“THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH” ( 1956 ) ~
QUE SERA SERA
“Why would he pick me out to tell?”
Why? Because you’re the affable, all-American James Stewart, that’s why. I’ve no real clue why Stewart’s picked, other than he’s a great foil to get pushed around by Hitchcock and international forces beyond his control.
“The Muslim religion allows for few mistakes.”
How prescient of Hitch to give us a glimpse of North Africa and its Muslim culture as a preamble to the intrigue that follows. Could this film even be made today? (Current Middle East tensions and all…) Hitchcock also gives us a glimpse into the marriage of Stewart and Doris Day. I really like Day in this, one of the better roles of her career. My motto: It doesn’t hurt playing a Hitchcock Blonde.
Doris Day, James Stewart and the wonderful Brenda de Banzie
And any leading man is better off being “married” to Doris Day in the movies (i.e. Rock Hudson, James Garner, David Niven and now Jimmy Stewart, to name a few.) She’s a smart gal here, picks up social cues her husband misses, as wives do. She tamps down her sophistication, but she’s no rube. Day plays an ex-singing star who has given up her career for marriage to a doctor and a nice home, little boy and life in the Mid-west. There might be just the slightest bit of tension in that trade-off. But whaddya want, it’s 1956; a girl’s gotta get married. I like Hitch giving Day’s character a moment in the spotlight as the couple’s plane lands in London and fans call out for her. Don’t worry…it’s just a plot device and not a commentary on women having had ‘ka-rears’.
The Plot: They have to stop a political assassination and find their
kidnapped son…in that order. Nothing like a little blackmail to spur
one’s civic duty. Their silence bought, Stewart’s and Day’s
teamwork has them decipher clues, leaving law enforcement pretty
much out of this so they won’t muck up finding their couple.
Usually when we hear the great film scores of the Hitchcock-Bernard Hermann collaboration (Psycho, Vertigo, North By Northwest, etc.) the music serves as a beautiful observer of events. In “The Man Who Knew Too Much” Hitchcock puts Music and Hermann front and center. What a neat touch as the movie starts, we see Hermann and his orchestra PLAY the movie’s actual score under the movie’s opening credits. Has any director done THAT before? (We’re usually not supposed to know the music’s there.) Later on in the film, Hitch intersperses Hermann and his orchestra… instruments, music sheets, close-ups of musical notes with Day and Stewart trying to figure out the last piece of the puzzle. Music is a character in this movie. Tension and suspense are as taut as a violin string as Hitch shows Day’s tear-stained face looking up at the muzzle of an assassin’s gun.
No one expresses hysteria, full-blown or repressed, like Doris Day.
In fact, my favorite scene in the movie is, perhaps, the most
disturbing, where Stewart gives Day sleeping pills just before he
tells her their son has been kidnapped. She simultaneously plays out
several emotions: anger, despair and helplessness as the pills take
effect in a scene worthy of Ingrid Bergman’s talents.
The behind-the-scene story is Hitchcock said very little to Ms. Day
during filming, having no notes of direction for her. It wasn’t that he
didn’t like her. He was pleased with her natural and “pitch perfect”
performance.
Very very few directors had the chance to remake their own movie. I can only think of Wyler. This is Hitchcock’s second time doing “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” I think he improved on his own work. But you be the judge…see ‘em both.
Theresa Brown is a native New Yorker, a Capricorn and a biker chick (rider as well as passenger). When she’s not on her motorcycle, you can find her on her couch blogging about classic films for CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch. Classic films are her passion. You can find her on Twitter at @CineMava.
Canadian-born actress Yvonne De Carlo is remembered by many classic film fans as one of Hollywood’s most glamorous women.
Born Margaret “Peggy” Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver in 1922, De Carlo began her film career in bit parts in 1941, working her way up to leading roles in the 1945 films Salome, Where She Danced and Frontier Gal, which was her first starring Western.
Many viewers associate De Carlo with desert adventures and epics such as The Desert Hawk (1950) or The Ten Commandments (1956), while others think of her film noir classics Brute Force (1947) and Criss Cross (1949). And some TV fans, of course, best remember De Carlo’s decidedly unglamorous role as Lily Munster on TV’s The Munsters (1964-66).
When I think of Yvonne De Carlo, she comes to mind first and foremost as a Western star! From the mid-’40s through the late ’60s she was the leading lady in more than a dozen Westerns.
Viewers may
not be aware that De Carlo’s roles in the Western genre were perhaps the
closest fit for what the actress described in her autobiography as “the
Peggy Middleton behind the facade of Yvonne De Carlo.”
In De Carlo’s
free time she loved nothing more than leaving Hollywood and heading up
California’s Highway 395 to spend time in the great outdoors; she frequently
stayed in Lone Pine, which she called “my haven in the High Sierra.”
She hiked, rode horses, and took her two sons fishing and camping.
It’s thus perhaps not surprising that she was so at home in Westerns. A couple of my favorite candid photos of her are on Western sets, standing in rivers laughing alongside Joel McCrea or Rory Calhoun. She looks like she’s having fun!
Border River (1954) Joel McCrea and Yvonne De Carlo
Raw Edge (1956) Rory Calhoun and Yvonne De Carlo
Here’s an overview of some of the De Carlo Westerns I’ve enjoyed. The list includes a couple of titles that might be remembered from my 2018 Western RoundUp column on “Universal Gems.”
Frontier Gal (1945) Yvonne De Carlo and Rod Cameron
Frontier Gal (Charles Lamont, 1945) – I think of this film from De Carlo’s breakout year of 1945 as sort of a Western Taming of the Shrew, depicting the highly tempestuous relationship between a saloon gal named Lorena (De Carlo) and Jonathan (Rod Cameron), a man on the run who was framed for murder. Lorena and Jonathan marry but are parted the next morning when the law catches up with Jonathan; when he returns six years later, he’s quite surprised to find he’s the father of little Mary Ann (Beverly Sue Simmons). De Carlo is funny and touching, desperately attracted to Jonathan but reluctant to show it, hurt she may not measure up as the “real lady” of his dreams. De Carlo also has the chance to do some musical numbers.
Black Bart (1948) Dan Duryea and Yvonne De Carlo
Black Bart (George Sherman, 1948) – This is one of my favorite De Carlo Westerns, in which she’s the love interest of rancher Charlie Boles (Dan Duryea), who has a secret life as a stagecoach robber. A friendly enemy (Jeffrey Lynn) and a Wells Fargo man (Frank Lovejoy) complicate Boles’ secret career. De Carlo and Duryea are terrific together, the year before they made Criss Cross, and the film has a fun, fast-paced story and gorgeous candy box Technicolor, not to mention a couple of dances by De Carlo. Although some filming was done in Utah, I suspect the principal actors didn’t leave California.
Dan Duryea, Yvonne De Carlo and Rod Cameron in River Lady (1948)
River Lady (George Sherman, 1948) – In this film De Carlo reunited with past costars, Rod Cameron and Dan Duryea. She plays Sequin, owner of the River Lady, a floating gambling palace. Frustrated when her love Dan (Cameron) won’t give up logging to help her build a business empire, Sequin conspires with Beauvais (Duryea) against Dan; she essentially becomes the villainess of the piece, with Dan turning to sweet Stephanie (Helena Carter) for true love. While, like Black Bart, it’s pretty obvious that second unit photography was done with stand-ins, the film’s logging scenes nonetheless give it a nice “fresh air” feel.
The Gal Who Took the West (1949) movie poster
The Gal Who Took the West (Frederick De Cordova, 1949) – This one might be my favorite of De Carlo’s Westerns. She plays sassy, spunky Lily, an entertainer who arrives in a frontier town to perform at an opera house. A pair of handsome cousins (John Russell and Scott Brady) are soon fighting for her hand; I love the quips she trades with their grandfather (Charles Coburn). This is such a fun movie, it’s the perfect diversion for our challenging times. Hoping for a DVD release someday!
Van Heflin and Yvonne De Carlo in Tomahawk (1951)
Tomahawk (George Sherman, 1951) – This is one of several films De Carlo made with director George Sherman. De Carlo once again plays a traveling frontier entertainer; she’s attracted to Jim Bridger (Van Heflin) but matters grow complicated when she mistakenly thinks an Indian girl (Susan Cabot) he’s traveling with is his wife. This film has some excellent location photography in the Black Hills and is notable for its even-handed treatment of Indians. With a terrific cast including Preston Foster, Rock Hudson, Alex Nicol, Jack Oakie, and Tom Tully, it’s a solid exemplar of what makes Universal Westerns so enjoyable.
De Carlo and Edmond O’Brien in Silver City (1951)
Silver City (Byron Haskin, 1951) – This enjoyable Paramount Pictures Western costarred Edmond O’Brien as Larkin Moffatt, a man who once made a mistake and considered stealing some money; he had second thoughts and returned it, but is hounded out of jobs by resentful Charles Storrs (Richard Arlen) all over the West. Moffatt finally catches a break as a foreman working for De Carlo and Edgar Buchanan, playing her father. De Carlo is at her best when her characters have a chance to show a humorous side, and a sequence where she’s flustered when she believes O’Brien might be interested in her is delightful. There’s also some attractive location filming in Sonora, California. This film was based on a story by Luke Short, whose writing inspired many a good Western.
Yvonne in The San Francisco Story (1952)
The San Francisco Story (Robert Parrish, 1952) – This film set during the California Gold Rush is relatively modest, including black and white cinematography, but it does have its pleasures, starting with the teaming of De Carlo and Western favorite Joel McCrea. Yvonne is exquisitely beautiful in this one — though wasn’t she always?! — gowned by Yvonne Wood. There are terrific supporting performances by Richard Erdman as McCrea’s wry sidekick and Florence Bates as the eyepatch-wearing proprietor of a waterfront dive who shanghais sailors on the side. Worth a look for anyone who likes the cast.
Border River (1954)
Border River (George Sherman, 1954) – De Carlo’s second teaming with Joel McCrea has better production values than their first film, with beautiful Technicolor filming on the Colorado River and other locations. McCrea plays a Confederate soldier attempting to purchase Army supplies in Mexico. There are some good action scenes along with romance and espionage, and all in all, it’s a likable Western. Pedro Armendariz costars.
Shotgun (1955) movie poster
Shotgun (Lesley Selander, 1955) – This Allied Artists Western co-starring Sterling Hayden and Zachary Scott is one of De Carlo’s best films of the genre. Hayden plays a lawman with a wild past who’s on the trail of the man who murdered his boss (Lane Chandler). He meets up on the trail with a saloon gal (De Carlo) and a bounty hunter (Scott). This is what some might call a “chamber Western,” with its main focus on the relationships among the trio of lead characters. Most of the movie was shot on location, including Sedona, and the film has a tough, gritty look, with the actors in realistically dirty clothes! Some particularly interesting background is that the film was co-written by actor Rory Calhoun. De Carlo tells a story in her memoirs of a disastrous date with Calhoun in the ’40s when he didn’t talk to her all night; despite that, in the ’50s they became good friends, to the point that he was one of the only people invited to her 1955 wedding to stuntman Bob Morgan.
Raw Edge (1956) movie poster
Raw Edge (John Sherwood, 1956) – De Carlo worked with Calhoun in front of the camera in this oddball yet entertaining Universal Pictures film set in the 1840s Oregon territory. There’s an…unusual!…law in the area that any woman who is widowed is up for grabs by the first man who claims her. Calhoun arrives to avenge the death of his brother (John Gavin) at the hands of DeCarlo’s husband (Herbert Rudley), and he ends up also protecting her from the vultures who begin circling in anticipation of her hubby’s death. I give the story points for originality, even if it’s rather bizarre! DeCarlo and Calhoun are fun to watch together, and the filming in San Bernardino National Forest is an added plus.
Viewers who enjoy the above films will find that there are even more De Carlo Westerns to seek out, including Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949); her supporting role in John Wayne‘s McLintock! (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1963); and her lead roles in multiple ’60s Westerns produced by A.C. Lyles.
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
Marilyn: Behind the Icon – A Comedic and Pregnant Monroe Triumphs in Some Like It Hot and Wins the Golden Globe
In 2000, the American Film Institute honored Some Like It Hot as the “Best Comedy of All Time.” In the six decades after its release, the film achieved acclaim worldwide as one of the greatest movie comedies ever made, ranking number fourteen on the America Film Institute’s list of the 100 Best American Films of All Time. It has also been deemed “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. However, the road to such greatness was paved with pain and frustration. Leading lady Marilyn Monroe struggled with mental illness and a high-risk pregnancy throughout the production.
Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe
To avoid censorship, collaborators Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond scripted the two unemployed jazz musicians in drag out of necessity rather than choice. Chased by mobsters after witnessing a gangster massacre in Prohibition-era Chicago, the characters join an all-female band, Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopaters, and escape to Florida.
Wilder and Diamond’s fast-paced, satirical story romanticized the Mack Sennett and Marx Brothers screwball comedies of the 1920s and ‘30s. Rich in double-entendre and risqué dialogue, the script bravely and precariously wobbled from a cliff with the censors. Because the male leading characters masquerade as women, their sexualized dialogue passed Production Code censorship. The brilliant script’s complex, multiple layers included witty sexual innuendo and themes of homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestism, androgyny, and impotence. Amid all the outrageous humor, the underlying plot addressed serious issues of alcoholism, gangland murder, and sexual harassment of women.
Some Like It Hot satirizes the stereotyping of female and male roles by reversing them throughout the plot, a radical statement during the conservative 1950s, an era of rigid gender roles. Joe (Tony Curtis), a saxophone-playing womanizer, becomes attracted to the band’s lead singer, Sugar Kane (Monroe), and devises a way to court her while out of his female disguise and in the disguise of a male millionaire. He creates a male identity, Junior, based on Sugar’s ideal, by employing a vocal imitation of actor Cary Grant, a male sex symbol.
Junior and Sugar
Junior, an intellectual millionaire who wears corrective lenses, complies with Sugar’s theory that “men who wear glasses are so much more gentle and sweet and helpless.” As Junior, Joe fakes impotence to lower Sugar’s defenses and further his romance with her. He takes a passive role — literally on his back — in the seduction scene, and Sugar becomes the dominant aggressor to “cure” his bogus sexual dysfunction.
Both Joe and his sidekick, Jerry (Jack Lemmon), transform during the gender-reversal. Moved by Sugar, after he becomes her friend and confidante as Josephine, Joe eventually commits to her, shedding his pattern of notorious womanizing. Jerry enjoys being feminine to the point of accepting the proposal of a rich, old millionaire. Having originally re-named himself Geraldine, bass-fiddle-player Jerry changes the name of his drag identity from Geraldine to Daphne as he begins to identify with his new feminine persona. For Jerry, his feminine side deserves humanity because as he experiences it, he sees it as more than a mere disguise. As Jerry befriends Sugar, he acquires many of her qualities and grows interested in her as more than a sexual object. This blending of male and female roles and perspectives would not occur in the culture until the last decades of the 20th century.
Marilyn and Jack, and Joe E. Brown doing the Tango with Jack Lemmon
Jack Lemmon was always Wilder’s first choice for the role of Jerry, but the Mirisch Company desired a bigger name such as Frank Sinatra or Danny Kaye. Frank Sinatra lost his opportunity to participate in the project when he failed to meet Wilder for a scheduled lunch date. Wilder turned to Tony Curtis who thirsted to work with one of the industry’s best and most talented directors.
Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe
Mitzi Gaynor was originally considered as the leading lady, a supporting role as “straight man” to Lemmon and Curtis’s wild comic antics, but Gaynor was completing the musical film South Pacific. The script describes the female lead, Sugar Kane, as “the dream girl of every red-blooded American male who ever read College Humor.” It was the weakest part, according to Wilder, so the trick was to give it the strongest casting. For Wilder, only Marilyn Monroe projected the mixture of innocence and provocation crucial for the film’s success. Monroe’s involvement would also assure the fiscally focused producers of star power.
Joe E. Brown came out of retirement to work with Monroe and to dance on the screen in the role of the aging millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Known for his infectious grin and cavernous mouth, Brown delivers the film’s final, hilarious line, “Nobody’s perfect.”
George Raft and Pat O’Brien
Wilder paid tribute to the great gangster movies of the 1930s with subtle gags in the movie’s script and the casting of the Mobsters. The name of the crime lord, Little Bonaparte, is borrowed from Little Caesar (1931). George Raft, cast as Spats Columbo, threatens to smash a grapefruit in the face of one of his henchmen, a reference to James Cagney’s famous scene in The Public Enemy (1931). He later grabs a coin from the air when another gangster repeatedly flips it, a gesture from the actor’s role in Scarface (1932). The cast also included Edward G. Robinson Jr. (whose father portrayed gangsters in the 1930s and 40’s), Pat O’Brien as the Irish Police Sergeant, and George E. Stone as Toothpick Charlie.
Monroe accepted the role to offset her husband Arthur Miller’s mounting legal expenses incurred from his contempt charges for not naming names in his testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Her initial reluctance stemmed from confusion about her character’s motivation. “I’ve got a real problem, Lee,” Monroe confided to her mentor Lee Strasberg. “I just can’t believe in the central situation. I’m supposed to be real cozy with these two newcomers, who are really men in drag. How can I possibly feel a thing like that without just being too stupid? After all, I know the two men.”
Strasberg offered Monroe an
insight into her own life to apply to the role. He reminded her of her
challenges in having relationships with other women because of their jealousy
over the attention men gave her. “You’ve never really had a girlfriend,”
Strasberg said. “Now here suddenly are two women and they want to be your
friend. They like you. For the first time in your life, you have two
girlfriends.” Monroe discovered the motivation for her character.
Monroe shimmers in cinematographer Charles Lang Jr.’s textured black & white photography. Lang may have used a double Obie lighting technique to halo Monroe who virtually glows on film in her glittering Jazz Age costumes by Jack Orry-Kelly. Orry-Kelly would win his third Oscar for Some Like It Hot.
Monroe’s most luminous costume was a cocktail dress of tulle adorned with sequins and silver fringing with a heart shape embroidered on the derrière. It clung to her breasts, appearing diaphanous if not for strategically placed sequins. A similar frock in black tulle was spotlighted at the end of the film. Monroe’s other Orry-Kelly creations included a long-sleeve, V-neck black silk dress with fringe at the hemline (now displayed in a museum in London, it shows evidence of having been altered to accommodate the bulge of Monroe’s pregnancy).
The film also highlights Monroe singing three 1920s songs: “Runnin’ Wild,” “I Wanna Be Loved By You,” and “I’m Through With Love.” She also recorded an original piece, “Some Like It Hot,” intended for the main titles, but the number was deleted and replaced with a snappy instrumental medley. “I Wanna Be Loved By You” was first performed by Helen Kane, dubbed the “Boop-Boop-a-Doop Girl” who inspired the Betty Boop animated character.
“[Monroe] had a tremendous sense of a joke, as good a delivery as Judy Holliday, and that’s saying a lot,” said Wilder. “She had a kind of inner sense of what will play, what will work. She called me after the first daily rushes because she did not like her introductory scene.”
In the revision, at Monroe’s suggestion, Sugar clips down the train platform, carrying a valise and a ukulele case and accompanied by the soundtrack’s raucous jazz tune played by a muted trumpet. As she wiggles on her high-heeled pumps past the two men in drag, the train emits a puff of steam toward Sugar’s swinging buttocks. She quickens her pace. Lemmon’s character turns to Curtis’ and observes that she moves like “Jell-O on springs.” With its allusion to the subway breeze lifting her skirt in The Seven Year Itch, this reworked scene is one of Monroe’s most memorable entrances.
Monroe’s pregnancy becomes more visible over the course of the film
Usually tardy and unpredictable, Monroe was letter-perfect while filming long, mentally demanding scenes but had trouble remembering three words in shorter scenes. Of course, this fits the profile of a woman battling Bipolar Disorder while struggling with a high-risk pregnancy throughout the production. Chemically, hormonally, and emotionally, Monroe must have been completely unregulated, but in 1958, she was perceived as neurotic, unprofessional, and temperamental.
Sugar: “That’ll put hair on your chest.” Jerry: “No fair guessing.”
Monroe and Lemmon completed the hilarious upper berth bed scene on the Pullman train on the first take. Having learned to pace himself with his co-star, Lemmon was prepared to shoot the entire day. At 9:05 in the morning, the day’s work was done. However, the previous day, Monroe required 37 takes for her two lines.
Monroe was determined to combat Wilder’s interpretation of Sugar Kane as a “Betty Boop” cartoon. If she were reduced to playing a dumb blonde role, there would be none of Wilder’s broad gags. Instead, she would create the portrayal of a three-dimensional character with a heart and soul; a textured performance that would provide the glue to make this farce a cohesive film. Her legendary flubbing and freezing were part of Monroe’s exhaustive process until Wilder conceded. By the 20th take, Monroe’s interpretation looked good to the frustrated director.
Lemmon seemed to empathize most with Monroe’s inner torment while honoring her ability to create a characterization separate from the turmoil the actress was experiencing in her personal and professional life. “I saw she was suffering,” he said. “Suffering and still producing that magic on film. It was a courageous performance, really courageous. Most actors only occasionally use all their talent, but Marilyn was using hers constantly, giving everything she had till it hurt, struggling to be better. I was really fascinated to watch her work. She had a certain intelligence in and about her work, and she was smart enough to use herself to make Sugar come alive.”
Paul Frees stepped in to dub a higher voice for Curtis as “Josephine”
Tony Curtis also experienced considerable difficulty in his performance, but his challenges remained secret. Curtis could not reach a high registered voice as Josephine. Paul Frees, known as the “Man of a Thousand Voices,” dubbed all of Curtis’ feminine lines as Josephine, most of his performance.
Filming on location at the historic Hotel Del Coronado threatened to replace Monroe as the source of delays and disruption during the production of a scene with lengthy dialogue between Sugar and Joe posing as Junior. Every ten minutes, a jet from nearby Naval Air Station North Island flew over the beach. “I thought it would take about four days to shoot that scene,” Wilder said. “I tried to film between take-offs, but then on the second take everything was there; every sentence of two pages. Not one letter, not one comma was left out. We were finished in less than twenty minutes.”
“[Monroe] has become a better
actress, even a deeper actress, since Strasberg,” Wilder said .“But I still
believe she was developing herself naturally and would have become greater as
she matured, even without him….Before, she was like a tightrope walker who
doesn’t know there’s a big pit down there she could fall into. Now she knows
about the pit and she’s more careful on the tightrope. She’s more
self-conscious. The greatest thing about Monroe is not her chest, it is her
ear. She is a master of delivery. She can read comedy better than anyone else
in the world.”
Take forty-seven: “Where’s that bourbon?”
Stories about the film’s production rose to a mythic level and have become folklore in Hollywood history and apocrypha in the Monroe legend. One anecdote surrounds the scene in which a jilted Sugar enters Daphne and Geraldine’s hotel room and searches the dresser drawers for the liquor she had sworn off in happier times. “Where’s the bourbon?” is her famous line. Its delivery, depending upon the source, took Monroe anywhere from 30, 47, 59 or even 83 takes. Wilder pasted the line in each of the dresser drawers to compensate for Monroe memory and concentration deficits.
The scene was filmed with Monroe’s
back to the camera, enabling her to easily dub the line in postproduction.
Wilder’s demand for repeated takes suggests an overt power struggle between
director and star. Allegedly, Monroe staged the repeated takes to control the
interpretation of her character and to defy Wilder’s direction.
Monroe was admitted to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital for “nervous exhaustion” before Wilder and Diamond had written the film’s ending. In the final scene, Wilder’s camera focuses on a close-up of Lemmon and Brown in the front seat of the motorboat. Monroe and Curtis are not visible behind them, although they were shown kissing in the boat’s rear seat in the previous sequence. This lack of continuity is due to Monroe’s absence during the filming of Lemmon and Brown’s exchange. Monroe was later rushed to Polyclinic Hospital where she lost the baby. Wilder acknowledged Monroe as a trouper: “She insisted on going on until we were ready to finish.” The actress saved the film at the expense of her losing her baby; but her anguish was inconsolable.
In her last interview for LIFE,
Monroe expressed lingering hurt over Curtis’s insult. “You’ve read there was
some actor that once said about me that kissing me was like kissing Hitler?” Monroe
asked with a sad laugh. “If I have to do intimate love scenes with somebody who
really has these kinds of feelings toward me, then my fantasy can come into
play. In other words, out with him, in with my fantasy. He was never there.”
Joe: “I think you’re on the right track.” Sugar: “I must be. Your glasses are beginning to steam up.”
Perhaps critic Roger Ebert said it best when commenting about Curtis’s remark: “When you watch that scene, all you can think is that Hitler must have been a terrific kisser.”
Billy Wilder and Monroe
“Never a week passes when I don’t wish she was still around,” Wilder said after Monroe’s death. “Because that whole category of films is lost. Her kind of genius is a lost art.” The celebrated director’s definitive analysis of Monroe is a loving tribute: “She was an absolute genius as a comic actress, with an extraordinary sense for comic dialogue. It was a God-given gift. Believe me, in the last fifteen years there were ten projects that came to me, and I’d start working on them and I’d think, ‘It’s not going to work, it needs Marilyn Monroe.’ Nobody else is in that orbit; everyone else is earthbound by comparison.”
The critics unanimously praised Monroe’s performance. “To get down to cases, Marilyn does herself proud,” announced the New York Post, “giving a performance of such intrinsic quality that you begin to believe she’s only being herself and it is herself who fits into that distant period and this picture so well.”
LIFE’s April 20, 1959 cover: “A comic Marilyn sets movie aglow.”
“As the band’s somewhat simple singer-ukulele player, Miss Monroe, contributes more assets than the obvious ones to this mad-cap romp,” opined the New York Times. “As a pushover for gin and the tonic effect of saxophone players, she sings a couple of whispery old numbers…and also proves to be the epitome of a dumb blonde and a talented comedienne.” Persnickety critic Bosley Crowther referred to Monroe as “superb.”
On the arm of husband, playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe attends the film’s premiere at the newly remodeled Lowe’s Capitol Theatre, March 1959.
Some Like It Hot grossed $20 million upon the initial release and came in third behind Auntie Mame and The Shaggy Dog as biggest films of 1959 — a time when the average admission cost fifty-one cents. In 2014, the average admission price was $8.35; in today’s prices, the film grossed over $327 million.
The moment of reveal: when Sugar discovers Josephine & Junior are Joe.
“Monroe steals [the film],” wrote contemporary film critic Roger Ebert, “as she walked away with every movie she was in. It is an act of will to watch anyone else.”
Monroe is awarded the Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, March 1960
Some Like It Hot garnered six nominations by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the categories of Best Director (Billy Wilder), Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), Best Adapted Screenplay (Wilder & I.A.L. Diamond), Best Black & White Cinematography (Charles Lang, Jr.), Best Black & White Art Direction/Set Decoration (Ted Haworth), and Best Black & White Costume Design (Orry-Kelly). It would win only one for its costumes. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association honored the film with three Golden Globe Awards in all the categories in which it was nominated: Best Comedy Film, Best Actor (Lemmon), & Best Actress (Monroe).
Marilyn: Behind the Icon As Producer and Star, Monroe Dazzles in The Prince and the Showgirl
Sir Laurence Olivier and Monroe
Director Joshua Logan considered the collaboration of Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier “the best combination since black & white.” After renegotiating her contract with 20th Century Fox, Monroe hoped to gain legitimacy as a serious artist by producing her independent film, an adaptation of Terrance Rattigan’s The Sleeping Prince, and playing opposite a distinguished British thespian. In turn, she offered Olivier an opportunity to rejuvenate his dimming career with her youth, vibrancy, and commercial appeal. Olivier accepted the proposition on the condition that he co-produce and direct the film.
Although the production was
fraught with turbulence, this preposterous pairing was an artistic success. Monroe
received both the Italian David Di Donatello Prize and the French Crystal Star
Award for Best Foreign Actress for her performance as Elsie Marina. “When you
look at the film,” observed Arthur Miller’s sister, Joan Copeland, “it is
apparent who won the battle, & it wasn’t Olivier.”
Distributed by Warner Brothers and re-titled, The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), the film sounded like a third-rate Edwardian musical, but the film’s trailer called it a “spicy adventure” with Monroe “in her happiest role.” The film’s premiere at Radio City Music Hall (a charity event hosted by Marilyn Monroe Productions to benefit The Milk Fund for Babies) featured two rows of Honor Guards dressed in period British uniforms flanking both sides of the red carpet.
As her first completely
independent production, Monroe portrays the sweet and diplomatic showgirl — an
innate sage — who reconciles members of a royal family and prevents a world
war. Monroe herself was amused by the casting of Olivier as the pompous,
arrogant Balkan Regent of Carpathia whose cold heart the showgirl thaws. With
serious ambition, Monroe — aided by photographer and business partner Milton
Greene — took Rattigan’s three-act drawing-room comedy out of the drawing room
but essentially kept the plot intact.
The story takes place in London in 1911, where American actress Elsie Marina is performing. The play’s cast is introduced to the Regent of Carpathia. When the strap of her dress snaps as she curtsies upon their meeting, Elsie makes an impression on the Regent and soon receives a formal invitation to a reception at the Carpathian embassy. Upon arrival, she realizes it is a private affair and suspects the Regent is trying to seduce her. She outlines the steps the Regent will use in his seduction attempt to Mr. Northbrook (Richard Wattis), the British liaison coordinating the affair.
Monroe and Richard Wattis
As Northbrook chases Elsie down
the stairs and tries to convince her to stay, she indicates that she has fought
her way out of many tête-à-têtes and is familiar with the moves of seduction.
“‘It-will-be-more-fun-serving-ourselves-don’t-you-think?’” she recites,
predicting the words of the Regent. “And then after supper,
‘Miss-Marina-you-must-be-very-tired-why-don’t-you-put-your-feet-up-on-this-nice-sofa?’”
Elsie is offended when she
discovers she has been invited for a tryst. She tries to flee, informing
Northbrook, “There’s a word for what you are, and it’s not Deputy Head of the
Far Eastern Department!”
Before Elsie exits, the Regent
arrives and convinces her to stay. The stiff and irritable sovereign alternates
between delight and consternation with his beautiful guest who rebuffs his
sexual advances and displays no tolerance for the vodka he serves.
Driven by her open emotions and
American ideals, Elsie challenges his beliefs about love and politics. With his plan for a sex-filled
evening cast aside, the Regent becomes exasperated by Elsie’s confrontation of
his repressive politics and difficulties with intimacy.
Monroe shines in a charming
scene during which Elsie serves herself from the buffet while the prince takes
an urgent telephone call, a masterpiece of improvisation. Bored with the
evening, she begins talking to herself and drinking champagne, slowly becoming
intoxicated. Monroe was required to eat caviar and chicken salad in the
multiple takes, so Olivier suggested she mime eating. Monroe insisted on the
reality of consuming the food but requested apple juice as a substitute for
champagne. Elaine Schreyeck, responsible for script continuity, assisted Monroe
in directing the scene while Olivier acted in the background. Once again,
Monroe stole the scene from Olivier.
When Elsie overhears the Regent criticizing American democracy, she toasts, “To President Taft!”
Jeremy Spenser and Monroe
When the Regent attempts to take Elsie into his arms with a corny line, she bursts into laughter and pushes him across the room. “That’s just terrible!” she cries. “Don’t pull the ‘Grand Duke’ with me.” His attempts to send her home are delayed by King Nicolas, the Regent’s teen son (Jeremy Spenser) with reformist principals, and the Queen dowager (Sybil Thorndike), the hard-of-hearing mother of the Regent’s deceased wife.
Monroe and Sybil Thorndike
Both are entirely enchanted
with Elsie’s warm and child-like charm. The dowager speaks French to Elsie who
fakes understanding and inadvertently leads the elderly lady into believing
Elsie is the friend of the great actress Sarah Bernhardt.
The next morning, Elsie greets
the Duke with a declaration of having fallen madly in love with him. “You do
need more love in your life, so now you’ve got it,” she says adoringly. Elsie
accepts the dowager’s invitation to accompany the royal family to the
coronation of King George V and later accepts the young king’s invitation to
the coronation ball. Gradually softened by Elsie’s blunt honesty and democratic
values, the Duke falls in love with her.
Originally from Milwaukee,
Elsie is fluent in German and overhears the young King’s plans to overthrow his
father’s government. This grants her the inadvertent role of preventing a World
War, reconciling a royal family, and softening of the Duke’s hardened heart.
Elements of the plot paralleled Monroe’s relationship with her audience. The
public, like the Regent, initially saw her as merely a sex symbol; and Monroe,
like Elsie, is humanized when she reveals intelligence and soulfulness beneath an attractive surface.
Elsie scripts the young king’s manifesto.
At the coronation ball. Elsie and Nicolas sit on the grand staircase where they are composing a manifesto to present to his father. The Duke invites Elsie to dance, and as they waltz, she negotiates reconciliation by relaying Nicholas’ conditions, including a general election. When the Duke balks, Elsie promotes the advantages of a democracy.
Of the two songs Richard Addinsell composed for Monroe to sing, only “I Found a Dream” survived to the final cut.
Elsie presents Nicholas’ manifesto to the Duke. It proclaims support of his father contingent upon several conditions. While the Duke considers a response, Elsie turns the tables and trumps him with a beautifully staged seduction scene; employing the same manipulation he used the previous evening. She pours him vodka and asks if he would be more comfortable reclined on the sofa. Elsie has also arranged for the valet to be accompanied by an orchestra of servants playing romantic music out in the hall.
Alone with Elsie, the Duke
arrives at a solution to the conflict with his son. He will release the jailed
dissenter, gain public favor, and win the general election. Serving as a
diplomat, Elsie successfully averted war.
The Duke outlines his plan to abdicate
his throne to Nicholas in eighteen months, and Elsie replies that her contract
with the theatrical troupe will also end in eighteen months. Alas, only the
ending of their respective responsibilities will allow them to finally be
together. In a sad realization, Elsie reckons, “So there we are.” The Duke
alludes to the potential for unexpected events to keep them apart.
“This is goodbye,” the Duke sadly
concludes. “Au revoir,” Elsie whispers, tears filling her eyes. As the Duke
presents Elsie with the parting gift, she bites on the medal with her teeth to
distinguish it from the others presented to her by his family. The Dowager bids
a final farewell to Elsie, giving her a medallion, an autographed photograph,
and a suggestion of “an occasional change of dress.”
Elsie and the Duke exchange a
final farewell from a distance. Forlorn, she leans against the doorframe and
watches the royal family’s departure. She collects her parting gifts and takes
a final look at the embassy, her mind filled with memories of the past two
days. With a borrowed raincoat over her gown, Elsie retreats through the long
reception hall and exits the front doors. Jack Cardiff’s camera focuses on the
rear of her body walking away; however, unlike in Niagara, the camera’s
focus in not on sexualizing the character, but instead on her sadness.
Monroe’s
co-stars were primarily classically trained actors of the British stage with
scant motion picture experience. With twenty-six films behind her, Marilyn
found herself the most polished film veteran among her troupe. Dame Sybil
Thorndike (1886-1976) portrayed the sagacious, near-deaf Queen Dowager.
At Pinewood Studios, the
greatest combination since black & white was embroiled in a bitter battle
between classical and Method acting — the established school versus the new
school, the pre-war acting generation versus the post-war generation. Olivier believed
in a technical approach: delivering a line and executing a movement. As a
devout Method actress, Monroe explored her own sense-memories to discover her
character’s motivation and flesh out character development. She searched for
realism in her performance while Olivier was trained in memorizing lines
verbatim. Monroe questioned Olivier’s resistance to allowing her to develop the
character with her own nuances and mannerisms instead of re-creating the
performance his wife, Vivien Leigh, had interpreted in the stage version.
The dowager to Elsie: “When one is young one should wear mascara; & when one is old, one must wear much, much more!”
During a televised interview for the BBC, the commentator asked Dame Sybil if Monroe was difficult. “No, not at all,” she vehemently protested. “She’s a dear, and she’s a most charming person. She’s got a wonderful instinct. She is married to the camera. I never found any difficulties with her.” During an early screening, Dame Sybil turned to Olivier and said, “Larry, you did well in that scene but with Marilyn up there, nobody will be watching you. Her manner and timing are just too delicious. We need her desperately. She’s really the only one of us who knows how to act in front of a camera.”
The Prince and the Showgirl was
completed in less time than scheduled, came in under budget, and required only two
days of reshoots, Oliver and Monroe reshot only two scenes in two days with no
need for multiple takes. Olivier struggled to infuse wit and sparkle into the
scene of their meeting and eventually conceded that Monroe’s Method inspiration
of thinking of Coca Cola and Frank Sinatra to motivate her acting was the best
approach. “God! Needless to say, it worked,” Olivier wrote. “Enough to make a
man cut his throat, enough for this man, anyway.”
Monroe preferred the film’s first
edited edition and voiced serious concerns about the final version. In memos, she
objected to the slow pacing of the first third of the film and believed the comedic
scenes had been “flattened out” by a substitution of “inferior” takes with
“flatter performances lacking the energy and brightness that you saw in New
York.” Monroe also took exception with the editing: “Jump cutting kills the
points, as in the fainting scene.” She added, “The story gets lost in the
coronation scene” and that “American audiences are not as moved by stained
glass windows as the British are, and we threaten them with boredom.” Warner
Brothers Studios stood firm with no major editing changes.
None of the on-set tension
between the co-stars transcended to film. The Prince & the Showgirl ranked
tenth in the year’s top moneymakers and garnered many awards in Europe and
Great Britain. Monroe was nominated for Best Foreign Actress by the British Academy
Awards, and the film received nominations for the British Academy Award in the
categories of Best British Actor, Best British Film, Best British screenplay, and
Best Film from any source.
Monroe’s character fumbles with correct titles in addressing the Regent: “Your Grand Ducal Highness…your Serene Highness…” At one point, she says, “Oh, the hell with it!”
“Marilyn Monroe…has never seemed more in command of herself as a person and comedienne,” lauded the New York Post. “She manages to make her laughs without sacrificing the real Marilyn to play-acting. This, of course, is something one can expect from great, talented and practiced performers.”
“Marilyn Monroe’s acting
promise soars to a triumphant peak in The Prince and the Showgirl…”
announced the New York World Telegram and Sun. “The movie is also a
comic delight, matching the surprise bestowed upon us by Marilyn. She is
captivatingly kittenish in her infectious mirth. Her love scenes are played as
a girlish game. She romps through slapstick and turns solemn moments into part
of her fun.” Critics finally saw beyond her body and celebrated the skills she
had mastered at the Actor’s Studio.
“I just don’t think I tried
terribly hard to get on with [Marilyn],” Olivier explained with honesty near
the end of his life. “Her personality was strong on the screen. She gave a star
performance. Maybe I was tetchy with Marilyn and with myself because I felt my
career was in a rut.” In the end, Olivier concisely and accurately assessed
their performances: “I was good as could be; and Marilyn! Marilyn was quite
wonderful, the best of all. So. What do you know?”
Accompanied by husband Arthur Miller, Monroe receives Italy’s David DiDonatello Award in 1958 for her performance and graciously speaks in Italian with assitance from Anna Magnani.
Monroe receives the France’s Crystal Star Award as Best Foreign Actress in 1958
“It’s making money, but that’s the crazy thing,” Monroe told photographer George Barris about the film a few weeks before her death. “I’ve been asked to sell it to TV, but I’ve refused. I feel it’s one of my financial assets and I want to hold onto it…it did very well in Europe; I got the French and Italian awards.”
The President of Marilyn Monroe Productions, Inc., with her cast and crew at Pinewood Studios, 1956.
Silents are Golden: Beyond “The Big Three”: Some Silent Comedy Suggestions
If you’re a fan of silent comedy, I’m willing to bet you fell for it one of three ways: by watching Buster Keaton’s films, by watching Charlie Chaplin’s films, or by watching the films of Harold Lloyd. And honestly, you can’t go wrong with any of the lauded “Big Three” – they’re legends for a reason, and each of their filmographies can be happily explored for a lifetime. Heck, Charlie alone was in dozens of films, equalling hours of silent comedy enjoyment.
While these three geniuses were certainly some of the most influential artists of their generation, they were surrounded by a vast world of talented men and women (and even animals). Exploring that zany, creative genre is endlessly rewarding, so if you’re interested, here are eight suggestions to add to your film-watching lists! (And believe me, this list could’ve had at least 75 entries!)
8. The Waiter’s Ball (1916)
The Waiter’s Ball (1916)
This was one of Roscoe Arbuckle’s last Keystones before leaving to helm his own series (which would involve a certain young vaudevillian named Buster Keaton). The action revolves around an ineptly-run restaurant where Roscoe is the cook and the gangly Al St. John (his real-life nephew, by the way) plays a waiter. Both plan on attending a “waiters’ ball,” but Al doesn’t have a tuxedo–and Roscoe does. Schemes ensue! Roscoe was at the height of his popularity here, and he pulls out many signature gags such as pancake-flipping and running around in drag. It’s a silly, breezy delight, and keep an eye out for those touches of magical realism.
7. The Policemen’s Little Run (1907)
The Policemen’s Little Run (1907)
You’ve all heard of the Keystone Kops, but ever wonder what inspired Mack Sennett to create them? Why charming little comedies like this one from the early days of cinema. Made in France, it revolves around a dog that steals a leg of lamb from a butcher shop–sacre bleu!–and an entire police force that ends up pursuing him through the streets of Paris. It’s simple but irresistible if you ask me, and I dare you not to smile during the scenes of the dog and officers “climbing” a trompe-l’œil building.
6. The Picture Idol (1912)
The Picture Idol (1912)
If you fancy comedy a little more on the genteel side than the slapstick, look no further than the Vitagraph studio’s appealing work. Famous for stars like tubby John Bunny and rail-thin Flora Finch, they did a wide variety of light comedy that still packs plenty of charm. A favorite of mine is this one-reeler starring Clara Kimball Young. A girl who has a huge crush on a “film idol” gets to meet him when her father invites him over for dinner–in those more informal days of early cinema. (Wide-eyed Clara reminds me of a Pixar character–just a bit!)
This comedy feature stars the always-lovable Mabel Normand in the familiar story of “small-town girl goes to Hollywood to become a star”–made way back in 1923! It’s always nice to spend time with Mabel, and I also love all the period touches such as the furnishings in the old-fashioned family home and the shots of early Hollywood. And there’s a surprisingly intense comedy sequence involving a lion. Yes, a lion.
4. Saturday Afternoon (1925)
Saturday Afternoon (1925)
You can’t say you’ve explored silent comedy without getting to know Harry Langdon, the baby-faced comedian who was eternally slow on the uptake. Some folks say his style of humor can be hard to get into at first, but I say that if you have a keen sense of humor you should have no problem at all. A huge influence on other comedians at the time (Stan Laurel likely wouldn’t have been the same without him), Langdon first made his mark in shorts and Saturday Afternoon–about two friends’ bumbling attempts to score a double date–is one of his best.
3. Egged On (1926)
Egged On (1926)
This is one of my favorite shorts that no one’s ever heard of, starring a comedian who was only recently saved from being completely forgotten. The former head of the animation studio that made Mutt and Jeff cartoons, Charley Bowers was an eccentric dreamer who appeared in a series called “Whirlwind Comedies.” These whimsical shorts featured surreal stop motion animation which he dubbed his “Bowers Process.” In Egged On Charley is an inventor who creates a machine that can make eggs unbreakable, with unexpected results. You probably never dreamed you’d see Model Ts hatch from eggs, but thanks to the wonders of the Bowers Process, now you can!
You likely know and love Laurel and Hardy, but how often do you watch silent Laurel and Hardy? The boys made a number of silent shorts before Unaccustomed As We Are(1929) came along, and many are every bit as funny as their talkies. Liberty is regarded as a classic, involving a run from the law, a trousers mix up, and a shriek-worthy sequence in the high girders of a construction site. It’s simply one of the funniest films the two ever made.
Silent comedy fans often argue which comedian should be on the Mount Rushmore of silent comedy alongside Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd. Many argue Langdon, a few (such as myself) push for Arbuckle, but others think multi-talented actor/director Charley Chase fits the bill. His delightfully well-crafted Mighty Like a Moose tells the story of an unattractive couple who both decide to secretly get cosmetic surgery. Post-surgery, they meet by chance but don’t recognize each other–and embark on an affair. A wonderful screwball comedy years before the genre became official.
Many of these films are readily available on YouTube or Archive.org, and others can be sought out on DVD. Seek them out if you can, enjoy, and consider them just a few jumping-off points for even more explorations into the rich era of silent comedy. There’s truly something for everyone!
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterlyand has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
Silver Screen Standards: Mary Poppins (1964), Prop Culture and You
This spring, the streaming service Disney+ launched a new series called Prop Culture, in which host Dan Lanigan brings together props and people from some of Disney’s most memorable live-action pictures. The oldest movie featured on the first season of the show is Mary Poppins (1964), a truly iconic achievement for Disney that has become a beloved classic for generations of viewers.
Prop Culture is a fun series for film fans who enjoy behind-the-scenes stories about movies; it revisits not only physical props but the people who worked on both sides of the camera to get the pictures made, and the Mary Poppins episode is particularly delightful for its inclusion of actress Karen Dotrice, who played Jane Banks, and composer Richard Sherman, who is shown playing the piano in Walt Disney’s office while talking about making the movie. There’s never a bad time to watch Mary Poppins, but the new Disney series makes this a great opportunity to learn a little more about it and perhaps introduce younger fans to the fascinating idea that movies are so much more than just the finished product we see on a screen.
The mix of animation and live-action gives Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke some very amusing costars, including a group of eager penguin waiters.
Julie Andrews is undoubtedly the star of the show with her Oscar-winning performance as the practically-perfect nanny who upends the lives of the Banks family, but there’s also a lot to be said for the treasure trove of supporting actors who populate the film with quirky characters. The Prop Culture episode devotes a lot of attention to the snow globe of St. Paul’s Cathedral that is featured in both the original movie and the 2018 sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, but it doesn’t mention Jane Darwell, an Oscar-winning actress whose appearance as the Bird Woman seen in the globe would be her final role (she died three years later at the age of 87). Darwell is just one of the familiar faces classic movie fans can find in Mary Poppins; Elsa Lanchester, Arthur Treacher, Reginald Owen, Hermione Baddeley, and Ed Wynn all contribute to the picture’s charm, although Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson enjoy the largest supporting roles as the Banks parents.
Jane Darwell’s final screen appearance as the Bird Woman gives the “Feed the Birds” number an extra measure of nostalgic sweetness for classic movie fans.
The character actors make Mary Poppins a great starting point for introducing kids to other, perhaps less familiar classics: track down the 1948 mermaid fantasy, Miranda, for a very different look at Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson! Arthur Treacher also appears in several Shirley Temple movies, including The Little Princess (1939), and you might well give some youngster a shock with the news that Katie Nanna is the same actress who plays the title character inBride of Frankenstein (1935), although perhaps Lassie Come Home (1943) is a better introduction to Elsa Lanchester in a more recognizable form. Reginald Owen, who plays the aptly named Admiral Boom, can also be found in The Canterville Ghost (1944), and you’ll find both Lanchester and Owen in the 1948 adaptation of The Secret Garden. Disney had a habit of using the same character actors in multiple movies, so you can also have fun comparing Ed Wynn’s role as Uncle Albert with his portrayal of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and then have a look at the vocal tribute to Wynn created by Alan Tudyck for the King Candy character in Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
Bert and Mary enjoy a sooty adventure on the London rooftops with the Banks children during the chimney sweepers dance sequence.
The visual effects in Mary Poppins bring magic into even the most ordinary activities, from unpacking a bag and tidying up to inspecting the chalk art on a London sidewalk, with the mix of live-action and animation creating some of the most memorable moments of the picture. The Prop Culture episode revisits this element of the movie through the history of the carousel horses ridden by Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke. These delightful sequences earned the movie its Oscar for Best Visual Effects and inspired later productions like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), but Disney had been experimenting with the technique since the first Alice comedy, Alice’s Wonderland, in 1923, and a number of other classic movies also use it to varying degrees. If your family loves the animated scenes in Mary Poppins, introduce them to Anchors Aweigh (1945), Dangerous When Wet (1953), Invitation to the Dance (1956), or, my personal favorite, The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Today, actors in many movies perform with CGI or motion-capture costars, but there’s a particular charm in sequences with traditional 2D animated characters and live-action, and budding special effects experts can benefit from a look at the “old school” efforts like Mary Poppins and its contemporaries.
David Tomlinson and Glynis Johns invest Mr. and Mrs. Banks with quirky traits but also make them likable enough that we want them to be happy, which they are by the kite flying scene at the movie’s end.
Mary Poppins brought Walt Disney a whole new level of success with its five Oscar wins, thirteen nominations, and massive box office returns that helped fund a certain real estate project in central Florida. It’s hard to imagine anyone reading this column not being familiar with its plot, its stars, and its songs, not to mention its contentious backstory in the conflict between Disney and the original books’ author, P.L. Travers. Disney has even provided some of that context itself in the 2013 movie, Saving Mr. Banks, albeit with its own perspective on events. You don’t need me to tell you that Mary Poppins is a classic or that Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke are great fun to watch in it. Instead, I want to suggest that Mary Poppins is worth revisiting with people in your life who aren’t necessarily steeped in classic Hollywood lore because it offers such a fabulous starting point for discussions of performers, careers, legacies, and intertextuality. If you’re cooped up with the family this summer due to the pandemic, there are lots of film festival programs you can create using Mary Poppins as a starting point. Let it be the spoonful of cinematic sugar that starts a discussion about adaptation and authorship, for example, or an exploration of later, similar fantasies like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) and Nanny McPhee (2005). Use the Prop Culture series as a companion to introduce kids (and even other adults) to the rich mix of people, techniques, and props that makes movie magic happen. Mary Poppins has a lot to offer on many different fronts, which is one of the reasons it has endured and is still so beloved today. Whatever your approach to Mary Poppins, be sure to check out the Prop Culture series, which is really a lovely treat for film geeks and also includes episodes devoted to The Muppet Movie (1979) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).
“Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise,” announced crusty New York Times critic Bosely Crowther, “Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress in Bus Stop. She and the picture are swell! She gives a performance in this picture that marks her as a genuine acting star.”
Monroe’s performance in Bus
Stop was a triumph, but during the production, the actress risked it all.
As the first film coproduced by her new corporation, Marilyn Monroe
Productions, everything was at stake: her business investment, her credibility
as a serious actress, her career, and her future. There were many in Hollywood
who expected—and even wanted—her to fail. However, Monroe’s pivotal performance
that made even the toughest critics acknowledge her as a gifted actress.
Released in the summer of 1956, Bus Stop was the first film starring Monroe
distributed in over a year and her first opportunity to implement her
controversial Method Acting training at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in New
York.
The plot opens with Beauregard
“Bo” Decker, a twenty-one-year-old orphaned cowboy rancher traveling from
Montana to Phoenix to compete in a rodeo. His fatherly guardian, Virgil,
accompanies him. Bo wants to find an “angel” in the big city but has no
experience with women, and Virgil worries about his sheltered innocence. At the
Blue Dragon Café in Phoenix, Bo meets an untalented showgirl, Cherie, a
hillbilly from the Ozarks who dreams of becoming a movie star. Cherie makes up
for her lack of talent with tremendous ambition. On a crumpled roadmap, she
tracks her career trajectory from her birthplace in Arkansas to Hollywood. Over
the course of the story, Cherie tames Bo’s wild nature and transforms him into
a sensitive, gentleman, and Bo validates her worth by loving her
unconditionally. Having transformed individually and together, the couple leave
for Bo’s ranch in Montana.
Early in the film, Cherie shows
Vera a roadmap on which she has circled her starting point in River Gulch and
has drawn a line that she calls her “direction.” Pointing to her destination,
Cherie exclaims, “Look where I’m goin’…Hollywood and Vine!” Her face lights up
with hope. Vera asks what will happen at the intersection of those streets.
“Honey, you get discovered,” Cherie explains. “You yet tested, with options,
and everything. And you get treated with a little respect, too!” The character
and scene are somewhat autobiographical to Monroe and her own dream of stardom,
although she was born in Hollywood.
As an unaccredited co-producer,
Monroe had approval of the story line, cinematographer, and director for the
first time in her career. Maurice “Buddy” Adler, Fox’s new production chief. Having
successfully altered The Seven Year Itch for Monroe, George Axelrod
adapted William Inge’s stage play for the screen and fleshed out the role of
Cherie specifically for her, creating the most fully realized of her roles to
date. Monroe also selected cinematographer Milton Krasner, who had filmed her
beautifully in All About Eve and The Seven Year Itch.
Joshua Logan appeared on her
short list of acceptable directors in her newly renegotiated contract with Fox.
“I nearly missed one of the high spots of my directing life because I had
fallen for the popular Hollywood prejudice about Marilyn Monroe,” Logan wrote
in his autobiography, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me. “I could gargle
with salt and vinegar even now as I say that,” the director later wrote,
“because I found Marilyn to be one of the great talents of all time.”
Logan’s credentials as Method
acting alumnus, successful stage and screen director, and patient temperament
made him a perfect fit for Monroe. Moreover, he was willing to collaborate with
his stars and give them a measure of creative input. Much in the way today’s
stars are afforded power, even when they are not co-producing, Monroe had some
creative control over ways to stage scenes and position the cameras.
Logan described her as “the
most talented motion picture actress of her day—warm, witty, extremely bright
and totally involved in her work.” In Bus Stop, Monroe experienced a
director who, for the first time in her career, truly recognized her artistry
and was open to collaboration. “I’d say she was the greatest artist I ever
worked with in my entire career,” Logan said. “Hollywood shamelessly wasted
her, hasn’t given the girl a chance.”
Rock Hudson was the first
choice for Beauregard “Bo” Decker. With his dashing good looks, virile
masculinity, and undeniable charm, Hudson was arguably the male equivalent of
Marilyn Monroe. Hudson was manufactured to be Hollywood’s ultimate ladies’ man,
much in the same way Marilyn was manufactured to be the ultimate every man’s
ideal, the only difference was that Marilyn was straight and Rock Hudson was
gay. Monroe could live openly as heterosexual, but Hudson had to live a lie in
1950s America.
Hudson chose to pass on the
logically good fit of Bo in Bus Stop and instead, accepted George
Stevens’ 1956 epic, Giant, alongside James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor,
for which he would receive an Academy Award nomination. Allegedly, Hudson had
made a sexual advance toward Monroe’s business partner, Milton Greene; Greene casually
dismissed the incident, but Hudson apparently remained embarrassed.
Finally, Fox cast newcomer Don
Murray. During the early years of Monroe’s fame, he served as a social worker
for orphans and war casualties in refugee camps in Europe, seeing her films
dubbed in Italian. “From my pay of thirty dollars a month, I saved up fifteen
cents a week to see a movie in the poorest neighborhood,” Murray recalled in
2012. “One movie I had to save up three weeks for was Gentlemen Prefer
Blondes.” When Fox executives thought Murray was too loud and too
boisterous, Logan fired back, “I want Attila the Hun and that’s who we have.”
Logan also influenced Fox’s
pick of Eileen Heckart as Vera. She received rave reviews on Broadway in The
Bad Seed as Hortense Daigle and stole two scenes as the intoxicated
bereaved mother of a young boy killed by an eight-year-old psychopathic serial
killer with blonde braided pigtails. Heckart recreated the character in the
1956 film adaptation and earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination.
Hope Lange made her screen
debut as Elma in Bus Stop and married co-star Don Murray during a pause
in the production.
Monroe and Logan met with designer
William Travilla to review his design sketches for Cherie’s costumes. Having
dressed the glamorous pre-Method Monroe, his watercolor renderings depicted
elegant outfits befitting an MGM Technicolor musical but completely devoid of
realism. With feigned enthusiasm, Monroe approved the designs. After Travilla
left the room, she turned to Logan. “You and I are gonna shred it up,” Monroe announced.
“Pull out part of the fringe, poke holes in the fishnet stockings, then have
‘em darned with big, sprawling darns. Oh, it’s gonna be so sorry and pitiful
it’ll make you cry.” As a Method actress, she searched the studio’s wardrobe
department for pieces that authentically reflected Cherie’s meager salary as a
saloon singer and snatched a gaudy gold blouse with black-lace overlay originally
been worn by Susan Hayward in With a Song in My Heart (1952). She also
selected a tattered gold lamé coat and asked the wardrobe department to add a
border of moth-eaten rabbit fur. When Travilla’s green and gold showgirl
costume was completed, Monroe distressed it with a pair of scissors and ripped
the fish net stockings with her hands. At her request, wardrobe seamstresses
darned the holes for increased realism.
Monroe also conferred with
Allan Snyder about makeup suggestions. Since Cherie slept during the day and
performed at the Blue Dragon all night, her skin was rarely exposed to sunlight
and appeared white. Snyder used a mixture of clown white in the foundation and
urged Monroe to allow him to darken the shade to make her look more attractive,
but she insisted on realism over vanity. When Buddy Alder viewed the costume
and makeup tests, he balked at the pallor of Monroe’s skin, but she convinced
him of its appropriateness for the character.
For added realism in the saloon
scene where Bo watches Cherie perform “That Old Black Magic,” Logan dispensed
with the typical practice of the performer pre-recording the song and
lip-synching to a playback during filming. Instead, Monroe sang live with an
orchestra while two cameras filmed from different distances. Monroe interpreted
Cherie as singing off pitch and using trite theatrical gestures. The character
creates her own lighting effects during her act by kicking floor switches with
her gold high-heeled pump to turn off the nightclub’s lights and to turn on
colored spotlights. “She did it with almost instinctive comic genius,” Logan
recalled. Monroe waved a silk scarf in an old vaudeville move taught to her by
a makeup lady and used corny hand-gestures to act out some of the lyrics,
including. At one point, Cherie even flinched when she hit a note far off-key.
“We had a memorable musical sequence, primarily because we gave a great artist,
a superb comedienne, the freedom to perform the way she felt,” Logan said.
In a mock-up of a bus against a
rear projection screen, Monroe sat beside Hope Lange for her longest speech in
the film. As Bo sleeps in the rear of the bus, Cherie explains her abduction to
Elma and shares her life story, hopes, and dreams. It is the caliber of
soliloquy that begets an Oscar nomination. Fox’s executives edited a portion of
the soliloquy because it slowed the film’s pace, but Marilyn felt betrayed by
Logan and held him responsible for failing to fight for the integrity of her
performance.
At the climax of the film, when
Bo professes his love and Cherie realizes she has fallen in love with him,
Logan envisioned extreme close-ups of the principal actors’ faces from forehead
to chin to highlight the intensity of the emotions. The widescreen process did
not easily accommodate extreme close-ups due to a distortion in the edges of
the frame, but Logan wanted to experiment with the CinemaScope lens to capture
Monroe’s beautiful face. He believed hers was one of the great faces of all
time, and he wanted the world to really see it. Excited, Monroe danced around
the set like a child in anticipation of a big close-up like Garbo’s in the
traditional square lens format of the 1930s and ’40s. Logan started with
Murray. Following Logan’s direction to bring the camera close, cinematographer
Milton Krasner announced that the top of Murray’s head was not visible in the
lens—the camera was too close. “Everybody knows he has one,” Monroe said
logically. “It’s already been established.”
In a tight shot of Cherie and
Bo together, Monroe rests her head on the bar counter, and Murray rests his
head beside hers. Both of their faces are visible in the elongated frame. “I
like ya the way ya are, so what do I care how ya got that way?” Murray says to
her. Monroe nervously brings her hand to her mouth, bursts into tears, and
replies, “That’s the sweetest most tender-est thing anybody has ever said to
me.” As she pulls her hand away from her mouth, another string of saliva spills
to the counter. “She was very real,” Don Murray said. “She tore your heart out.
It’s one of the best performances in the history of talking films.”
Logan completed the final,
touching scene of Cherie and Bo boarding the bus to Montana. Cherie clutches
the box containing her wedding ring as she shivers in the cold. Bo notices her
discomfort in a tattered coat and offers her his heavy, fleece-lined coat. She
looks surprised as he stands behind her and opens the coat. Slowly, Cherie
slides each arm into the sleeves, and Bo lovingly wraps the coat around her.
Logan directed her to imagine slipping into a warm bubble bath. Monroe relishes
the moment as if it were an embrace. She leans back against Murray, closes her
eyes, and tilts her head back. She turns her head to the side and opens her
mouth—her eyes remain closed. Bo pulls her closer to him. She draws his hand
around her.
In London filming The Prince
and the Showgirl with Sir Laurence Olivier, Monroe missed the premiere.
Critics unanimously agreed the performance was a triumph. Playing off
advertising for Anna Christie (1930), “Garbo Speaks,” Louella Parsons’
headline in the Los Angeles Examiner announced, “Marilyn Acts.”
“Monroe had finally succeeded
in delicately balancing being wildly funny, and in the next minute, tender and
fragile,” began
the Hollywood Reporter. “There has been a good deal of comment and some
knowing laughter about Miss Monroe’s attempts to broaden her native talents by
working at her acting,” “It should be some satisfaction to the lady that she
now has the last and very triumphant laugh.”
Monroe lived up to Lee Strasberg’s
endorsement of her being on par with Marlon Brando. She moved audiences. Without
doubt, Monroe drew from her identification with Cherie. Like Norma Jeane (the
young girl who changed her name to Marilyn Monroe), the character dreamed of
escaping her mundane existence by becoming a Hollywood star and living happily
ever after. Cherie doesn’t make it to Hollywood but finds contentment with a
man who loves her, and Monroe achieved stardom but never found eternal love.
“Fox’s promotion of Deborah Kerr
in The King and I had been a deliberate snub to the year’s most
conspicuous non-nominee, Marilyn Monroe, whose tragicomic performance in Bus
Stop had widely been deemed worthy of Oscar consideration,” wrote Anthony
Holden in Behind the Oscar: The Secret History of the Academy Awards.
In his film debut, Don Murray
received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. “I was astonished,” he admitted
on the fiftieth anniversary of Monroe’s death. “But still more astonishing,
Marilyn’s superb performance was overlooked.”
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association honored Monroe and Bus Stop with nominations for Golden Globe Awards. Unfortunately, Monroe lost to Deborah Kerr, whose singing was dubbed by Marnie Nixon, in The King and I. The Directors Guild of America nominated Joshua Logan for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. “Marilyn is as near a genius as any actress I ever knew,” he wrote. “She is an artist beyond artistry… She is the most completely realized and authentic film actress since Garbo. Monroe is pure cinema.”
I’ve never heard a sweeter question than that one recently asked by my 11-year-old niece, Grace.
As classic movie
fans, we all hope to inspire younger generations to discover classic films,
just as family members did for us when we were kids.
Still, I should have remembered when Grace told me “old movies” could catch on fire. I was so excited I started to explain nitrate film to her only to learn she was referencing an episode of The Simpsons. But, she asked me about The Bloband I couldn’t help but answer in the way any B-movie fan would: “Yes! What do you want to know?”
As it turned out, this wasn’t about what I could tell her, but what she was going to tell me.
She sat down, looked at me with big blue eyes and a mischievous grin and said very quietly (clearly for effect): “It’s based on a true story.” Then she held up a phone, added the dreaded words “A YouTuber said …” and hit play.
Jessii Vee’s video about Jell-O gets into the story behind The Blob at about the 5:13 mark.
Boom. Just like
that, The Blob was spoiled by a YouTuber named Jessii Vee who told her
nearly 2 million subscribers and my young niece (not a subscriber) the “true”
origin of The Blob.
This 1958 B-movie horror film was already great without an origin story. In fact, it was nearly perfect in its simplicity. A mysterious object falls from the sky, cracks open to show an innocent blob of jello that soon reveals its terrible truth when it encounters human flesh.
Steve (Steven McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut) have to cut their date short to prove to the adults that something dangerous in is their small town.
Thankfully for the small Pennsylvania town where it landed, teens Steve (then billed as Steven McQueen) and Jane (Aneta Corsaut) find its first victim and refuse to give up when their warnings go unheeded. Was it alien, animal or vegetable? We didn’t know and it didn’t matter. It was equally scary and fun watching it roll around, growing as it consumed whatever was in its path.
But Jessii Vee says there’s a true story to go with The Blob that we need to hear, so I listened and did some digging. Here’s what I found.
* * *
It was 1950 and two
Philadelphia police officers, John Collins and Joseph Keenan, saw something
fall from the sky at about treetop level. They thought it looked like a
parachute, but in the tradition of all movies with something falling from the
sky, it wasn’t as it appeared.
In an open field, the patrolmen found a large mass about 6 feet in diameter. Two other officers they called saw it as well.
A story in The
Philadelphia Inquirer quoted the officers as saying that when they turned their
flashlights on the thing “it gave off a purplish glow, almost a mist, that
looked as though it contained crystals.”
The 1950 article from the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Officer Collins, who obviously had never seen a horror film, decided it would be smart to put his hand in the mass. He tried to pick it up, but lucky for him it didn’t crawl up his arm and devour him. Instead, it dissolved and left “a slight, odorless, sticky residue.” It took only 25 minutes for the entire blob to evaporate, not even leaving a mark on the grass where it landed. (That is creepy.)
Without evidence, there was nothing to show the FBI, the Air Force or any other authority. So the story was all but forgotten for a few years until producer Jack H. Harris asked a friend, Irvine H. Millgate, for ideas about a unique creature, something that hadn’t been seen in a movie. Millgate recalled the Philadelphia Inquirer story, came up with a story idea and called Harris in the middle of the night. Harris shared the conversation in his autobiography Father of the Blob: The Making Of A Monster Smash & Other Hollywood Tales.
“We have a monster never done before. It’s a mineral form of life from another world. It defies gravity by climbing trees and has the ability to zap prey. It can fall from any height on to the ground and reform itself at the bottom,” Millgate told him.
Just like Irvine H. Millgate envisioned in his original idea for The Blob, the creature “consumes flesh on contact.” This is how small the blob was when it slithered up a stick and over the hand of its first victim.
The creature, Millgate added, “consumes flesh on contact” and was indestructible. That’s as far as he got. Together, Harris and Millgate came up with more details and a horror star was born. (Screenwriter Theodore Simonson wrote the screenplay, filling it out to include the teens and their big role; Kay Linaker was given co-screenwriter credit although Harris wrote she only worked on the script for a few days.)
* * *
Made for $110,000, The Blob was a surprise hit grossing $4 million. It remains a film we watch and discuss more than 60 years after its release. It even spawned its own annual festival in 2001, Blobfest.
That’s a nice legacy for all involved especially Millgate, who, despite creating one of the greatest creatures in film, made just this one movie. The film also is credited with putting McQueen on track to stardom (this was his first starring role). And it was the first film produced by Harris, a vaudeville star who spent a lifetime in the film industry doing everything from being a theater usher and projectionist to acting and working in distribution.
The growing giant glob has eaten its way out of the theater in search of new victimsb.
So back to learning that the idea for The Blob was based on a true incident.
I know that makes it exciting for many people. But others enjoy creature features and horror movies best when they’re like a big old-fashioned fun house – scary while we’re in it, funny once we leave. So if there’s even a kernel of truth behind a horror film, that’s too much for “some” of us (OK, me) to handle.
Knowing this “truth,” I see The Blob in a different way – especially that giant question mark following the film’s final chilling words.
Steve: “It’s not dead, is it?”
Officer Dave: “No, it’s not – it’s just frozen. I don’t think it can be killed, but at least we’ve got it stopped.”
Steve: “Yeah, as long as the Arctic stays cold, huh?”
Steve and Officer Dave, let me introduce you to global warming. I have some YouTube videos I can show you.
The Blob Trivia
The blob was created out of silicone and red dye.
It spawned two other films: a 1972 sequel directed by Larry Hagman called Beware! The Blob and a 1988 remake. There has been talk of another remake for the past few years.
The movie’s peppy theme song was written by a then-unknown songwriter named Burt Bacharach with Mack David (Hal’s brother).
If you think Aneta Corsaut looks familiar in The Blob, you probably know her from The Andy Griffith Show.
Aneta Corsaut, who made her film debut in The Blob, is best known as Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show.
The annual Blobfest has taken place since 2001 in Phoenixville, Pa., a small town about 30 miles from Philadelphia. Scenes filmed there include the diner, high school, mechanic’s garage and the big one in the movie theater. The fest includes the reenactment of moviegoers running out of the actual movie theater used in the film, The Colonel. This year’s Blobfest will be a virtual event.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Noir Nook: Noir Vets on Mystery Science Theater 3000
I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to get into cinematic obsessions. One week, I won’t want to watch anything but William Holden movies, another week, nothing but westerns. You get the idea. Well, I’m currently in the midst of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) obsession – for those of you who don’t know, it’s a cult classic TV series that aired during the 1990s, first on Comedy Central and then on the Sci-Fi channel, the original premise of which involves two mad scientists who launch a hapless janitor into outer space, force him to watch bad ‘B’ movies, and monitor his thought processes as part of their plot for world domination. While watching these lousy films, the janitor – and a pair of robots he constructs for company – rake the movies over the coals, hilariously “riffing” and making fun of the plots, the acting, the writing, and whatever else they come across. Ever seen it? I’ve always been a huge fan – a proud MSTie, if you will – and I recently discovered that the streaming service Pluto has a channel that airs MST3K 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So I’m in heaven. It provides the perfect backdrop while working from home!
Anyway – what does this have to do with film noir, you might ask? Well, during my daily back-to-back (to back) viewings of the show, I occasionally run across a familiar face starring in one of these “cheesy” movies – I’ve seen such notables as Martin Balsam, Ann-Margret, Beau Bridges, Peter Lawford, Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, and Jack Palance. It’s always a little startling, at first, to see these stars in these, shall we say, less than stellar vehicles. But then I settle back and enjoy the show – somehow, the skewering that these movies receive only serves to make me appreciate the performers all the more.
In addition to the aforementioned celebs, some of my
favorite MST3K episodes feature movies starring some well-known film noir
veterans. This month’s Noir Nook takes a look at two of these noir stars, some
of their best noir offerings, and, of course, their best-loved (by me) Mystery
Science Theater 3000 movie!
Marie Windsor
I love Marie Windsor. I love her impressive, commanding physique. I love her ultra-sassy line delivery like she’s spitting out something that doesn’t agree with her palate. I love that, while a student at Brigham Young University, she won the beauty contest titles of “Miss Covered Wagon Days” and “Miss D. & R.G. Railroad.”
Marie Windsor and Jil Jarmyn in Swamp Diamonds (1956)
Born Emily Marie Bertelsen in Marysvale, Utah, Windsor was drawn to acting from an early age: “At the age of eight, after going to a movie with my grandmother, I wanted to be another Clara Bow,” she said in a 1984 interview with Drama-Logue magazine. During a career that spanned five decades, Windsor starred in two of my all-time favorite noirs – The Narrow Margin (1952), where she played a brassy gangster’s widow being shuttled by train from coast to coast to testify against her dead husband’s cronies, and The Killing (1956), Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant time-bending feature about an intricately planned heist, in which Windsor was a standout as a duplicitous housewife. Her other noirs were Force of Evil (1948), with John Garfield; The Sniper (1952), helmed by Edward Dmytryk; and City That Never Sleeps (1953), which depicts a single night of drama and crime in the city of Chicago.
On Mystery Science Theater 3000, Windsor stars in Swamp Diamonds (released as Swamp Women in 1956, the same year as The Killing). In it, she is one of a trio of feisty felons (and one undercover cop) who breaks out of prison and head for the swamps of Louisiana to unearth a stash of diamonds they buried there before being sent to the pokey. Along the way, they take a young couple hostage – the male half of which is played by Mike Connors (billed back then as Touch Conners), best known as the titular star of TV’s Mannix. Windsor is top-billed as Josie Nardo, the level-headed leader of the group, who seems to spend half the movie breaking up battles between her comrades, but still finds time to deliver lines like: “Sit down – it’s just an alligator.“
The film – directed by Roger Corman, who is famous for his low-budget exploitation pictures – runs a concise 67 minutes and is fairly overflowing with catfights, ridiculously short shorts, alligator battles, double-crosses, and rivalry over the one man in the group. It’s an experience all on its own, but given the MST3K treatment, it’s a positive scream.
Coleen Gray
I interviewed Coleen Gray by phone for my first book, and had the honor of meeting her in person at a Turner Classic Movies film festival several years ago; needless to say, she has a very special place in my heart. But even before my personal encounter with her, I was a big fan. On-screen, she could be a sweet as peach pie and innocent as a baby, or a pleasant and charming murderess, with equal skill.
Coleen Gray and Dolores Faith in The Phantom Planet (1961)
Gray was born Doris Bernice Jensen in Staplehurst, Nebraska, and moved with her family at an early age to Hutchinson, Minnesota, where she attended grade school and high school. Like Windsor, she had dreams of becoming an actress from an early age. “In seventh or eighth grade, our English teacher had each person voice their ambition in life, and most of the girls wanted to be a teacher or a nurse or a housewife,” Gray once recalled. “I said I wanted to be a movie star and they laughed at me – boy, did they laugh – so I never said it again, ever. But it was in my consciousness.” She appeared in a total of five noirs during her career, including Kiss of Death (1947), where she was the young wife of ex-convict Victor Mature, The Killing (1956), where she was seen in a small part as the devoted girlfriend of Sterling Hayden. Her best noir performances came in Nightmare Alley(1947), The Sleeping City (1950), and Kansas City Confidential (1952) – in each of these wildly divergent roles, her talent and versatility was on full display.
Gray in The Leech Woman (1960)
On Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gray was in two separate episodes; in The Phantom Planet(1961), she played a supporting part as the devious daughter of a planetoid ruler, but in The Leech Woman (1960), she was the star. In the title role of this film, Gray portrayed Jane Talbot, an unhappily married alcoholic whose scientist husband wants to use her as a human guinea pig in his quest to find an anti-aging formula. As it happens, a necessary ingredient of the formula is the secretions from the male pineal gland – and extracting the secretions necessitates a fatal procedure. As you can imagine, this minor detail doesn’t stop Jane from killing (and killing again) in her never-ending quest for youth and beauty. Co-starring Phillip Terry, Grant Williams, Gloria Talbott, and Kim Hamilton, The Leech Woman is actually quite watchable – but it’s also perfect fodder for the treatment on MST3K.
You can find Swamp
Diamonds, The Leech Woman, and The Phantom Planet on YouTube – if you
want to see a couple of film noir vets like you’re never seen them before, tune
in and check ‘em out!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Marilyn: Behind the Icon — Monroe Catapults to Global Fame in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondessignified an ideal pairing of star & role, catapulting Marilyn Monroe into global superstardom, endearing her to the public, and cementing her comedic & musical talents. According to Sarah Churchwell, the breakout role of Lorelei Lee remains Marilyn’s iconic role “because she so closely approximates the cultural fictions about Marilyn herself.”
Monroe’s interpretation of the
role of Lorelei—with affected speech, exaggerated lip and eye movements, and
deadpan delivery—provided fodder for impersonators for generations to come. The
role was a perfect embodiment of the Marilyn Monroe persona and became the
screen image that the public and critics would equate with the actress for the
remainder of her career. Yet, what Monroe made look so natural and effortless
on screen was a well-crafted performance.
The plot of 20th
Century-Fox’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes involves gold-digging,
diamond-obsessed showgirl Lorelei Lee and her loyal sidekick Dorothy Shaw.
Lorelei is described as a girl “who can stand on stage with a spotlight in her
eye and still see a diamond inside a man’s pocket.” She is focused solely on
marrying for money. Lorelei’s fiancé, Gus Esmond, sends her to Paris with
Dorothy to test her fidelity. Esmond’s father employs a private detective to
spy on the women and report back any suspicious behavior.
Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe
During the transatlantic cruise,
Dorothy and the private detective fall in love while Lorelei befriends a
married diamond merchant, Sir Beekman, and convinces him to give her his wife’s
diamond tiara. Beekman covers his tracks by feigning theft of the tiara and
retreats to Africa. When Esmond learns of Lorelei’s escapades, he cuts off her
line of credit. She is eventually charged with grand larceny. Dorothy poses as
her friend in a court hearing and straightens out the mess. Spoiler alert: The
film ends with a double wedding.
Tommy Noonan, Monroe and Taylor Holmes
Monroe engenders the audience’s
sympathy by effectively projecting a perfect balance of kindheartedness and
materialism. She also mastered the art of gaining laughs by pretending to be
ignorant while endearing herself to the audience. Neither is an easy feat for
any actress. In one of her final scenes, Monroe skillfully delivered a
thoughtful speech to the father of her fiancé:
“Don’t you know that a man
being rich is like a girl being pretty? You might not marry a girl just because
she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help? And if you had a daughter,
wouldn’t you want her to have the most wonderful things in the world? Then why
is it wrong for me to want those things?”
“Hey, they told me you were
stupid,” the fiancé’s father exclaims. “You don’t sound stupid to me.
“I can be smart when it’s
important,” Lorelei responses in a line Monroe herself seized the power to
amend. “But most men don’t like it.”
Director Howard Hawks with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe
Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck tapped Howard Hawks as director. Having directed Monroe in Monkey Business (1952), Hawks was known for a wide range of films including dramas, Scarface (1932) and The Big Sleep (1942), as well as screwball comedies such as Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940). “We purposely made the picture as loud and bright as we could,” Hawks said about Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “and completely vulgar in costumes and everything.”
Zanuck needed “loud and bright”
name recognition for box office draw and passed on Carol Channing who portrayed
Lorelei Lee on stage. He envisioned Betty Grable as the blonde & Monroe in
a brunette wig as Dorothy. After hearing a recording of Monroe singing “Do It
Again” for the Marines at Camp Pendleton, he decided she would remain blonde as
the perfect Lorelei Lee. Zanuck was also getting a bargain. The second year of
Monroe’s contract stipulated her salary of $750 per week, compared to Grable’s
$150,000 per film.
In an early script conference, Zanuck realized the necessity of the audience’s belief that Dorothy felt genuine affection for Lorelei. This bond motivates Dorothy to defend her friend in the courtroom scene near the end of the film. Ultimately, Fox appropriately cast Jane Russell to deliver Dorothy’s acerbic wisecracks. Russell was five years older than Monroe and assumed the role of her big sister during the production. Russell had graduated from Van Nuys High School, and Monroe’s first husband James Dougherty was Russell’s classmate. Russell had also met Monroe when she was still Norma Jeane at a dance in the early 1940s.
Tommy Noonan, Charles Coburn and Monroe
As Lorelei’s fiancé, Gus Esmond, Fox considered David Wayne before deciding upon the often-bespectacled Tommy Noonan. Monroe was again joined by swag-bellied Charles Coburn, her costar in Monkey Business, as Sir Francis Beekman.
Norma Varden and Monroe
British-born Norma Varden was cast as Lady Beekman. In a delightful scene, Lady Beekman offers Lorelei to wear her diamond tiara. When Lorelei tries to display it around her neck, Lady Beekman explains that it designed to wear on the head. Lorelei squeals, “Oh, I just adore finding new places to wear diamonds!”
Monroe and George Winslow
George “Foghorn” Winslow (1946-2015),
a six-year-old with a stentorian voice and deadpan delivery, portrayed Henry
Spoffard III. A child with the voice of a man, Winslow contrasted with Monroe,
a woman with the voice of a child.
John Weidemann, a stunningly
handsome and well-built 1950s physique model, was heavily featured in close-ups
with Jane Russell in “Bye Bye Baby” and “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?”
The production, beginning in
November 1952 and ending in February 1953, recycled ocean liner sets used for Titanic
(1953) and required weeks of grueling pre-production rehearsal and sound
recording. Monroe
was the first to arrive on the set each morning and worked on the dance routines
for an hour or two after Russell went home in exhaustion. She begged for extra
coaching to allay her insecurity, but her dancing needed no improvement.
Was Monroe difficult on the set? According to musical director Lionel Newman, Monroe was always punctual for rehearsals and courteous and friendly to the men in the orchestra. Monroe made a special point to personally thank everyone who worked with her. Although she had a definite idea of what she wished to accomplish vocally, Newman saw no signs of a temperamental diva. Monroe received Newman’s blessing upon her first take recording “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” a particularly challenging playback because of its length. Monroe asked to record eleven takes. In the end, she led Newman to the podium where she apologized to him and the orchestra. Monroe announced that he was correct and requested to use the first take.
Marni Nixon
Did Monroe sing in the soundtrack? Although Monroe’s voice is clearly on the soundtrack, she was challenged to hit some high notes only in “Diamonds” and required minor assistance. Enter Marni Nixon, a soprano who ghosted for Deborah Kerr & Natalie Wood. Nixon provided vocals for only Monroe’s highest notes in the final lyrics “Are a girl’s best…best friend” and sang the song’s operatic prelude of repetitive “No-no-no!” “I don’t even know why they wanted to re-dub [portions of] her voice,” Nixon said, confident of Monroe’s rendition. “Thank goodness they let her sing in her own way. That breathless, sexy sound suited her screen persona perfectly, even if she did need a little help on the high notes.”
Monroe rehearses on set with choreographer Jack Cole & Gwen Verdon
Working with legendary choreographer Jack Cole, Monroe felt a sense of confidence that few of her directors inspired. “There was no sexual tension,” wrote William J. Mann, referencing Cole’s sexual orientation as gay, “and besides, Cole had no loyalty to the studios in the way her directors might: he loathed them and all they stood for, and so could afford to be fully present and attentive to Monroe’s insecurities.” The Cole-Monroe partnership created magic, and Monroe would collaborate with him on five additional films. Gwen Verdon also assisted with choreography. ““My mom liked both Marilyn and Jane,” said Verdon’s son, James Heneghan. “Marilyn especially displayed a tough work ethic that was a big deal with my mother.”
Future Oscar-winner George Chakiris at far right in Marilyn’s chorus
For Monroe’s big production
number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Fox spared no expense to showcase
her talents for what would become the single most identifiable film sequence of
her career. Shot in long takes requiring few edits, the number’s perfect blend
of dramatic art design and superb choreography is forever enshrined as an
iconic film scene and aided by Monroe’s incomparable execution.
Joseph C. Wright’s original art
direction called for Monroe in black against a black background, an Empire bed with
pink sheets emblazoned with black satin Napoleonic emblems. William Travilla’s original
costume for the number was excessively revealing, comprised of a pair of black
fishnet hose attached to a leotard that came up to a bodice of nude fabric. In
the wake of the discovery of Monroe nude calendar pose from 1949, Zanuck called
Travilla and ordered him to “Cover her up.”
What about Jane Russell’s solo? The
premise for Russell’s solo number “Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love?” is her
seeking the attention of the Olympian gymnasts while they exercise, none
breaking concentration to notice her. The humor exists in the subtext. Many of
the male dancers were gay, and in real life on the set, were disinterested in
her. The number is hugely homoerotic. The men wear flesh toned short swimming
trunks, simulating a nude appearance if not for the black band on the leg
openings. Jack Cole coordinated the body-builders’ exercise routines to music.
“The resulting images could have come straight out of the then-popular gay magazine
Physique Pictorial.
What happened to Monroe’s gold
lame gown? In her deleted number “Down Boy,” Monroe performed in the gold
tissue lamé halter gown with plunging neckline forever linked to her image
through publicity photographs. An audio recording of “Down Boy” surfaced in
2006, but film footage remains lost. The only glimpse of Monroe wearing the
gown onscreen is a brief longshot of Lorelei dancing with Lord Beekman, seen
from the perspective of Dorothy watching through a window.
Isn’t there another number in
the trailer cut from the film? “Four French Dances,” a
quartet of orchestral arrangements, was another musical number edited just
before the film’s release. Wearing yellow-trimmed bustiers and Napoleon-style
hats, Monroe & Russell perform the act while suspended on a quarter-moon
and climbing down an ornate ladder onto a set with the Eiffel Tower. The number
also included a French language version of “Two Little Girls from Little Rock.” Although the sequence appeared in
promotional trailers released while Blondes was still in production, the
film’s final version includes only a brief scene that followed.
Did Monroe & Russell get along with each other? At the end of her life, Monroe still appreciated Russell’s kindness in her last interview: “She was quite wonderful to me.” Russell coached Monroe, dating Joe DiMaggio at the time, explained how couples could be happy together without surrendering identities. She also coached Monroe on managing a household & balance the roles of wife & mother while maintaining a career. “We got along great together,” Russell said, “[She] was very shy and very sweet and far more intelligent than people gave her credit.”
Didn’t ‘I Love Lucy’ re-create
Monroe’s porthole scene? Lucille Ball copied the porthole scene in
1954 episode of I Love Lucy on television when her character, Lucy
Ricardo, crosses the Atlantic on an ocean liner. In Blondes, Monroe gets indelicately
stuck in a too-small porthole. Little Henry Spoffard III agrees to help her get
unstuck for two reasons: “The first is, I’m too young to be sent to jail. The
second is, you’ve got a lot of animal magnetism.”
Was Monroe denied a dressing
room during production? Monroe had warranted only a cubicle in the
studio’s changing room. Fox. “I couldn’t even get a dressing room,” Monroe
later told Life magazine. “Finally, I said, ‘Look, after all, I am the
blonde and it is Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Because still they always
kept saying, ‘Remember, you are not a star.’ I said, ‘Well, whatever I am, I am
the blonde!’” offered her Betty Grable’s plush dressing room, but the gesture was
intended more to dethrone Fox’s former blonde champion than to coronate its
current one. “They tried to take me into her dressing room as if I were taking
over,” Monroe said. “I couldn’t do that.” Instead, Fox gave Monroe a large
dressing room next to Russell’s.
On June 26, 1953, Grauman’s
Chinese Theatre invited Monroe & Russell to make impressions of their
signatures, hands, and high heeled shoes in the theater’s famed cement
forecourt. As they simultaneously made imprints of their hands, Monroe turned
to Russell & asked excitedly, “This is for all time, isn’t it?” Then they
shook hands.
As the women held hands and
stepped into the wet cement, the newsreel cameras recorded the event and
described them as “friendly as sorority sisters.” Monroe cement was tinted
yellow, and the “i” in Marilyn was dotted with a rhinestone that would be
repeatedly pried out by fans and replaced.
The little girl who once fit
her hands and feet in the prints of her film idols had now achieved success and
joined their ranks. When Monroe reminisced about visiting the Chinese Theatre
as a child, she acknowledged inspiring the next generation: “It’s funny to
think that my footprints are there now, and that other little girls are trying
to do the same thing I did.”
The Chinese Theatre’s immortalization
of Monroe was symbolic. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes cemented Marilyn
Monroe’s legacy as a superstar. The performance elevated her beyond the
restraints of her pin-up persona and showed her as a full-fledged and
multifaceted actress. The four minutes of Monroe’s flawless breakout solo
number established her as an actress with no formal training who could sing and
dance superbly in a musical comedy. Zanuck now had a formula for his star.
“In her own class is Marilyn
Monroe,” announced Motion Picture Herald. “Golden, slick, melting,
aggressive, kittenish, dumb, shrewd, mercenary, charming, exciting sex
implicit…Miss Monroe is going to become part of the American fable, the dizzy
blonde, the simple, mercenary nitwit, with charm to excuse it all.”
Other reviews were equally positive. “There is the amazing, wonderful vitality and down-to-earth Jane Russell…AND—there is Marilyn Monroe!” lauded the LA Examiner. “Zounds, boys, what a personality this one is! Send up a happy flare. At last, she is beautifully gowned, beautifully coiffed, and a wonderful crazy humor flashes from those sleepy eyes of her…Her natural attributes are so great, it’s like a triple scoop of ice cream on a hot August day, to realize she is also an actress— but, by golly, and Howard Hawks, she is…She’ll do more for 20th Century-Fox than their discovery of oil on the front lot.”
