J. Taraborrelli: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

A lab chimp accidentally dumps a youth elixir into the drinking water, creating a fountain of youth. After ingesting some of it, research professor Grant and wife Rogers revert to their teenage selves with predictable results—screwball or slapstick—though the fun can only go so far before it gets tedious. Marilyn is on hand as Charles Coburn’s secretary and holds her own quite well as she fends off his clumsily romantic advances. 97 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Sol C. Siegel

DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks

WRITERS: Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer, I. A. L. Diamond

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Milton Krasner

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)

Charles Laughton, David Wayne, Marilyn Monroe (as a streetwalker), Farley Granger, Jeanne Crain, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark

Five classic short stories created by the master of the genre, all with an ironic resolution in their denouement, which O. Henry perfected and which became his signature. Each short film is self-contained with its own writer, director, and cast, and each is introduced by future Nobel winner John Steinbeck. First, in “The Cop and the Anthem,” Soapy is an urban hobo (Laughton) who in warm weather sleeps in the park. However, with winter coming, he opts for a nice warm jail cell. But he first must get arrested. A series of petty crimes go for naught: theft of an umbrella, stiffing a restaurant for a meal, vandalizing a window. He tries to offend a lady of the evening (Monroe), to no avail. Finally, he enters a church, has an epiphany, repents, and decides to find a job and go “straight.” Alas, his plan is thwarted when a cop arrests him for vagrancy; he is tried and sent to jail for the next ninety days. 19 minutes for segment; 119 minutes for film.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Andrew Hakim

DIRECTOR: Henry Koster

WRITER: Lamar Trotti

CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Lloyd Ahern, Lucien Ballard, Milton R. Krasner, Joseph MacDonald

Niagara (1953)

Joseph Cotten, Marilyn Monroe (Rose Loomis)

A cuckolded, lovesick husband, suffering from Korean War shell shock, and his gorgeous, adulterous wife are at Niagara Falls—for very different reasons: He wants to repair his beyond-repair marriage; she is meeting with her lover to plot her husband’s murder. One can almost feel the presence of Alfred Hitchcock as adultery and murder are played out against the power and grandeur of the unrelenting noise and beauty of Niagara. All does not end well, as Loomis (Cotten) discovers the plot against him and turns the tables on Rose (Monroe) and her lover, dispatching him into the crashing waters. He then goes after Rose, stalking her insistently, finding her in the resort’s belltower, and strangling the life out of her. Production values are very high with the breathtaking location filming, lush, saturated Technicolor, and ear-pounding stereo sound. Monroe’s first big-budget picture, an assignment she handles to a tee. A big hit with the public. First of three important films for Marilyn released in 1953. 89 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Charles Brackett

DIRECTOR: Henry Hathaway

WRITERS: Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch, Richard Breen

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joseph MacDonald

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe (Lorelei Lee)

Lavishly produced, big-budget film of the hit Broadway musical that starred Carol Channing. In the movie, Jane Russell is first-billed and was paid $400,000 to Marilyn’s costar billing and $11,250. Upon being told by someone that Jane and not Marilyn was the star of the film, Monroe responded with perfect logic, “Maybe not, but I’m the blonde.” The familiar story: After a few harrowing experiences, including a brush with the gendarmes, a couple of naughty-but-nice, gold-digging chorus girls—“We’re Just Two Little Girls from Little Rock”—find notoriety and, eventually, love in the City of Lights. The studio pulled out all the stops in this big-musical treatment—a time-tested Broadway hit, musical score by Jule Styne and Leo Robins, gowns by Travilla, musical numbers staged by Jack Cole with an army of talented singers and dancers, color by Technicolor. Studio boss Darryl Zanuck ordered the big production number at the end of the film, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” to be refilmed in CinemaScope and stereophonic sound, the result of which was then used by Fox to demonstrate the studio-perfected process. Other studios were impressed and began to use the widescreen technology as well. 91 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Sol C. Siegel

DIRECTOR: Howard Hawks

WRITERS: Charles Lederer, Joseph Fields (based on Anita Loos’s play)

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Harry J. Wild

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe (Pola), Lauren Bacall

The studio, since its beginning, has recycled the story of penniless young beauties leaving home to go to the big city in search of bright lights and rich men. These husband hunters acquired the name “gold diggers,” and Warner Bros. made a series of very successful musicals in the early thirties using the name and theme. But it was 20th Century-Fox that manipulated and honed the by now familiar story into box-office gold with this movie. It was the first film shot entirely in CinemaScope, but another Fox film, the prestigious religious epic The Robe , also filmed in CinemaScope, was released to theaters first, claiming bragging rights as the first film in the new process. To make it clear to audiences that the film was an “event,” Alfred Newman, the studio’s musical director for twenty years by this time, and the studio’s symphony orchestra were arrayed on a soundstage set up to replicate an amphitheater and performed Newman’s own composition, “Street Scene.” It lasted eight minutes, and after the final note, Newman turned to face the camera and executed a deep bow, which signaled the beginning of the credits as the film’s musical score came up on the soundtrack. The three-pronged story line provided each of the stars with an equivalent amount of screen time, all with quite satisfactory conclusions. 96 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER/WRITER: Nunnally Johnson

DIRECTOR: Jean Negulesco

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joe MacDonald

River of No Return (1954)

Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe (Kay)

Ordained by happenstance or destiny, a beautiful woman, an innocent man newly released from prison, and his son are thrown together in a rough-and-tumble western adventure, photographed in CinemaScope on location in the Canadian Rockies and set in the era of the California gold rush. Monroe called this beautiful, immensely watchable film her worst film: “Grade Z cowboy stuff.” It is very likely that her negative assessment had more to do with shooting the film and problems with the director than what ended up on the screen. Despite the rigors of the location shoot and the requirements of the script, including a swamping of the raft in the river rapids, Marilyn, wringing wet, out of sorts and out of breath, is still a vision. 91 minutes.

20th Century-Fox

PRODUCER: Stanley Rubin

DIRECTOR: Otto Preminger

WRITER: Frank Fenton

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joseph LaShelle

There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954)

Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Marilyn Monroe (Victoria Hoffman/ Vicky Parker)

All the stops are pulled out in this big, brassy, over-the-top musical, with the studio creating a role in it especially for Marilyn as insurance against a fizzle at the box office. (She agreed to make the film only if the studio would purchase the film rights to The Seven Year Itch for her.) The Irving Berlin songbook is used to tell the story of the Donahue family of vaudevillians, covering the period between the two world wars. The CinemaScope camera captures all seventeen of the dazzling production numbers, including the title song and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” with Marilyn also scoring well in her solo production number, “Heat Wave.” Oscar nominations went to Lamar Trotti (original story), Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman (scoring of a musical), and to Charles LeMaire and Travilla for their costumes in a color film. 117 minutes.