My Week with Marilyn: The Misfits (1961)

Director: John Huston
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, Thelma Ritter

The marathon comes to an end, appropriately enough, with The Misfits, a film which has "the end" written all over it. It's the final film that Marilyn Monroe completed, the final film of Clark Gable, its production was the final nail in the coffin of Monroe's marriage to Arthur Miller (who wrote the screenplay), and its story is all about things ending and people struggling to accept it. There's something funereal about The Misfits, something which makes it as poignant as it is upsetting (on the whole I wouldn't describe the film as "upsetting," but that last 20/30 minutes is pretty hard to watch). It's a melancholy film about very sad people, but it's a great film and I don't think Monroe was ever better than she was here, even if the making of this movie took everything she had left.

My Week with Marilyn: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe

A great movie is the result of a lot of elements coming together in just the right way. There's no formula to it - what works in one film won't necessarily work in another, what doesn't work in other films might work marvelously when guided by the right hand - and great works of art tend to be great in their own specific, unique ways. But if there's any one thing that great movies, of any genre and from any time period, tend to share, it's a strong ending. Casablanca, The Godfather, Fargo, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - wildly different films, but each possessed of a perfect ending. Some Like It Hot is another member of the perfect ending club, its final two words arguably the greatest comedic payoff in cinema history. Everything that comes before that is pretty great, too, but damn what an ending. A classic among classics and a highlight in the careers of all of Marilyn Monroe, Billy Wilder, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, Some Like It Hot is one of those enduring films that just works no matter when you see it and which reconfirms itself as a masterpiece with few equals every time you see it.

My Week with Marilyn: The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell

If I had to define the difference between a movie star and a movie icon, I would argue that a movie star is someone that people are familiar with because of their movies, while a movie icon is someone with whom a majority of people are familiar because of isolated moments and images from their movies. Everyone knows the image of Marilyn Monroe standing over the subway grate, but outside of film buffs, Monroe fans, and Billy Wilder fans, how many people who know that image know what film it comes from? And if they can name the film, can they describe the context of the scene? The moment is bigger than the movie, having taken on a life of its own in the 62 years since the film's release, and in the popular imagination it's now considered less a moment from a film than it is a part of Monroe's identity. If most people are only familiar with the subway grate scene in isolation, and not from having seen The Seven Year Itch, that's kind of a shame because the film is a highly entertaining farce - even if it works for precisely the reason that Wilder felt it ultimately didn't.

My Week with Marilyn: There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Director: Walter Lang
Starring: Ethel Merman, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe

This will be a short one, because there's frankly not all that much to say. Of all the films I'm watching for this series, There's No Business Like Show Business is the only one that I had absolutely no familiarity beforehand. I actually hadn't even heard of it before, which is odd considering it's a film from right in the thick of the years when she was a super star, with just about every role a notable one. A fairly unremarkable film, There's No Business Like Show Business has got some decent song and dance numbers to it (though it would have to, with this cast), but it's kind of a bland and formulaic "showbiz" movie, even by the standards of showbiz movies. If you're a Donald O'Connor fan or an Ethel Merman fan, then it's worth a watch to get to see them do the things they do best; but with respect to Marilyn Monroe, this is a film for completionists only.

My Week with Marilyn: River of No Return (1954)

Director: Otto Preminger
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe

And now for something completely different. From the frothy, female-centered comedy of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, to the rugged western/adventure of River of No Return, a movie brimming with testosterone. How manly is River of No Return? It opens with Robert Mitchum chopping down a tree so that he can build a log cabin all by himself, and then proceeds to have him get into three hand-to-hand combat fights, prove himself an expert marksman, captain a rickety raft down the eponymous river whose rapids are supposed to be unconquerable, capture and kill a deer while rafting down that river, wrestle a cougar, and single-handedly fight off a war party. If River of No Return was a person instead of a movie, you'd think it was overcompensating for something.

My Week with Marilyn: How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Director: Jean Negulesco
Starring: Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable

Carrying on with the biggest hit of Marilyn Monroe's star-making year, How to Marry a Millionaire, in which Monroe is teamed with fellow icons Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. All told, this one doesn't age quite as well as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, primarily because its strategy for creating conflict is to have one of the women act like a complete cow to whatever guy she's with at the moment and to have him react not by dropping her (as any reasonable human being would) but by wanting her more. That being said, it does have more than a few moments that are sharp and funny and a couple that are just downright strange (such as an early scene in which the three women discuss the kind of men they're willing to associate with, who will only be the best of the best in terms of class and wealth, while sitting around eating hot dogs, the classiest of all food), and any movie that features scenes of Monroe, Bacall, and Grable, each an icon in her own right, is worth a look at the very least.

My Week with Marilyn: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe

I'm kicking a week-long Marilyn Monroe marathon with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the film which features, courtesy of the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" number, the second most iconic moment in Marilyn Monroe's film career (the first being the grate in The Seven Year Itch, naturally). Starring Monroe and Jane Russell as two little girls from Little Rock, one of whom is out to close the deal by marrying her wealthy suitor, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a delightful comedy that adheres to the principle of K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. The plot is about as straightforward as it comes, even when the potential twists are right there waiting to be used, and the pacing is zippy, as befitting a film from the expert hands of Howard Hawks, but perhaps the most surprising thing about this comedy is how generally unobjectionable its gender politics are. It's amazing that a 64 year old film about a woman trying to land a rich husband can manage to do so much better in terms of depicting women than many studio films released today.

Review: The Misfits (1961)

* * *
Director: John Huston
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift

“You’re the saddest girl I’ve ever met.” In this line you can hear the echo of writer Arthur Miller speaking to then-wife Marilyn Monroe, just one of many elements of the film which imitate real-life. The Misfits stars Monroe as an emotionally fragile divorcee who finds love with a cowboy past his glory played by Clark Gable. This isn’t the best movie that either star ever made, but it is significant in that it’s the last film either ever completed (Gable would die ten days after filming wrapped; Monroe a year after the film’s release) and there’s something very appropriate about that, given the melancholy nature of the story and these two characters.

The story takes place in Nevada, where Roslyn (Monroe) has come to live for the requisite period to obtain her divorce. During her stay she meets Guido (Eli Wallach) and his friend Gay (Gable) and sets off with them and her landlady Isabel (Thelma Ritter) to Guido’s house outside the city. Guido hasn’t lived in the house since the death of his wife and offers to let Rosalyn rent it. This is a new beginning for Rosalyn, who also starts a relationship with Gay, finding with him what each has failed to find in relationships with others. Both are fundamentally lonely people, disconnected from the people around them, and they’re happily surprised at the life they’re able to build together, though it’s destined to be short-lived. It isn’t long before Gay starts to feel restless and decides to go off “mustanging” with Guido. Roslyn comes along for the ride and on the way they pick up Perce (Montgomery Clift), a rodeo rider who might be even more emotionally wounded than Rosalyn. They go into the mountains where Rosalyn breaks down upon learning that the purpose of this expedition is to round up the wild horses so that they can be made into dog food.

All three men are, to greater and lesser degrees, in love with Rosalyn. Rosalyn loves Gay, but is drawn to both Perce and Guido, who seem so sensitive and in need of affection. There’s a sense that she wants to save these three men, just as she wants to save the horses they capture. The wild horses – which once numbered in the thousands but have been reduced to a handful – are representative of the men, who are in their own way the last of a dying breed. Gay and Perce both defiantly refuse “wages,” preferring instead to earn their livings the way they always have and without having to answer to any boss. Of course the truth of the matter is that they’re broken down and of little practical use to any employer, just as the horses are of little practical use for anything other than dog food. They are all creatures considered past their sell by dates.

The actors are great across the board, especially Gable, who brings a weary charm to his role, but it’s Monroe who captures your attention and holds it in the palm of her hand from beginning to end. Because of her status as a sex symbol (the sex symbol) Monroe isn’t always given the credit she deserves as an actress but here she renders a great and nuanced performance. She can say volumes with just a look – her breathy voice is a large part of her persona but I think she would still have been a star had she come along during the silent era because she has such an expressive face. I honestly can’t say enough good things about her work here, though you could of course argue that she’s only playing herself, the role tailor-made for her by Arthur Miller. I would argue that playing “yourself” would be the most difficult task for an actor since it would require you to expose your foibles to the world’s scrutiny and I would argue that it would be more difficult still to play the version of yourself created by your husband, forced to confront his criticisms of you in such an intense and public way.

The Misfits can be a difficult film to watch, not only because of the personal circumstances of the actors involved, but also because of the subject matter. The scenes of the group out capturing the mustangs would never make it into a film made today because they’re so unblinkingly cruel to the animals. Watching the horses as they struggle to evade capture is profoundly disturbing, more so than scenes of cruelty towards people because no matter how absorbed you are in a film you know on some level that it’s a scene being played by actors, whereas this just is. It’s a very unpleasant aspect of the film, though I recommend it nevertheless.

100 Days, 100 Movies: Some Like It Hot (1959)

Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe, Joe E. Brown

Even if Some Like It Hot were awful, it would be worth sitting through just to get to that final line, delivered so faultlessly by Joe E. Brown. Luckily it isn’t awful, but a sharp, tightly-wound and brilliantly executed comedy from one of the bona fide masters, Billy Wilder. Part on-the-run story, part musical, part sex comedy, with a whole lot of gender confusion mixed in, this over-the-top farce manages to do what most comedies seem incapable of now: it goes to the extremes without confusing comedy for shock value.

It begins with Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), two musicians forced to go on the run after witnessing a mob hit. In their desperation to save themselves, they come up with a plan to disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band on its way to Florida. Complicating matters is one of the band’s members, the alluring Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), with whom both men are instantly smitten, but about whom neither can do much, since they’re masquerading as women. When they get to Florida, Joe exchanges one disguise for another, now becoming Junior, an oil tycoon who intrigues Sugar by playing hard to get. Meanwhile, Jerry, still disguised as a woman, finds himself being courted by Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown).

The scenes between Joe/Junior and Sugar play out as a reversal of film tropes. Junior looks the part of the debonair lover – Curtis plays it as an imitation of that most lasting of screen lovers, Cary Grant, though Grant himself apparently agreed with Jerry’s assertion in the movie that “no one talks loik thet!” – but plays it cool with Sugar, insisting that nothing will happen between them. This, of course, has the effect of making Sugar want to melt his frigid resolve, which she fairly easily accomplishes. “I’ve got a funny sensation in my toes, like someone was barbecuing them over a slow flame,” he tells her. “Let’s throw another log on the fire,” she replies. Curtis is good in his role, but in his scenes with Monroe, he almost seems superfluous, so overshadowed by her is he. There’s heat between them, yes, but Monroe had the ability to project heat with anyone – or anything. Wilder could have paired her with the ukulele she plays in the film and Monroe still could have made it convincing. She was more than an actress, she was a force of nature. “Look how she moves!” Jerry exclaims upon seeing her for the first time. You can’t help but look at Monroe in any scene, in any film, because when she’s onscreen, it’s like nothing else exists.

As much as I enjoy Monroe, my favourite scenes are those involving Lemmon - who quite rightly received an Academy Award nomination - trying to negotiate his budding relationship with Osgood. At first Jerry/Daphne plays hard to get which, as with Sugar and Junior, only makes Osgood more determined. At some point along the way, Jerry falls into Daphne’s line of thinking and decides to accept Osgood’s proposal, the revelation of which leads to the funniest exchanges between Jerry and Joe. “Who’s the lucky girl?” Joe asks, on hearing that Jerry is engaged. “I am!” Jerry says exultantly, happily shaking pair of maracas. Joe insists that this is a crazy idea. “What are you going to do on your honeymoon?” he asks. “We’ve been discussing that. He wants to go to the Riviera, but I kind of lean towards Niagara Falls.” The way that Lemmon manages to convince us that Daphne’s been utterly swept off her feet, even though she’s still Jerry, is amazing, and the interplay between Lemmon and Curtis in this scene, and between Lemmon and Brown throughout the film, is fantastic. I have yet to see any single shot that is more priceless than that which reveals the look on Jerry/Daphne’s face as he/she is turned to face the camera (flower between lips) while dancing with Osgood.

In the end we get the two pairs running off into the sunset together, Joe with Sugar, Jerry/Daphne with Osgood, leading to one of the best (if not the best) films lines ever uttered. From beginning to end, this is an absolute gem of a movie. It hasn’t aged a day since its release in 1959, remaining just as funny and perfectly executed as ever. If you’ve never seen it, you don’t know what you’re missing. But don’t feel too bad - after all, nobody’s perfect.