarah accepts.
Cast
- B.S. Pullyas Big Jule
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Guys and Dolls (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- On first meeting, Sinatra reportedly scoffed, "Don't give me any of that Actors Studio shit." Brando later quipped that when Sinatra died he would go to heaven and give God a hard time for making him bald, while Sinatra called Brando "the world's most overrated actor" and "mumbles".
- Sam Levene had played Nathan Detroit in the Broadway musical and Mankiewicz wanted him for the film, but the role went to Sinatra. "You can't have a Jew playing a Jew, it wouldn't work on screen," Goldwyn argued.
- Frank Loesser felt Sinatra played the part like a "dapper Italian swinger" and hated how he turned the rumpled Nathan Detroit into a smoothie; Loesser died in 1969, still refusing to watch the film.
- Gene Kelly at first seemed a serious candidate for Sky Masterson, but the part went to Marlon Brando, partly because Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer would not loan Kelly out and partly because Goldwyn wanted Brando, then the world's biggest box office draw; ironically MGM, Kelly's home studio, ended up distributing the film.
- Frank Sinatra had coveted the role of Sky Masterson and his relations with Brando were strained; Hollywood critic James Bacon quotes Sinatra telling Mankiewicz, "When Mumbles is through rehearsing, I'll come out."
- Goldwyn wanted Grace Kelly for Sarah Brown but she turned the part down because of other commitments, and Deborah Kerr was unavailable, so the third choice was Jean Simmons, who had played opposite Brando in Désirée.
- Betty Grable was considered for Miss Adelaide but was not available. Marilyn Monroe wanted the part and telephoned about it, but she did not sway Mankiewicz, who wanted Vivian Blaine, the actress who had originated the role on stage.
- The musical numbers performed by Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando were sung by the actors themselves, with no dubbing by professional singers.
