Four of Marilyn’s finest movies are featured in 50 From the 50s, a new program at Film Forum NYC. Starting on Friday with All About Eve, this retrospective marks the publication of Foster Hirsch’s Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties. Among the other films showing this month is The Goddess (1957), a portrait of a troubled star based on Marilyn; and Carroll Baker will be the guest of honor at a screening of Baby Doll (1956.)
All About Eve (DCP, October 13-17)
‘Fasten your seat belts! It’s going to be a bumpy night!’ A bumpy night indeed, as Anne Baxter’s Eve schemes to de-throne Bette Davis’ Margo Channing on stage and in love, while George Sanders’ venomous Addison De Witt sees the career of ‘Copacabana School of the Arts’ graduate Marilyn Monroe’s career ‘rising in the East like the sun.’ Academy Awards include Best Picture, Director, Screenplay. With Thelma Ritter, Celeste Holm. Hollywood’s most sparkling comedy of manners (the bad manners of misbehaving Broadway insiders)… A talking picture abuzz with literate, biting dialogue, the hiss and crackle of bitchy repartee.
Niagara (4K DCP restoration, October 14, 20 and 22)
As an adulterous wife unhappily married to a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress (Cotten), and first seen smoking in bed, her legs moving seductively under the sheets, Monroe exudes rough-and-ready sexuality. Her character is a force of (destructive) nature, and in ads for the film, an image of Monroe reclines over the Niagara Falls, her body melting into the cascading torrents…. Niagara was a box-office winner, setting Monroe up to play a trainload of wicked women. But she never again appeared as a femme fatale. Instead, she is typically cast as an innocent, winsome, life-affirming woman who gives sex a good name. Perhaps this was the way an era of sexual repression could best accommodate a woman who projected sexual abundance.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (DCP, October 18 and 22)
Howard Hawks had to convince Darryl F. Zanuck to cast Marilyn in the role of Lorelei Lee, a dumb-as-a-fox gold digger, assuring the mogul that he had been misusing her because comedy rather than drama was her forte. Hawks was wrong—she had already proven conclusively that she could handle dramatic parts—but her Lorelei Lee, a classic dizzy dame with a bubbly sexuality, set the template for the remainder of her career. Having found a formula for Monroe and adhering to the Hollywood conviction that versatility is an all but useless commodity in the creation and marketing of stars, Zanuck and company were determined to repeat it.
The Asphalt Jungle (October 20)
‘Crime is a left-handed form of human endeavour.’ Back from the pen, criminal mastermind Sam Jaffe recruits strong-arm Sterling Hayden, driver James Whitmore, and safecracker Anthony Caruso for that big heist, with backing from lawyer/fence Louis Calhern (whose ‘niece’ is Marilyn Monroe) — but thieves will fall out. … Taking place in an inner-city world of shabby rooms, The Asphalt Jungle looks nothing like a traditional MGM product … the grainy black-and-white cinematography by Harold Rosson, and the work of the ensemble cast reveal not a trace of the more-stars-than-there-are-in-heaven house style.”
The Marilyn Report 
3 Comments
Comments are closed.