Novel, stage play, and, most notably, popular 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes began as a series of satiric sketches written by Anita Loos and published by Harper's Bazaar in 1925. The series featured two pretty and bright but unschooled flappers, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, who joyfully infiltrated the bastions of the ruling class. "The strength behind Loos's heroines lies not in their sexuality per se," as Regina Barreca notes, "but on the fact that they remain on the periphery of social and cultural structures." Their profound hunger to be fully accepted into society is at odds with their outsider's recognition of society's entrenched moral hypocrisy. The series struck a chord with readers, and by the third installment, Harper's Bazaar had tripled its newsstand sales.

Loos developed the premise into a novel, which was translated into thirteen languages and adapted into a stage play the following...