Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days

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"Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days." Sounds like something that should be on some tabloid TV show, one of those morbid sumps that blame everything on child abuse and are pregnant with lines like, "Little did she know, tragedy lay just around the corner." It's actually better than that. It's not just a roll in the hay with Schadenfreude. Instead it's an interesting, sometimes funny, and reasonably objective look at Marilyn Monroe's personality and illness, the character of those who surrounded her, and the dynamics of the movie business at Twentieth-Century Fox.

Monroe's childhood was exceptional in several ways -- bad ways -- a father who deserted the family and a mother who wound up in a psychiatric facility. Monroe herself had several miscarriages but always wanted to have children herself. It's probably by the seasonable interposition of a gracious Providence that she was unable to do so. There's a high genetic loading on schizophrenia.

What's surprising in looking at the photos from her youth is that she was not particularly attractive. She was rather plump, puffy, and ordinary in appearance. Even at the age of twenty, she was perfectly normal except for a mane of frizzly hair. Her later glamorized beauty is a monument to studio craftsmanship.

Much of the film deals with the problems she had making her last attempt at a movie, "Something's Got To Give," with Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. Of course her unreliability was already legendary but the director, George Cukor, became worried as the shoot fell farther and farther behind, costing the studio a fortune with every day missed, money they couldn't afford to lose after the four-hour and three minute egg, "Cleopatra." She complained of cold, fevers, sinusitis, and was pounding barbiturates. Cukor shot around her, filmed all the scenes that didn't require her presence, but when Monroe took off -- still claiming illness -- to attend President John F. Kennedy's gala birthday party and performed before the crowd, the consensus was that she was plagues less by illness and more by self indulgence.

It didn't help that on the few days she was available, she constantly looked to her acting coach, Paula Strassberg, for approval, without which she would demand a retake. Cukor was edged out. And Strassberg was on a five-thousand-dollar a week salary from Monroe. Nobody liked Strassberg who, regardless of the source, comes across as an expensive parasite. Her psychiatrist also claimed he could get Monroe to do whatever he wanted. We aren't informed what he was paid.

After a month of shooting, the film was one million dollars over budget. Monroe had worked only thirteen out of thirty production days, and she was officially fired, her career finished at the age of thirty-six.

There were photoshoots and an attempt to kick start "Something's Got To Give" but it didn't help her. She died of an overdose of seconal and other substances.

Most of the talking heads are reasonable in their comments. Of course, nobody says, "I wish I'd done something differently." Her personal doc, with fashionably swept back gray hair, disclaims all responsibility. And we don't have to listen to much pop psychology, although there are the usual references to "the lost little girl inside her." The last twenty minutes or so present the updated and refurbished existing footage of the original shoot. The clips are ordered along the lines of the plot and suggest that if the movie had been finished it wouldn't have been bad, although it lacks the élan of the original, "My Favorite Wife."

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.

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.

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.