Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days

Growing up, I never really knew enough about Marilyn Monroe. I saw parts of "The Seven Year Itch" on TV as a little kid, and I later saw "There's No Business Like Show Business" and "Some Like It Hot" and liked them, but that was my extent of Monroe knowledge. Then, one day in college, bored out of my mind, I randomly decided to look up this documentary on YouTube. I was instantly intrigued. This caused me to realize that there was more to the beautiful woman who graced movie screens with her presence than meets the eye; it also caused me to become a fan.

"The Final Days" takes a look at the troubled production of Marilyn's last work in front of a movie camera, the romantic comedy "Something's Got to Give." From interviews from those who knew Marilyn and from those who worked on the production, it presents a day-to-day account of "Give"'s making. The most fascinating aspect of this piece to me was the footage from "Give." This documentary concludes with a reconstruction of the film from the available footage, beautifully restored and edited together, and surprisingly easy to follow, despite the fact that the film was never finished. The interviews present a balanced account of what went wrong behind the scenes and with Marilyn during this time (screenwriter Walter Bernstein's comments are extremely negative and annoyed me greatly). Despite that minor caveat, I enjoyed this look at a person who is deservedly famous and talented. Marilyn Monroe is a star. A legend. An icon. And above all... utterly human. Marilyn, we love you.

wow! this is a mind-blowing documentary! up with the best ever IMHO -- particularly Let It Be in its portrait of a great artist's demise; Lost In La Mancha in the disaster caught on film; Swear To Tell The Truth (about Lenny Bruce) in its common era and tragic hero; and Festival Express in its unreal footage that you never thought existed of masters in their prime. and make no mistake, this girl was still in her prime! she could be in a parka reading the newspaper with a three-ring circus beside her and Nobody would notice the circus!

how it portrayed the final hours without a conspiracy theory undertone. and Sinatra singing the theme song to her lost last movie?! huh!? and that Wally Cox shot two of the final scenes ever with Marilyn Monroe!? and that Steve Allen was also in the last movie? was there anything he didn't do!?

I remember hearing about this when it came out, and I just went, "Oh, some other stupid documentary on Marilyn," like there's been A Million of these already. but this is so serious, and real, and complete, and not just whoring her name and figure. it made me choked up in both her final performance in "Something's Got To Give" (another freakily ominous title, like that Beatles farewell), and in the recreation of her last night.

she is So transcendent! there aren't many humans captured on film as captivating as her. and What a portrait this is of her final reel!

"Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days" is an interesting look at the filming of the American icon's final and unfinished film. As a documentary, it lacks in several areas (an example - director George Cuckor is said to be angry at Monroe's frequent inability to work, but nothing is said about their on set relationship), but it includes much rare footage of Monroe and a 37-minute recreation of the film using what was shot before Monroe tragically died and the footage vaulted. It is this footage that makes "Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days" worthwhile.

Archival footage and contemporary interviews provide a glimpse into the final six months of the life of Marilyn Monroe. The documentary spans the time from February, 1962, until her death in August, 1962, using benchmark dates, usually associated with the film she was making at the time: "Something's Got To Give". The film was never finished.

Interviews include Producer David Brown, Associate Producer Gene Allen, Producer Henry Weinstein, Writer Walter Bernstein, and actress Cyd Charisse. Throughout the documentary, Marilyn comes across as physically lovely, playful, emotionally insecure, a tad irresponsible, temperamental, eager to learn, vulnerable, and dependent on sleeping pills.

One segment has B&W footage of her as she shows up tardy at the May 19th birthday celebration of then President John Kennedy, just weeks before she died. When she finally appears on-stage, host Peter Lawford introduces her to the audience: "Mr. President, the late Marilyn Monroe".

The Monroe documentary runs about 77 minutes. The remainder of the film consists of pasted-together excerpts of what exists of "Something's Got To Give". It runs about 35 minutes.

The quality of the documentary is quite good, what there is of it. But I didn't really learn anything new. Some brief mention, at least, could have been made of all the conspiracy theories surrounding her death. They were not included.

Overall, this is an acceptable film, especially for anyone unfamiliar with Monroe's history. But it is a tad superficial. And I could have wished for more in-depth analysis.

Marilyn Monroe had it all, as a successful star really. Lots of adoring fans, movies that were pitched at a particular audience - for those who loved to see 'Marilyn' on screen, in her beauty, her charm, her humor, and on good occasions her dramatic skill - and a helluva strong studio contract for her bankability. But what she didn't have was piece of mind. She was troubled since her youth, and her "manic-depressive" nature, along with some other genuine problems, caused her to basically flunk out of her stardom in Hollywood. Of course, this is the blanket statement, as the documentary makes clear she could have come back to finish the film she was originally fired from her vehicle, Something's Got to Give. What spurred on that last night when she left the mortal coil is still speculation, some forty years on after the fact (that is when this documentary was made in 2001).

What remains fascinating throughout this look at Monroe's last days was to see how her own fragility contrasted in a similar way to the fragility of Hollywood, specifically Fox at the time, in 1962. Fox needed a solid hit to offset the production nightmare of Cleopatra, but they also had a kind of double-edged sword to yield: like Elizabeth Taylor, Monroe was unreliable as someone who could get to work on time with the schedule made out by the filmmakers, and as costs escalated Studio chiefs (as they are to do often) got uneasy. We learn that Monroe's tardiness (that is her on a good day) was already notorious. But a bad cold-cum-flu that kept her away from the shoot for almost the first three weeks of filming made things very tense on the set. And even to this day the "illness" claim has to be taken from her former doctor, or those who knew her. One of the interviewees says it best: "I could buy she was sick, up to a point - but it was also the drugs."

How ironic then that the documentary shows how in other ways the production got muddled with its organization. Take the example of when Monroe does finally get to the set to do some work, and the first thing done is a scene with a dog that doesn't bark on cue. What were they thinking, one might ask, that as soon as the big star is on set to tool around with a mangy mutt? The Final Days doc does give fans, or just curious and casual movie buffs, glimpses of what might have been of Cukor's film, including a rather infamous scene where Monroe skinny dips in a pool to distract Dean Martin's character (and, indeed, she did it for real - how "method" of her, after all), and some so-so funny scenes with the other actors.

Actually, the documentary also includes the entire 'restored' version of Cukor's film, all 37 minutes that was filmed (mostly the scenes without Monroe), though oddly enough seeing that was just OK. For a big movie buff it doesn't bring the same thrill as, say, when in the 90's Paramount released Orson Welles' complete filmed segment in It's All True. It's simply a fluffy romantic comedy that was a remake to start with and something that, perhaps throughout deep down, Monroe wasn't crazy to work on. The history and the politics of the studio, and Monroe's intentional (Kennedy birthday bash) or unintentional (getting sick, either for real or psychosomatic) means of mucking up the production, proves to be much more valuable, even when getting the stories and information from sources that could be just making stuff up. The producer Henry Weinstein might appear to be one of these at first, though he talks about how fair he really was to her, while her entourage of Strasberg (damn you, method!) and her publicist hurt, not helped, her mental state.

The documentary is shaped like a tragedy, and so there's the double-twist that Monroe was trying to get back on track before she died, that it wasn't just a two-month depression bender after she got fired (and, perhaps, this isn't unbelievable as she could pull a few good strings in Hollywood when she needed). This structure makes it conventional, but it's never really dull, and only at the end does the music and James Coburn's narration become too cheesy and melodramatic. Up until then, and before it gets to the restored Cukor footage, it's an engrossing story of stardom gone awry, and it's both beautiful and haunting to see when Monroe was "ON" on the set, it was one of the most wonderful things to see. The darker parts, however, can really only be filled in by the audience.