As a specialist in documenting cinematic Hollywood's history, David Wolper produced this item within two years after the death of Marilyn Monroe, shot in black and white stock, shown on television but once and then shelved, with its principal value to cinemaphiles that factor of contemporaneity with the star, focussing largely upon her early years and, in the main, with respect to those elements that propelled her initial success. Monroe, never much of an actress, was instead a totemic figure of her period, a Sex Symbol, and as Lee Strasberg of Actors Studio states during a substantive interview, Marilyn had always a desire to be "an actress more that a star", her intellectual deficiencies notwithstanding; however, her performances disclose that she had not advanced much in her planned direction by the time of her passing. There is a good deal of footage of her earliest films that is cut out, in addition to details of her first marriage to Los Angeles policeman Jim Dougherty, but it is instructive to watch her cavort in SCUDDA HOO! SCUDDA HAY! and even more in LADIES OF THE CHORUS, whereas there is overmuch emphasis upon stills of her activities, with an outcome being less than satisfying. John Huston, quite familiar with Monroe, narrates well, although many of his scripted lines seem unduly grandiloquent, with the film's most telling moments including his mention of third husband Arthur Miller's educating Marilyn in the meaning of "big words"; an obvious dichotomy between her clear delight with entertaining troops in Korea and at the famous John Kennedy birthday party, when compared with her "serious" acting; and the work's highlight: the unintentionally hilarious scope of emotions she attempts to display while "attorney to the stars" Jerry Geisler serves as spokesman during a press conference announcing an estrangement from her second husband, Joe Dimaggio.
3 Reviews
Well done and sophisticated
vmtz20018 October 2005
Marilyn Monroe is shown in a not-so-larger than life, almost clinical light, yet without too much hype, and little embellishments, or conjectures. There are plenty of on camera interviews with those who knew her best-- several of whom admit hardly knew her at all. The structure of the script is excellent. It takes the viewer from her childhood be shuttled from one foster home to another, a brief "real" home with her own mother when she was 9 before her mother was committed to a mental institution and on through her brief marriage at the age of 16, the modeling career that lead her into the Hollywood life that confused and destroyed her. Naturally since this was made in 1964, some of what we know of her life today-- such as her affair with Kennedy and the alleged conspiracy that surround it were not covered, as well as the fact she was sexually abused as a child--but it is nonetheless thought-provoking and moving experience.
Churlish, but interesting newsreel full / interviewee mine for the Marilyn-ophile.
Bofsensai22 April 2020
Warning: Spoilers
For this made for TV - only two years after her passing* - if you can tolerate the almost sanctimonious, oft toe curlingly pseud's corner like scripting (by 'director' T. Sanders with T. Strauss), and that made even worse by famed director John Huston's almost discernibly contemptuous delivery* (sample assessment: "a grotesque sex goddess" REALLY?!: that's as scripted / he said it!), there can be some nuggets for the Marilyn-ophile in here to mine, all wrapped inside a (apocryphal?!) white baby grand piano she had / apparently longed for (well, that was a first for me - supposedly shown in her personal effects storage, too?)
With virtually no movie clips of MM (see below), but perhaps doesn't really matter because they are there in all the other docs on her, this is instead compiled mostly of contemporary archive newsreel and interviews**, and in this respect provides some nuggets for the Monroe-ophile fan, aficionado:
** like: first husband James Docherty reminiscing (sat in a baseball stadium!) with anecdotes on her taking pity on a cow in the rain (no wait: this could be relevant; see below = think on that screaming scene in her last film as the wild horse is roped down ...!) and his rather astute observation that actually (of course, duh, obvious) he never knew MM, the movie star - only the innocent 16 year old then Norma-Jean, whom he only took on marriage, seemingly just to avert temptation fears around that young innocence age! ("This is very young child"! "Her Grandmother went berserk!")
So, on her early life - (and inferred dysfunctionality), you'll get to see / hear completely superfluous, irrelevant non-entities after the tragic event of her having now gone, reminiscences as from the likes of some neighbours down the road (!), one of her schoolteachers ("she wasn't well developed"?!), and from after the Docherty divorce, the agent from her first model agency, 'Blue Book': (when she was then, apparently, assessed as "too plump"!! Go, um, 'figure', huh?!), plus even the guy who took that famous nude pin up calendar pic (Tom Holley: "She had the best figure I think I'd ever seen in my life; the greatest - (pause) - and I've seen a few of them!" Sheesh! But, then holding up as reference - but, in only a negative of the famed shot, he at least concedes "I give all the credit to her." :-)); oh, and plus another (forgettable!) latter photographer's home she escaped to ("She had to know, what to trust." Insightful!)
Then, after some rather churlish commentary from Huston on the "owl and the pussycat" (!) marriage to Arthur Miller, made even more mean knowing he directed MM in his, as her then husband's pain filled scripting of, 'The Misfits' (pics shown) mostly as paean to his own wife (of MM), there's soon a rather extensive newsreel of her looking genuinely pained - but which, in passing shows how anyone with any smidgeon of empathy could believe that this was mere actressy fake! - as her lawyer (Jerry Geisler) announces to a baying press scrum that marital break-up. Nice to allow that one to run so long, guys.
Also of some ghoulish merit, some of the last footage ever seen of (supposedly), her Mother, Gladys, walking in the asylum grounds(?) with / taken care of "under the provisions of Marilyn's will", by - depending on your belief take of her involvement / knowledge of her employer's demise - either rabbit caught in the headlights or snake in the grass, last maid, Eunice Murray. On this, we also get that with hindsight knowledge of her - (depending on your take - utterly outrageous, or poignantly) - lies and / or pontifications on the final fateful night. (e.g. illustrated by the telephone cord under the door impossibility / nonsense!) And in this sad respect, there's also 'closure' newsreel of the funeral hearse and cortege, which when knowing why there were so few in attendance (per second husband Di Maggio's insistence) gives quite some crassness to the commentary scripted (so finally, come on, now just two thumbs down to those scripters ..) plus some extracts, too, from Lee Strasberg's eulogy, that too having some irony, now knowing in hindsight that only did he get the lion's share of her estate, but that eventually it would his wife (whom MM barely knew!) / heirs who got most of the riches her posthumous reputation earned! (Still nothing about that mysterious white baby grand, though?!)
But the best bit of these to watch this for, is the (almost) full, now poignancy filled, rendition of Kennedy's famed birthday serenade (i.e. including the first introduction / cause to Peter Lawford's, admittedly in hindsight, oh so creepy 'late' introduction of MM), as she jumps around the stage in that notorious, fantablous sprayed on slinky dress!
Yet, still, cinematically, for the MM-ophile, there's also a nice sequence of some of the various awards she won ("Thank you"), a (very brief) set outtake from the 'Prince and the Showgirl' (ballroom dance scene), plus in the movie clips dept, not much, since this hastily thrown together otherwise barely disguised derisive of her memory / abilities, presumably didn't get the rights to much except a brief song and dance number appearance in 'Ladies of the Chorus', and the famous entrance with the (in)famous Groucho Marks take on her, in 'Love Happy'. Oh, and the now oft seen (gorgeously cute take of her) 'Red Triton' (public domain?) gas commercial is thrown into the mix, too.
* meaning, so, you do get one of the most extensive clips from, as he explains, on his own movie direction of her, in her last (completed) 'The Misfits', of the desert screaming scene, and despite her still not long gone passing, still he takes the opportunity to posthumously chide her for the problems she gave him on the production. Gracious. Although with that inclusion, then also just incidentally, happening to poignantly illustrate that indeed she was dedicated to her newly learnt (Strasberg) 'method' style of acting at the close, and so not only quite debunking those that still seem to take as the Hollywood stitch-up of her as not being a consummate actress, but neatly cocking a snook at the otherwise constant referencing and indeed inferring throughout this piece of meanness, that she wasn't just 'acting' "the dumb blonde". (To make a drinking game of its short, only 50+ minutes, count how many times Huston references this!) Again, nice, guys!
It ends through the credits - and so you will clearly see who 'reverentially' scripted this (those Sanders and Strauss!) - with an abridged rendition of her song from 'Some like it Hot', as most appropriately, 'I wanna be loved by you' .. = exactly! As by the remaining adoring fans, of course, but with this, so also, it seemed to me, patently 'wanna', too, now by both the scripters of this and the erstwhile esteemed, but renowned misanthrope, narrator selected to bestow this soon after her death privilege onto.
With virtually no movie clips of MM (see below), but perhaps doesn't really matter because they are there in all the other docs on her, this is instead compiled mostly of contemporary archive newsreel and interviews**, and in this respect provides some nuggets for the Monroe-ophile fan, aficionado:
** like: first husband James Docherty reminiscing (sat in a baseball stadium!) with anecdotes on her taking pity on a cow in the rain (no wait: this could be relevant; see below = think on that screaming scene in her last film as the wild horse is roped down ...!) and his rather astute observation that actually (of course, duh, obvious) he never knew MM, the movie star - only the innocent 16 year old then Norma-Jean, whom he only took on marriage, seemingly just to avert temptation fears around that young innocence age! ("This is very young child"! "Her Grandmother went berserk!")
So, on her early life - (and inferred dysfunctionality), you'll get to see / hear completely superfluous, irrelevant non-entities after the tragic event of her having now gone, reminiscences as from the likes of some neighbours down the road (!), one of her schoolteachers ("she wasn't well developed"?!), and from after the Docherty divorce, the agent from her first model agency, 'Blue Book': (when she was then, apparently, assessed as "too plump"!! Go, um, 'figure', huh?!), plus even the guy who took that famous nude pin up calendar pic (Tom Holley: "She had the best figure I think I'd ever seen in my life; the greatest - (pause) - and I've seen a few of them!" Sheesh! But, then holding up as reference - but, in only a negative of the famed shot, he at least concedes "I give all the credit to her." :-)); oh, and plus another (forgettable!) latter photographer's home she escaped to ("She had to know, what to trust." Insightful!)
Then, after some rather churlish commentary from Huston on the "owl and the pussycat" (!) marriage to Arthur Miller, made even more mean knowing he directed MM in his, as her then husband's pain filled scripting of, 'The Misfits' (pics shown) mostly as paean to his own wife (of MM), there's soon a rather extensive newsreel of her looking genuinely pained - but which, in passing shows how anyone with any smidgeon of empathy could believe that this was mere actressy fake! - as her lawyer (Jerry Geisler) announces to a baying press scrum that marital break-up. Nice to allow that one to run so long, guys.
Also of some ghoulish merit, some of the last footage ever seen of (supposedly), her Mother, Gladys, walking in the asylum grounds(?) with / taken care of "under the provisions of Marilyn's will", by - depending on your belief take of her involvement / knowledge of her employer's demise - either rabbit caught in the headlights or snake in the grass, last maid, Eunice Murray. On this, we also get that with hindsight knowledge of her - (depending on your take - utterly outrageous, or poignantly) - lies and / or pontifications on the final fateful night. (e.g. illustrated by the telephone cord under the door impossibility / nonsense!) And in this sad respect, there's also 'closure' newsreel of the funeral hearse and cortege, which when knowing why there were so few in attendance (per second husband Di Maggio's insistence) gives quite some crassness to the commentary scripted (so finally, come on, now just two thumbs down to those scripters ..) plus some extracts, too, from Lee Strasberg's eulogy, that too having some irony, now knowing in hindsight that only did he get the lion's share of her estate, but that eventually it would his wife (whom MM barely knew!) / heirs who got most of the riches her posthumous reputation earned! (Still nothing about that mysterious white baby grand, though?!)
But the best bit of these to watch this for, is the (almost) full, now poignancy filled, rendition of Kennedy's famed birthday serenade (i.e. including the first introduction / cause to Peter Lawford's, admittedly in hindsight, oh so creepy 'late' introduction of MM), as she jumps around the stage in that notorious, fantablous sprayed on slinky dress!
Yet, still, cinematically, for the MM-ophile, there's also a nice sequence of some of the various awards she won ("Thank you"), a (very brief) set outtake from the 'Prince and the Showgirl' (ballroom dance scene), plus in the movie clips dept, not much, since this hastily thrown together otherwise barely disguised derisive of her memory / abilities, presumably didn't get the rights to much except a brief song and dance number appearance in 'Ladies of the Chorus', and the famous entrance with the (in)famous Groucho Marks take on her, in 'Love Happy'. Oh, and the now oft seen (gorgeously cute take of her) 'Red Triton' (public domain?) gas commercial is thrown into the mix, too.
* meaning, so, you do get one of the most extensive clips from, as he explains, on his own movie direction of her, in her last (completed) 'The Misfits', of the desert screaming scene, and despite her still not long gone passing, still he takes the opportunity to posthumously chide her for the problems she gave him on the production. Gracious. Although with that inclusion, then also just incidentally, happening to poignantly illustrate that indeed she was dedicated to her newly learnt (Strasberg) 'method' style of acting at the close, and so not only quite debunking those that still seem to take as the Hollywood stitch-up of her as not being a consummate actress, but neatly cocking a snook at the otherwise constant referencing and indeed inferring throughout this piece of meanness, that she wasn't just 'acting' "the dumb blonde". (To make a drinking game of its short, only 50+ minutes, count how many times Huston references this!) Again, nice, guys!
It ends through the credits - and so you will clearly see who 'reverentially' scripted this (those Sanders and Strauss!) - with an abridged rendition of her song from 'Some like it Hot', as most appropriately, 'I wanna be loved by you' .. = exactly! As by the remaining adoring fans, of course, but with this, so also, it seemed to me, patently 'wanna', too, now by both the scripters of this and the erstwhile esteemed, but renowned misanthrope, narrator selected to bestow this soon after her death privilege onto.
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