Australian cinemas will celebrate Marilyn’s 99th birthday on Sunday, June 1, with two of her funniest comedies. As you can see from the original posters above, Marilyn’s films were once considered too risqué for younger Aussies – but 70+ years on, everyone is more than welcome!
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is showing at Mount Vic’s Flicks in Mount Victoria, a village in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales (about 75 miles west of Sydney.) Doors open at 12:30 pm AEDT, and resident theatre organist Wendy Hambling will play songs from Blondes before the screening at around 1 pm.
And in the greater Adelaide area of South Australia, Wallis Cinemas is celebrating a double anniversary, as The Seven Year Itch had its world premiere on June 1, 1955 (Marilyn’s 29th birthday), although it didn’t reach Australia until that October. Showing at 1 pm ACDT on Sunday in Mitcham, Mt. Barker, Noarlunga and Piccadilly, with further screenings (except The Piccadilly) at 10:30 am on Wednesday, June 4.
Felicia Elliott reviewed both movies for The Cinessential in 2017…
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
“This was the film that Marilyn Monroe debuted the gold digging dumb blonde character that she would ascend to icon status with and, eventually, come to hate. Up to this point, no one knew that Monroe had comedy chops, and boy were producers and audiences alike delighted when they figured it out.
Although the character seems like a dumb blonde, she’s not actually all that dumb in this film. She knows exactly what she’s doing in her single-minded task to marry a rich man … She expertly, matter-of-factly but also innocently exposes the hypocrisy with which women are treated. I’m not saying this is a feminist film, but it does give an pseudo-feminist twist to the gold digger stereotype.”
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
“The Seven Year Itch is silly in the way that all movies about sex in the 1950s were silly. But it has a wittiness that most movies from this era do not … This movie did a lot for Monroe as an icon and not just because it contains the famous white dress above a subway grate scene. In a way, it solidified her status as the sex symbol of the 1950s, because she pulled off a character that is both positively dripping with sex and totally naïve about it … Itch was a great hit not just because it tapped into this vein, but also because it’s a well-done film with great performances.”
The Marilyn Report 