Troublez-moi ce soir

to be absolutely honest, marilyn monroe acted extremely well in this film. I think it was the first i had everseen of her (2001) and after all i had heard about her acting as a "blonde bombshell" this picture sent me in another direction. SHE CAN ACT!! to see marilyn play a psychotic woman may not have been completely hard for her (no offense intended) but i feel it was superb acting! Ashame she wasnt offered more roles like this one

Marilyn Monroe and Richard Widmark star in this early Monroe star vehicle. This is one film you'd never see being made today, due to the new child-care sensibilities.

Jim Backus and Lorene Tuttle leave their child with a complete stranger while they go out for an evening. The stranger is Monroe, complete with wrist scars, who is the niece of the elevator man in the hotel where the couple is staying.

Mid-evening, she picks up with Widmark, who is more upset about his lounge singer girlfriend (Anne Bancroft) breaking up with him than he thought he would be - he and Monroe flirt from their respective rooms. Widmark goes to the room, expecting a night of fun.

Instead he and the hapless child get a night of terror, with Monroe believing Widmark is her dead pilot boyfriend and nearly killing not only the little girl but her uncle as well. Turns out, Marilyn's been institutionalized and her uncle (Elisha Cooke, Jr.) thought she was "nearly well."

Monroe is very good in this - very beautiful, of course, as well as vulnerable and believable. The wild look in her eyes when she scolds the little girl is downright scary.

One thing that has always bothered me about Monroe doing drama is her very excellent diction which always sounds studied and unnatural. It's a distraction in this film as well.

However, she's so watchable in everything - the camera just adored her - I have to believe that as she lived and aged, she would have had more chances at drama.

Widmark is excellent as the apparent cynic who proves to have more to him than his girlfriend thought - in fact, his character was much better with the child than Monroe's.

Bancroft's role is small and belies her future dramatic appearances; and there is a cameo by "Honeybee Gillis," Joan Blondell's sister Gloria, as a photographer.

Marilyn without the Strasbergs, without the Russian drama coach, without the Method, without the hours locked in her trailer shaking with stage fright. And it is her best ever acting job. This is the ONLY film that really taps into the 'off-kilter' and wounded quality of MM and uses it as an indispensable element of the movie. Elisha Cook's little turn as an elevator operator and his repartee with M.M. is a memorable minor moment and one of many such delights scattered throughout. I've heard that Richard Widmark was very nice to Marilyn and helpful on the set. Of course with 40 or 50 takes for even short scenes, a Billy Wilder can put up on the screen a dazzling Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot but this is the real Marilyn not just her sheer 'luminescent beauty'. Even by the time she made Niagara, something was lost already, though she was very good in that.

If you really want to see true vulnerability, watch Marilyn Monroe in the 1952 "Don't Bother to Knock" opposite Richard Widmark and Anne Bancroft. She plays a disturbed girl and at one point she comes down in the elevator, and when the door opens, her face alone will break your heart.

Anne Bancroft was interviewed about Marilyn and said that she had not been expecting the reaction she would have to that scene. She said when those elevator doors opened and Marilyn came out of the elevator, it stunned her and the rest of the cast and crew to watch her, she seemed so authentically confused and lost and vulnerable. Bancroft said it was the hardest scene she has ever had to watch, because you felt it was really happening to Marilyn herself.

She truly was a "candle in the wind".

This psychological suspense flick was one of Marilyn's first leading roles and gave the sexy star an opportunity to play a serious dramatic role. Viewers who have never seen the great Monroe in a serious part will be amazed. She really was a very gifted and versatile actress. Sincerely, if you have ever dismissed Monroe as just another pretty face, you should really see this film. If after that you're still not convinced, then rent BUS STOP.