Blu-Ray/Movie Review: My Week With Marilyn

 

My Week with Marilyn is a movie from 2011 starring Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench, and Emma Watson. It tells the story of the filming of the movie The Prince and The Showgirl from the late 1950s. Specifically how the third assistant director on the film (or Gopher as is more aptly titled) played by Eddie Redmayne befriended and ultimately fell in love with Marilyn Monroe, played by Michelle Williams. It does a great job telling the story of how unreliable she could be to work with and how Laurence Olivier, portrayed wonderfully by Kenneth Branagh, who was the star and director of that movie, both despised working with and was in awe of Marilyn. He put up with her both because he was trying to use her appeal as being the biggest actress in the world at the time to revive his lagging career and because he wanted to sleep with her.

The A/V quality of the blu-ray disc is very good. While there are not really any special effects or CGI of note used in the movie, there are some really nice cinematographic shots that look great in HD. As for extras on the Blu-ray, there is a commentary track on the movie by director Simon Curtis and a 20-minute making-of/behind-the-scenes feature. Ultimately, the movie is very good. For Williams's part, although she did not have the appeal of Marilyn (although, let's face it, few actresses before her or since could even come close), she did very well at showing Marilyn's vulnerability, flaws, and loneliness. She did a good job at showing that the public face Marilyn gave was just an act, and was not really her. And while the movie does not deal with her death, it certainly sows the seeds of the fact that it was that duality and both not wanting the fame, but not being able to give it up that caused her to drink and become more and more dependent on pills to function which ultimately led to her death. It is absolutely worth the time to watch, regardless of whether you are a fan of Marilyn Monroe or otherwise.

Book Review: My Story

 

My Story is the closest thing that the world ever got to an autobiography or memoir from Marilyn Monroe. The original version of the book was published about 12 years after her death and was created from a manuscript she submitted to Milton Green (who was a photographer who took many pictures of Marilyn throughout her career) and was essentially finished by journalist, Ben Hecht. This illustrated version of the book, published in 2007, adds many pictures of Marilyn selected by Milton Green's son, Joshua, who also wrote the foreword.  In the book, Monroe broadly details her early life, her rise to stardom, and her romance with Joe Dimaggio. The book ends with a discussion of her trip to Korea to entertain the troops during her honeymoon with Dimaggio.

The hardcover version of the book is relatively short, coming in at a little under 200 pages. In it, Monroe covers her life in broad strokes up through 1954. She does not go into a ton of detail about everything in her life but does discuss being molested as a girl, the infamous nude calendar photoshoot (which turned into the first Playboy pictorial), and her struggle to get acting jobs (and what was expected by the studio heads and producers). She does not go into detail about whether and how much she participated in the whole "casting couch" phenomenon, or really discuss her sex life (aside from saying she was not very interested in sex during her first marriage. She also talks about how Za Za Gabor hated her because Gabor's husband flirted with her at a party. The big thing I took away from the book is that she was not an overnight sensation or star and she was not instantly rich. Even when she was not an established star she pushed back against some of the parts she was offered and was looking to be taken more seriously. There is an eerily prophetic line in the book that she was the type of person who would be found dead in a hallway with a bottle of sleeping pills next to her. In all, the book shows her as a complicated figure whose life was not at all as glamorous as it seemed. It is absolutely worth the time to read.

Product Review: TF PUBLISHING 2021 LIFE Marilyn Monroe Wall Calendar

 

I am one who gets a new Marilyn Monroe calendar each year. This has a good selection of mostly black-and-white pictures. Some of the pictures are very famous shots that any fan of Marilyn has likely seen many times and others are not as iconic or well-known, including more candid shots as opposed to modeling or publicity shots. I am not sure if all of the pictures are ones that appeared in Life Magazine over the years, but it is a good selection.

Product Review: Marilyn Monroe Wall Calendar (2019)

 

This is a 16-month calendar with a mix of black and white and color photos of Marilyn. They are a combination of pictures that are from some of the well-known photo shoots of her, and others that are lesser-known, some of which I have never seen before (and I get a calender featuring her every year). Each month also includes an inspirational phrase printed on the picture. I am not sure that any of them are actual quotes that Marilyn ever said, but I think they are something that some people may like and others may find a bit silly. Overall though, it is a good choice for a 2019 Marilyn calendar for those of you who, like me, get one every year.

Product Review: 1995 Marilyn Monroe Calendar

 

This was the first calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe that I purchased back in 1995. It is a great calendar with some of the more iconic shots of Marilyn along with some of the lesser-known/seen pics. This is very good if you collect calendars of Marilyn, especially if you can get this one at a reasonable price.

Product Review: Marilyn Monroe 2018 Wall Calendar

 

This calendar has a  great selection of black-and-white pics of Marilyn Monroe (there are no color pics in this one). What I liked about the selection of pictures is that there are not really any of the well-known, more iconic pictures of Marilyn in this calendar, so they are not pictures that most people have seen hundreds of times. And, the pictures that are included are all very gorgeous shots of her so it really does not matter if they are lesser-known.

Book Review: Legend: The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe

 

Legend is a biography of Marilyn Monroe written by Fred Lawrence Guiles and published in 1984. It is actually a follow-up to his 1969 bio of Marilyn entitled Norma Jean. In this book, the author adds more details that he was keeping secret when the first book was published. Specifically, Guiles adds details about the fact that Bobby Kennedy was having an affair with Marilyn and the extent of their relationship, which he either left out or obscured in the prior book (which the author discusses in the prologue).  

I would say that the book focuses on the highlights (not necessarily the high points, but the key events) of Marilyn Monroe's life. Basically, the details that are very well known or for which he could get corroboration through interviews (such as with Authur Miller). The discussion of her death is mostly confined to the second to last chapter of the book. Guiles early in the book dismisses the notion that she was killed, and at the end of the book details the number of pills she was able to get ahold of up to the day she committed suicide and argues that she was essentially reaching out to people who, if they would have gotten her help in time, could have saved her. The author also notes that Marilyn had two other nearly identical suicide attempts that were thwarted by Miller, who, of course, was not there when she died which supports the argument that her act was intentional and not accidental.   

The book is right around 500 pages. The substantive bio portion is about 445 pages, then the rest of the book includes a filmography and an index. The filmography is interesting in that it not only lists Marilyn's films from 1948 to 1961 but shows the credits and adds one or two critic reviews so you can see when she starts getting credited when she starts to get higher (and eventually top billing) and when the reviewers start to focus on her performance. The book is not hard to read, but it does have a lot of detail that (for me at least) made it a little slower to read than I normally can get through a book of that length. Most of what is in the book is now pretty well-known, a lot of what the author talks about is known in even more detail than he gets into in the book. Even so, it is still an interesting read and worth checking out.

Book Review: The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe

 

The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe was a biography published in 2000 by Sarah Churchwell. She took a bit of a different track when writing the biography basically summarizing many of the various things that have been written and said about Monroe, both while she was alive and after her death, pointing out inconsistencies and contradictions, etc. Churchwell also summarizes many of the more popular books that have been written about Monroe over the years, going into detail about how those authors engaged in speculation, made things up, and either used very sketchy sources or essentially used themselves as a source (by citing to a different author whose work cites to their own work). Then, in the last chapter, Churchwell gives her take on who she thinks Monroe really was, and what she was like.

The book discusses Monroe's life, both things that were rumored and facts that were verified, from her childhood to her days of modeling, breaking into acting, and transforming herself into a Hollywood icon. Churchwell addresses the rumors of her sleeping around (including her alleged trysts with women), her mental state, her drug use, etc. Churchwell does a great job breaking down the various inconsistent reporting on Monroe's life (depending on who is telling the story she either had multiple abortions or none, she was either bisexual or homophobic, she was either stupid or brilliant, she was either naive or cunning, she either slept with Robert Kennedy or she didn't, she either could barely remember her lines or she purposely messed up to make a point when feuding with directors and producers) and explains what could things could be verified and what could not.

The book is just over 330 pages, but it reads fairly quickly. My only real issue with the book is that the print used is pretty small and light, especially for the notes that are at the bottom of some of the pages that flesh out detail from the text. That might slow people down a bit when reading, but if you are a fast reader you can get through it in 2-3 days pretty easily.     

Product Review: Marilyn Monroe Wall Calendar (2017)

 

I am one who gets a new Marilyn Monroe calendar every year. I try, as much as possible, to go for ones that have pics that are not widely seen/well-known pictures of her. That, especially if you get calendars featuring her every year, is hard to do, but this one has a good variety. It does include some iconic shots such as the subway grate shot from The Seven Year Itch, but it also includes some pics that look to be more behind-the-scenes shots from photo shoots she did and are not ones that are some of the extremely popular pictures taken of her.

Product Review: Graphique 2023 Marilyn Monroe Wall Calendar

 

This is a 16-month 2023 (and partial 2024) calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe. It has a mix of color and black-and-white photographs, some of which are fairly popular, widely circulated pictures of her, and some of which I have never seen before. I get a new Marilyn Monroe calendar every year, so I have seen a lot of pictures of her, and it is nice to come across one that has pictures that I have not seen before, or are different from the more iconic pictures of her.

The calendar starts out with January 2023, and each month through December 2023 are "regular" pages with the picture above and then the blocks for each day below. Then, the last page of the calendar has the last picture and small grids for January-April of 2024. So, if you are looking for a good Marilyn calendar for 2023, this is a great option.

Streaming Movie Review: Blonde

 

Blonde is a Netflix movie based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates that tells a fictionalized story of the life of Marilyn Monroe. In the movie, Monroe is played by Ana De Armas, of Knives Out and No Time to Die fame. She does a great job in the role, and the faults of the movie are really not on her, it was on the source material and the screenplay by writer/director Andrew Dominik. 

The movie starts out with Norma Jeane (the book and the movie adds an e to her middle name) as a child, living with her mentally unstable mother and pining for a secretive father (whom her mother hints is a big-time star), which is a theme throughout the movie. It mostly skips her time in an orphanage and in foster care, which covers the first third of the book, and jumps to her first audition in which she is raped by a studio executive. Then it basically spans her adult life as she becomes more famous and more mentally ill as she bounces from one relationship to another trying to make up for the love of her missing father (who writes her letters throughout the movie hinting that he will see her in person soon). 

Like the book, the movie really focuses on the darkest aspects of Marilyn Monroe's life. Certainly, given the fact that she died at the age of 36, most likely due to a drug overdose (the movie does hint at the possibility that she may have been murdered, which has been mostly debunked, but really films it both ways) her life was not all sunshine and roses. But, it also totally ignored things like her fighting for better roles and starting her own production company, helping Ella Fitzgerald's career, and the like. The movie is really about her going crazy and almost becoming a split personality, Norma Jeane and the fake entity, Marilyn, whom she hated. In real life it is known that she made comments about "giving" people Marilyn, suggesting that Marilyn was a performance she put on, but the movie makes Marilyn something that she has to summon. 

There is a lot of sex and nudity in the movie, mostly topless shots by De Armas, but a couple of butt shots and a blink and you'll miss it frontal shot that is pretty obscured. It does show her in a "throuple" relationship with Charlie Chaplin Junior and Eddie Robinson and shows her marriages to Joe Dimaggio (just called The Ex-Athlete) and Arthur Miller (called The Playwright). At the end of the movie, it gets into her fling with JFK, and has the scene that very likely earned the NC-17 rating, a simulated blowjob that basically just has her head bobbing up and down over her hand. 

Overall, De Armas does a great job channeling the look and the sound of Monroe. Given that she has a thick Cuban accent, the fact that she successfully pulled off Monroe's pretty distinctive voice was impressive. I did see a review where someone complained that De Armas' real accent came through a couple of times, but I honestly never noticed that. I think you basically have to take the movie with a grain of salt. While some of the things portrayed in the movie did happen, a lot did not or were at least partially made up to fill in details and sensationalize things. I think the movie overstates her level of mental illness and made her out to be as mentally ill as her mother was, which by all accounts she was not. It is worth watching as long as you understand that it is not a historically accurate docu-drama.

Product Review: Marilyn Monroe Wall Calendar (2016)

 

I am one who gets a Marilyn Monroe calendar every year. There are always a few different wall calendars that get released each year. This one has a good selection of pictures. There is one of the iconic subway grate shots from the Seven-Year Itch promotional photos, but most of the pictures are pictures that have not been as widely publicized or released before. Definitely a good pickup if you collect her wall calendars.

Book Review: Blonde: A Novel

 

I read this in anticipation of the Netflix movie adapted from this book that is set to be released in September of 2022. This is a fictional biography of Marilyn Monroe's life, taking real elements from Marilyn's, such as the fact that her mother was institutionalized and so she grew up in foster homes, her various marriages, and affairs, and blended them with things that the author made up. The author portrays Marilyn and Norma Jean (spelled Jeane in the book) as two separate personalities, and Norma Jeane essentially had to "summon" Marilyn to get through her movie roles and appear in public, which accounted for her notorious unreliability. In real life, Marilyn was known for making comments like having to "give" people Marilyn, so that Marilyn was a performance she put on for the masses. The author extended that to Marilyn being a person that Norma Jeane hated and never wanted to be called in real life. The book also touches on Marilyn's abuse of prescription drugs and her own mental illness.

The book is very long, about 730 pages, and is not always the easiest thing to read. The story spans Marilyn's entire life from when she was a year or two old, to her death in 1962. Interestingly, the author wrote Marilyn as being aware that she was going to die and kind of did a dance with maybe she killed herself and maybe she was murdered. There is a lot of sex in the book (it definitely touches on the rumors she slept around Hollywood) and, if even some of the material that was included about halfway through the book (for example, a three-way relationship with two bisexual men) makes it into the movie, it definitely will earn the NC-17 rating.

Overall, you have to take the book with a grain of salt. It is a work of fiction and not a real biography, which the author admits to up-front in the forward. The author does provide a bibliography for those who are looking for non-fiction books devoted to Marilyn's life. It definitely has enough real elements that are known about Marilyn's life (like her marriages and her hookups with JFK), but unless you have really read about her or seen documentaries about her life, it is hard to know what is real and what is made up. So, I would describe it as an interesting take on what portions of Marilyn's life may have been like, but nothing that should be taken too seriously.

Blu-Ray Set Review: Forever Marilyn Collection

 

I have been a fan of Marilyn Monroe since seeing clips of her in the music video for Elton John's live version of Candle in the Wind. This is far from a complete collection but includes seven of her very well-known movies. The movies included are Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, River of No Return, There's No Business Like Show Business, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like it Hot, and The Misfits. For me, the best movies on the set are The Misfits and Some Like it Hot. The Misfits (and River of No Return) really showed her acting range, and that she could play more than just a ditzy blonde, a gold-digging blonde, or a gold-digging ditzy blonde. Obviously, being a gorgeous blonde in the 1950s and 1960s limited the roles she could get (especially early in her career), but the variety of movies do at least give you some idea of her range as an actress.

As many have noted, the packaging is pretty bad. The collection comes in a very thin cardboard slip case that's only thicker than a standard Blu-ray jewel case. Inside, you'll find two fold-out "books," with the discs. There are four in the first book, and three in the second book. The discs are inserted into scalloped slits in each book. None of my discs slipped out of the slits during shipping, but it is very easy for them to do so. The movies did get very good A/V transfers, and the extras vary from disc to disc. Most of them have trailers for the movie you are watching and some of her other movies. The Seven Year itch has a commentary track on the film by a biographer and a picture-in-picture version of the movie that pops up information and video clips that are basically about how the movie got around the censors of the time. Then there are a few featurettes, an interactive timeline of Marilyn's career, and a stills gallery. Some Like it Hot also has a commentary track, a making-of feature that included interviews with Director Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, and Tony Curtis, an interview between Leonard Maltin and Tony Curtis, and a couple of other featurettes. There are no extras specific to this set, however, just what was included with the individual movie releases.

Overall, it is a good set if you are a fan of Marilyn. Some of the films hold up very well even years down the line from their release. Others would definitely not be made today the way they were back in the 50s. The extras on Some Like it Hot and The Seven Year Itch are great, but sparse (to say the least) for the other movies, and the packaging could be a lot better. That said, it is still a great set that is worth picking up.