Marilyn

Ohhhhhh. drat.

Yes, folks, I am astounded this excellent doco has been so neglected and forgotten as to not be available on video or DVD ...and incredibly not commented upon or reviewed on the IMDb. I can't be the only person in 2005 who knows this exists. Anyway, here's the info: made in 1963 as a Marilyn Monroe - Fox release to take the place of SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE which, as we all know was scrapped adding to her demise. Fox filled in the schedule blank (and mopped up as much MM sympathy cash as possible) by creating this 90 minute documentary with intros and links shot in cinema-scope on a blank stage with Rock Hudson narrating the clips from all her Fox films. It looks a lot like the format used later in THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT PART 2 with ladders and spotlights and studio bits for the narrator to wander through before various scenes or musical numbers are presented. Those films with sequences originally shot in 1.33 are presented as such in center frame and the cinema-scope clips fill the whole screen. I have also just discovered thanks to Box office Bill on the Roxy page on the Cinema Treasures site that in 1952, the "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" song number was shot in two formats: the 1.33 look as released in the feature GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and an experimental cinema-scope version which sat in the vault until it was (now) possibly used as the finale for this c/s doco. I remember showing MARILYN at my cinema in the 70s and 80s and remarking how good this sequence looked in cinema-scope, thinking it was a cropped version of the 1.33. Well, not the case and there is the truth of it. Very good. Thankyou Box office Bill. So it was used eventually, but in a sad celebration. Apart from all this, MARILYN is an excellent doco and today more so as it compiles all the best Fox bits as a stand alone feature. Fox should rediscover their own excellent compilation feature here and get it out into stores on DVD tomorrow! Now if we can get FOX to do the same style of doco with "a celebration of Cinemascope" and a "Fabulous Foxes" and a "Technicolour Two hours" compilation we would sing their praises, instead of moaning the vault is locked. Start with MARILYN. This documentary is a major discovery for anyone in any century.

Twentieth Century Fox threw together this "tribute/homage" to Marilyn a year after she died to make even more money off her and to recoup its losses from her last unfinished film, Something's Got to Give. Plain and simple, it has nothing to do with celebrating her and everything to do with being a money grab to exploit her further. Rock Hudson was hired to narrate because he was at the peak of his popularity and Fox figured they'd make even more money with Hudson at the helm. It's interesting to a degree, but also incomplete and impersonal. It's also become so obscure that it's nearly impossible to find.

A reviewer here stated that Hudson and Monroe were never even remotely friends and this isn't true. They didn't socialize together, but Monroe once stated that she looked upon Hudson as "a big brother" and that he was one of what became known as her "telephone friends." (Judy Garland being another.) They'd sometimes talk late at night when one or the other couldn't sleep. Hudson also took the news of her death hard and later remarked to a friend, "if only she had called me that night."

The clip of Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend used in the doc is not an alternate CinemaScope take. It is the exact version lifted from the original Academy Ratio version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. However, the doc was released as a Scope movie, and they zoomed-in on the 1.33 image to create a faux Scope version. Wish it were an alternate version, but sadly it is not... That said, the documentary is a lot of fun, especially in light of Rock Hudson's known public history today compared to that of 1963. It's also interesting watching Rock being manly by smoking while watching the clips - looks terribly effected from today's perspective. It does contain the clips from her unfinished film which has been released on DVD a while back.