The Legend of Marilyn Monroe

As a specialist in documenting cinematic Hollywood's history, David Wolper produced this item within two years after the death of Marilyn Monroe, shot in black and white stock, shown on television but once and then shelved, with its principal value to cinemaphiles that factor of contemporaneity with the star, focussing largely upon her early years and, in the main, with respect to those elements that propelled her initial success. Monroe, never much of an actress, was instead a totemic figure of her period, a Sex Symbol, and as Lee Strasberg of Actors Studio states during a substantive interview, Marilyn had always a desire to be "an actress more that a star", her intellectual deficiencies notwithstanding; however, her performances disclose that she had not advanced much in her planned direction by the time of her passing. There is a good deal of footage of her earliest films that is cut out, in addition to details of her first marriage to Los Angeles policeman Jim Dougherty, but it is instructive to watch her cavort in SCUDDA HOO! SCUDDA HAY! and even more in LADIES OF THE CHORUS, whereas there is overmuch emphasis upon stills of her activities, with an outcome being less than satisfying. John Huston, quite familiar with Monroe, narrates well, although many of his scripted lines seem unduly grandiloquent, with the film's most telling moments including his mention of third husband Arthur Miller's educating Marilyn in the meaning of "big words"; an obvious dichotomy between her clear delight with entertaining troops in Korea and at the famous John Kennedy birthday party, when compared with her "serious" acting; and the work's highlight: the unintentionally hilarious scope of emotions she attempts to display while "attorney to the stars" Jerry Geisler serves as spokesman during a press conference announcing an estrangement from her second husband, Joe Dimaggio.

Marilyn Monroe is shown in a not-so-larger than life, almost clinical light, yet without too much hype, and little embellishments, or conjectures. There are plenty of on camera interviews with those who knew her best-- several of whom admit hardly knew her at all. The structure of the script is excellent. It takes the viewer from her childhood be shuttled from one foster home to another, a brief "real" home with her own mother when she was 9 before her mother was committed to a mental institution and on through her brief marriage at the age of 16, the modeling career that lead her into the Hollywood life that confused and destroyed her. Naturally since this was made in 1964, some of what we know of her life today-- such as her affair with Kennedy and the alleged conspiracy that surround it were not covered, as well as the fact she was sexually abused as a child--but it is nonetheless thought-provoking and moving experience.