Why Marilyn Monroe continues to captivate us
20th Century Fox 1960
Marilyn Monroe in "Let's Make Love": She may not have found her ideal role, but she had a natural talent for musical comedy.
The first time I saw Marilyn Monroe, she was walking by a train in "Some Like It Hot," and I was sitting in front of a black-and-white TV. I was 5 years old, and she was the most beautiful human being I had ever seen.
But as a teenager and then as an adult, I never had much interest in Marilyn. I didn't much like her movies, didn't like her acting, didn't like her makeup or her era (the 1950s) and didn't respond to what I saw as the relentless poignancy of her portrayals and personality. Sex symbols flatter us by forcing us to imagine ourselves in relationships with them, and Marilyn always seemed to me like someone I'd find annoying.
It took Michelle Williams and "My Week With Marilyn" to give me Marilyn Monroe and make me appreciate her. The magic of that film is that it not only re-creates the craziness surrounding the filming of "The Prince and the Showgirl," but it also conveys a sense of this actress' offscreen power; her beauty, yes, but her magnetism, too, as well as her aura of helplessness and fractured good cheer. It also invites us to watch "The Prince and the Showgirl" and to marvel at how such a real-life mess could be such a perfect screen presence.
I learned something watching "The Prince and the Showgirl" that I really should have guessed, and that's that no one should ever watch Marilyn Monroe on a small screen. You can do it, but you won't really see her. I saw most of her films on a 19-inch television 20 year! s ago. N ow I'm seeing them again, on an 8-foot screen, but it's really as though I'm seeing her for the first time.
No, this is not going to be the article in which I come rushing back from the front with information that everyone else has known for 60 years - yep, that Marilyn Monroe sure was pretty. But I do find myself fascinated at how Marilyn's big-screen image dominates our perception for reasons that surely must include beauty, but beauty can't possibly be the whole story. We're talking about a command of the medium that is beyond definition. An illustration might help: Watching "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" recently, I saw a shot that struck me as peculiar. Marilyn was off to the side of the frame, and just for a second, I wondered to myself, "Why is the director keeping her to the side in this widescreen film? Why not put her at the center?" A split second later, I realized that Marilyn was in a two-shot. She was standing next to Jane Russell. I literally hadn't seen Russell at all.
People who knew Marilyn, such as Susan Strasberg, say she glowed in person. She certainly does on the big screen. Yet before we spin off into ethereal realms, we must also acknowledge and celebrate the sheer carnality of that big-screen presence. For example, near the end of her opening number in "Let's Make Love" (1960), she turns to the chorus boy on her right and kisses him. It takes only a second. But there's more mouth in that kiss, and more womanly experience, confidence and rawness in that one second than in any dozen movie love scenes put together.
Disappointing filmography
She was remarkable, but the filmography is disappointing. In the beginning, there were lots of film appearances, but mostly in small or supporting roles. By 1953, she was a star and made "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," with its renowned "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" number. But aside from that one scene, the movie is fairly awful. In "How to Marry a Millionaire," she was funny, but in support - Lauren Bacall was the star. ! She got more face time in "The Seven Year Itch," in which she was funny and gorgeous, but the movie itself was ghastly - gutted by censorship and full of long, unfunny monologues by Tom Ewell.