Marilyn Monroe Appreciation

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She could sing, had great comedic timing and something that just draws you in. I grew up watching old movies and the first Marilyn I saw was Gentleman, (mebbe why it is my fave) but I was a fan on the spot.

Between me and my neighbors/best friends prob. have all her films and we trade backa nd forth regulraly and can always when undecided abt a film sink into onen of hers.

Yeah. Though her figure is bangin', son.

http://kopteri.net/koti/milaja/mm/img/films/Film21.jpg

bangin what?

http://www.wheelsoffdesign.com/hof/hurley/hurley.jpg

Oh well, nevermind! I'm going to rent MM movies this week!

Spencer, to start check out Gentlemen, Let's Make Love for the songs (the Porter take on Lolita for one) & How to Marry A Millionaire for the two Betty's ensemble act (others would prob. add Some Like It Hot but I'm mixed on that)

Also, Ally, didn't you post that link in the old thread?!

Niagara
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
There's No Business Like Show Business
Born Yesterday
Love Nest

I'll admit, I'm too young for her charms -- she never once did for me as sex object or actress. But I accept her cuz I like Gentleman Prefer Blondes and Some Like It Hot.

Carole Lombard, however.

MoMI did a mini-restrospective called "Marilyn Monroe in New York" or something like that. I went to see The Seven Year Itch on a Saturday because there was Q&A to go with a book signing event, but I've never liked it much and still don't really. But then I went back on Sunday to see Don't Bother to Knock which they were showing in the little theater which I enjoyed much more, it was a real discovery for me.

My take is that she had a real comedic talent and wit that Hawks was able to develop and showcase, but she also had some kind of crippling anxiety for no doubt obvious reasons which is the reason for the multiple takes and stitching together of a performance.

That's all true and those mistakes aren't visible in her performances; she just leaves me cold.

One interesting thing that arose out of the Q&A and maybe I've also read elsewhere is that she had a very good relationship with and felt relaxed around the still camera, but the moving one was a different story altogether.

That's all true and those mistakes aren't visible in her performances; she just leaves me cold.

The New Yorker just reposted an essay they published on Monroe in 1997 and included this in the caption:

Robert Mitchum, who starred alongside Marilyn Monroe in “River of No Return,” once said about working with her, “Every time a director yelled ‘Action!’ she’d break out in a sweat. . . . I mean it. She was scared.”

(xp)
There is something potentially off-putting about the whole 50s blonde bombshell thing in general. It sometimes seems more palatable when presented in quotation marks as a kind of neurosis by Sirk's direction of Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind.

Just remembered that while watching The Seven Year Itch I started wishing it was another Tom Ewell movie, The Girl Can't Help It. Not for Jayne Mansfield, but for Little Richard, Gene Vincent and, almost forgot, Julie London.

GWB is on TCH as I type.

Re: The Seven Year Itch, I think the inevitable bowdlerization severely hampered it from the start. Some say a stronger lead than Ewell was needed too. I'd argue that the film's awkwardly made - the CinemaScope format is never made to feel more than an ill-fit. (Compare it to River of No Return where it not only makes logical sense but is composed and blocked masterfully one shot after another.) Monroe's great in it though - if I had to pick two great moments (and they're not the most famous one), it would be the part where she explains her job which is almost like looking at the nuts and bolts of her acting and the part where she creates open access between both floors - she has a great close-up that captures both the innocence of her character and what she appears like to someone else like Ewell, the intended source of the film's comic tension but in hindsight it doesn't pay off that often except in a moment like that.

I think her performance is maybe fine but, as you say, because of the way the film is written and constructed it's missing something, so it ends up being kind of the lowest common denominator of that The Girl character she's done much better elsewhere. And yeah, Billy Wilder blamed the censors.

And now just thinking how many takes it would have taken if she had ever worked with William Wyler.

Kind of an unstoppable force meeting immovable object combinational explosion of retakes.

Also thinking that in order to get her at all I had to sort of sidestep various minefields of approach/avoid related to too obvious sexxiness and rescue fantasies.

GWB is on TCH as I type.

xps Without the sex that was in the original play, the feeling of guilt intended in the third act scenes doesn't really fly. As a result, the film leans in more on genuine paranoia, and to be fair it might've worked perfectly if they had refined that more, but as-is it doesn't really pay off.

otoh, the lack of sex does amplify what we have in Monroe's version of that character, someone who is immediately established as an innocent made all the more vulnerable by her looks, a frequent target of aggressive heterosexual men, and that gives the movie a tension that's more powerful than Ewell's neuroses. Regardless of his struggles, he was going to be fine - it's Monroe that you really have to worry about. When she expresses a relief that he's married ("I wouldn't be lying on the floor in the middle of the night in some man's apartment drinking champagne if he wasn't married"), the response is only written for laughs ("that's an interesting line of reasoning") but one can also feel immense pity that this character's going to get really hurt someday, and you don't need to know the tragic details of Monroe's life to think that.

otm

I remember watching and liking River of No Return during a Mitchum jag, maybe can revisit this month.

FWIW, the play originally cast Ewell opposite Vanessa Brown, and Paulette Girard would later appear opposite Ewell. I can't say what their performances were like - not sure if that's possible at this point - but at least in photos, it's difficult imagining them matching the child-like aspect of Monroe's performance in the film.

River of No Return is great all-around - when I first saw it, I remember thinking Mitchum was a model in terms of how to behave like a parent to your kids.

A few things haven't dated well as a reflection of the political realities of the time (besides the role of Native Americans, Mitchum makes his feelings known in a way that's problematic), but they're a small part of the film.

Forgot that Mitchum worked side by side at the Lockheed plant with Marilyn's first husband.

crazy coincidence!

Also somehow forgot about Natasha Lytess.

Ha, no less an authority than André Bazin himself singled out River of No Return for its effective use of CinemaScope.

Farran Smith Nehme's appreciation published in Sight & Sound's new issue celebrating Monroe's centennial.

(Monroe, Miles Davis, John Coltrane...quite a year for centennials!)

sad to think that of the three main stars of The Misfits, only Montgomery Clift made another film... and just one more

The Sight & Sound article wasn't actually available online when she first posted about it on Monday so thanks.

You're welcome! I actually found it because Farran eventually shared it herself. She initially thought people would have to buy the physical issue, so she was pleasantly surprised when she saw it online.

Yeah, I noticed the alert from her after you had already sent it.

The thing in the New Yorker was also good, can't recall if I linked it or if anyone else did

Not sure if I am even remembering correctly

An except from an intro to one of the centennial coffee table books iirc

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/marilyn-monroe-made-being-photographed-into-an-art

I may have to pick up that issue. It's kind of sad how tough it is to get a physical magazine nowadays. It's not REALLY tough if you're near a Barnes & Noble, but I remember when you could walk into any drugstore and they'd at least have all the major publications.

Yeah

lol in the UK any random WH Smith’s in a given month will have entire issues dedicated to like, idk, Pedro Pascal or Billie Eilish

i mean i like physical magazines as much as the next middle-aged man but i'm not sure how many titles dedicated to passenger planes one small island nation needs

River of No Return is at the FF today at one.

Digging into this thread and whattyaknow, James Redd, we were at the same screening/Q&A of Seven Year Itch! (I did not love the picture but thought Monroe was pitch-perfect in it.)

Cool! Are you also going to see River of No Return at one pm today at the Film Forum?

Anyway at that Q&A I felt that Sam Shaw's granddaughter was overcorrecting and leaning in a little too hard on the "Marilyn was perfectly normal and all the stories of the missed lines and multiple takes was just her way of messing with the studios" angle.

I am at RIVER OF NO RETURN. Apparently they just did the members spring brunch this morning but I haven't been on that level in ages.

I was at least able to redeem my fully punched loyalty card at the concession stand.

Besides the coffee, are there any concessions at Film Forum that are especially good? The baked goods look tempting but they tend to be pricey. (Not that I'm surprised, it's a movie theater after all.)

You're not swayed by Jacques Derrida's rave about the banana bread?

Lol

I usually just get popcorn and/or an espresso.

Tbh I periodically buy the banana bread but I have never actually finished it. It starts to feel very sweet and carby.

Can't go wrong with the popcorn. Sometimes I'll get a cappuccino with it, which they also do well.