50th Anniversary: Marilyn's Death

50 years ago today Marilyn Monroe left us. You've undoubtedly noticed that her lovely ghost is more active than ever, always haunting popular culture. In the past ten months alone, we've been inundated with Marilyn resurrections and references: My Week With Marilyn, Smash, that Dior commercial with Charlize Theron, James Franco and Channing Tatum in Marilyn drag at the Oscars and in Magic Mike respectively. You could call that a symptom of this major anniversary or the current Mad Men inspired 60s fanaticism were it not for the fact that Hollywood is always attempting Marilyn resurrections in one form or another.

Marilyn on the beach in 1962 shortly before her death 50 years ago. She was 36 years old.

Strange then that the actress who is most comparable to her these days in terms of über charisma, sex appeal and body type, the great Christina Hendricks, can't manage to excite Hollywood enough for them to give her showcase movie roles.  She's a hell of an actress and the only thing she hasn't yet shown us that's Marilyn-related is superb comic timing.

Marilyn Monroe is like Hollywood's Jesus. If they actually came back to us the people who blab on and on about them the most (Hollywood and Christians respectively) would be the first to reject their reality. Hollywood doesn't really want actresses to be as powerfully voluptuous as that!

Marilyn is now only a fantasy, and paradoxically perhaps that makes her closer to the "Marilyn" that Norma Jean intended all along given that she was (to some extent) fictional to the woman playing her. People have always preferred the fantasy to the reality with Marilyn and now moreso than ever I think. But she seems so real from ubiquity that her spirit verges on the corporeal. [Actresses, Memories and Fashion after the jump]

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Best Shot: "How to Marry a Millionaire"

Hit Me With Your Best Shot, our series in which all participating movielovers argue for what is a particular movie's best shot, just keeps on surprising me. I've learned so much about the movies by doing it: what I personally respond to, how often a single image is dependent on the editing around it or the scenes preceding it for its punch, and that the most brilliant images tend to either define an entire movie OR illuminate a very particular piece of its identity. Best of all, I've learned things I couldn't have learned without an extra set of eyeballs... yours. Last week, for example, I came to appreciate The Royal Tenenbaums, in whole new ways via the posts on other blogs. Which is why I'm super anxious to read this week's entries. Because this week's movie, the romantic comedy How To Marry a Millionaire (1953) which was a favorite of mine as a teenager, left me very uninspired. I hadn't remembered how unambitious the visuals were, lazily trusting that Cinemascope would provide us with terrific images.

Which is, come to think of it, what many filmmakers did in the early days of Cinemascope. I've joked before that rectangles > squares but shapes are neutral. It's up to the filmmaker to know what to use a movie's shape for, be that square or rectangular or circle (should the movies ever get round)

So my choice for best shot makes good use of the Cinemascope. The Cinemascope allows this image above to be expansive while the blocking reveals a tight trap. The moment  comes early in the movie when the three golddiggers (Marilyn Monroe as "Pola", Betty Grable as "Loco", and Lauren Bacall as "Shatze"-- delicious character names!) think they've snared their first 'bear', a millionaire by the name of J.D. (William Powell, extremely well cast). The girls aren't greedy *cough* and have already agreed that even just one millionaire will do.

You only need one!

For a brief flash with all their backs are turned to the camera, it's easy to imagine a much creepier movie wherein the ladies pounce in for the kill. They're essentially predators, after all, sexy spiders slinking around their phony web (Manhattan condo with terrace) for billionaire flies.

While How to Marry is good popcorn fun, especially for Monroe's adorkable blind as a bat insecurities and Bacall's elegant snobbery as she looks down her nose at everyone and everything (including herself!), it's not much more than that. It feels padded even at only an hour and a half (is it the weirdly sleepy editing?) and the visuals are the least interesting thing about it. This is the only film we've covered where I had absolutely zero indecision about which shot to use. I'm a sucker for a continuous shot and if How to Marry's collection of them didn't feel so much like a filmed stage play (I actually wanted more cutting; that's so weird for me) they'd be a lot more exciting. But this one is a keeper. The middle 'backs to the camera' bit when the ladies pander to and coo at the squirming millionaire is perfect. The cherry on top is that the shot (and scene) ends with a delicious triple diva walk to the camera, all three stars really giving it to the camera... in character no less!

I think this is it kids, a great big room filled with nothing but rich millionaires. And us."

How To Discover Great Blogs (2012)
[Hint: click on them] 
Against the Hype Monroe, Gable and Bacall existing in the same universe?
Amiresque gets dreamy with Betty Grable 
Antagony & Ecstacy a passing of the sex goddess torch
Armchair Audience Bacall sure can move across a screen. But does she choose the right man?
Dial P For Popcorn moments that stick with you
Encore's World in most intrigued by the revealing shots of the threesome.
Film Actually Best Shot = Best Comic Timing
Movies Kick Ass 'there's no business like men business'

Final Three Episodes of Season Three:
Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr (August 8th), Singin' in the Rain (August 15th), and Dog Day Afternoon (August 22nd). JOIN US. WHAT WILL YOU CHOOSE AS BEST SHOT?

Twins: Montgomery & Ethel

While Gemini is ruling, we're celebrating twins: real, fictional, and other. Double the pleasure! If it's your birthday we'll celebrate both of you in the comments.

Did you know that legendary actor Montgomery Clift had a twin sister? That's him with his twin sister Roberta above. She was born first making Monty the youngest of the Clift's three children. Monty and the family called her "Ethel" which was their mother's name though there mother went by "Sunny". Confusing!

Monty and Ethel in 1933. They were thirteen years old.The kids had a strange upbringing, moving frequently both abroad and in the States and they were privately tutored and well bred as if they had far far more money than they did. Monty theorized without a ton of conviction that his drive toward acting may have had to do with competition with his sister (and older brother), neither of whom pursued acting. Both of his siblings were college educated while Monty never went to high school, beginning his professional acting career at 14 on stage.

In a 1957 profile in McCall's a friend of Monty's is quoted as saying:

He's almost in a state of amnesia about his childhood. He never speaks of it, and if he's asked questions he side-steps."

The Clift kids weren't Geminis but Libras but all twins are honorary Geminis and all Geminis are honorary twins if you ask us.

It's hard to find much info about Roberta/Ethel but she married in 1945 (Monty attended) at which point Monty was already a star on Broadway collecting fans also bound for immortal fame like Marlon Brando. The next year he filmed his first movie role Red River (released later in 1948). 

His life was short and tortured but his influential legacy as one of the original brooding mumbling male superstars is long.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Easter Parade"

If you have yet to join in the "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series we urge you to participate next week on April 11th when we look at a movie you've surely seen: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937). Last time we did an animated film we had a super turnout. All you have to do is 1) choose your favorite shot 2) post it on your blog, tumblr, site or pinterest page before next Wednesday night and 3) let me know. Presto, The Film Experience links up. The first step, choosing your best shot, is the only hard part.

This week's film is EASTER PARADE (1948).  

I love a perfect title. Easter Parade promises exactly what it delivers. The Judy Garland / Fred Astaire musical features two actual easter parades which form a through line on which the film can hang its gowns and musical numbers. In the first Nadine (Ann Miller), Don Hewes' (Fred Astaire) ex-girlfriend and ex-dance partner, stops traffic with a smashing gown and the chic accessories that are her show dogs.  Hewes, still hurt over the breakup promises his new partner Hannah (the immortal Judy Garland) that a year from then she'll be the one that no one can take their eyes off of. But the title offers more than just these two holidays. The movie is an easter parade all by itself. The whole movie doubles as one big lavish procession of color. It's got all the yellows, greens, whites, blues, pinks and purples you could possibly expect from an easter movie and every other color in the rainbow, too. Like many real parades it's alternately amazing and garish but there's always something to gawk at for better and worse.

The "worse" would be a hateful brown and pink gown (gag) that may well be the ugliest thing I've ever seen on Judy Garland. The "best" might be the white into hot pink gown that Nadine just floats in near the climax when she attempts to take Don back from Hannah.

The two shots that thrilled me the most both exploded by focusing on only one particularly saturated color. The first of these was Ann Miller's bright yellow gloves and bright yellow tear away skirt in her jaw-dropping toe-tapping solo "Shakin' the Blues Away". 

Keep dancing (and reading)

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12 Days Till Oscar. What Happened to the Juvenile Oscars?

Remember when... Okay, scratch the "remember when?" question this time. Unless there are some really really ancient AMPAS members reading. The Oscars weren't televised yet so nobody could remember this one unless they were there.

What was Judy Garland so happy about at the 1939 Oscars? (circa February 1940)

I mean besides sitting with 'The First Lady of MGM' Norma Shearer which would obviously make anyone euphoric.

Judy G was having a good night because The Wizard of Oz was up for six Oscars including Best Picture. It won two music prizes (Best Score and Best Original Song to the very nearly cut "Over the Rainbow"). Judy also won a special juvenile Oscar, presented to her by her frequent co-star Mickey Rooney who had won the year before.

One wonders why they don't still award those. They weren't annual so it took a special performances for the Academy to go there. They only did so 11 times in their first 33 years ending with Hayley Mills for Polyanna (1960)

I can think of several people through the years who would have been relieved if they passed those out instead of letting the kids compete with the grownups. Every time a child is nominated an adult gets bumped out of the shortlist. I mean would Winona Ryder be an Oscar winner today if Anna Paquin had been given a miniature Oscar instead? Would Madeline Kahn have been an Oscar winner for Paper Moon (1973) if Tatum O'Neal hadn't committed category fraud and won doing so for the same film?

Do you think child acting should be judged separately?

If they were still handing them out do you think Thomas Horn would've been the recipient this year since they obviously liked Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close more than critics did?

Perhaps I should have a child acting category at the Film Bitch Awards. I never know who to nominate at the BFCA "Critics Choice" award in their "young actor" category because I always forget to think about child performances.