Rating Marilyn: Part 2

Now that we're pretty much left with only five movies, well five and a half if you count "Something's Gotta Give",so let's begin with what I think are some of Marilyn's finest movies!

9.Bus Stop

Ok, I consider this a western because its about a Rodeo dude who is like really strong and really macho. I don't remember much because I was not interested in the premise of this movie. I hate that the whole movie all he wants to do is marry her and then he kind of forces her to be with him. He kidnaps her and it isn't until they get stuck in a diner after a thunderstorm that he gets beaten and therefore forced to apologize to her. In the end she ends up having Stockholm Syndrome and agrees to be with him. At least thats what it felt like. Bo is like a giant child and I just can not deal. However Marilyn's acting was superb, she had to have an accent and it was not bad. The costume's were also quite lovely. 

10.The Prince and the Showgirl

I love this movie! It's not my favorite but I do love this movie. Marilyn plays a cute American Showgirl and she is invited to the home of the prince of some foreign prince. His only intentions are dirty ones and soon she finds herself trapped, however she begins to tease him and gets overly drunk on champagne and he is at. first turned of by her behavior but slowly finds herself drawn in. Sadly she falls asleep and he gets nowhere. It keeps on going in this manner until he falls in love with her and after trying to get her to leave he decides she should stay. In 18 months he will be a free citizen and he will be able to marry who he desires and she says a lot can happen in 18 months. She leaves and I like to think that thats where the love ended. I do not like the fact that for pretty much the whole movie she wore one dress. She went to the coronation ball and ceremony in the same mutherfucking dress. I just don't understand why there was a limited budget to her costuming. Laurence Olivier was a stick in the mud the whole movie and we all know he had an affair with Marilyn during shooting so it makes me wonder whether that was the problem with his atttude of if that was one of his "character traits" but he's slightly annoying. He's just not one of my favorite actors. But Marilyn is brilliant in this film!

11.Some Like it Hot

Ok this was my first Marilyn movie and I love it. It holds a special place in my heart because it was my first. I got to see Marilyn at her comedic greatest. This is also my favorite! Alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and the stroryline there was just no room for failure. I love Sugar Kane, Marilyn's character. She is a ukelelee player/singer in an all girl band. The boys are witness to a gang slaughter and are on the run and posing as girls in the all girls band to avoid the gang. Jack Lemmon's character finds himself chased by one of the millionaire also on the island and Tony Curtis falls in love with Sugar Kane. I love this movie, everything about it is perfect. The costumes, the story line, the casting, the songs! Even though Curtis and Marilyn had problems I can forgive him because Marilyn won her Golden Globe for this performance. And even though I hate the stupid promo pic of Marilyn I recommend that everyone watch this!

12.Let's Make Love

Offical second favorite movie! Let's make love is about a millionaire who falls in love with an actress at a shanty theater somewhere in New York.  He pretends to be himself in a parody play about wealthy people, celebrities in order to seduce the star Amanda. Yves Montand is hilarious and cute in this movie. I like him a lot better than Laurence Olivier. He also had an affair with Marilyn. Although he was a little bitch about it. I love this movie because I love the dance sequence "My Heart belongs to Daddy". The story line and the other story lines are awesome as well. In this movie we see a Marilyn who is both strong and yet sift and innocent. Something she as quiet adept at portraying. 

13.The Misfits

This is the last movie she ever made. It was also the last movie Clark Gable ever made. It was written for her by her then husband the great American playwright Arthur Miller. The truth is that I watched this movie quiet drink. Barbs gave it to me for my birthday last year and it sat in my desk as I wanted to watch it with her and somehow the tequila was introduced and we saw it but I can't say I was paying much attention. I also lost it because I was so friggn drunk. So i have not seen the end. What I can say about this movie is this! That movie captured Marilyn's spirit perfectly. She was strong but vulnerable. Easily swayed but stubborn. Sensual yet innocent. A ball of lovable contradictions just wanting to be loved. I loved it, and I think this is the best Marilyn has ever looked. I was really digging this hair on her. It's so sad that she never really got to continue making films but this is the potential she had. She was becoming a better actress. The world will never know what really happened to Marilyn Monroe, but we do know that she had an unsurpassed quality that is very hard to emulate. A certain je ne sais quoi, that transcended from screen to pictures and straight to some part of the brain that is attracted to her sensual innocence. Whatever your opinin of Marilyn you just cannot deny how great she was, in life as in death

Day 41: Mutiny on the Bounty

Mutiny on the Bounty: 1936: Winner of the 8th Academy Award
 Starring:

Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh


Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian

Franchot Tone as Byam

Herbert Mundin as Smith

Eddie Quillan as Ellison

Dudley Digges as Bacchus

Donald Crisp as Burkitt

Henry Stephenson as Sir Joseph Banks

Francis Lister as Captain Nelson

Spring Byington as Mrs. Byam

Movita as Tehani

Mamo Clark as Maimiti (as Mamo)

Byron Russell as Quintal

Percy Waram as Coleman

David Torrence as Lord Hood

John Harrington as Mr. Purcell

Douglas Walton as Stewart

Ian Wolfe as Maggs

DeWitt Jennings as Fryer

Ivan F. Simpson as Morgan (as Ivan Simpson)

Vernon Downing as Hayward

Bill Bambridge as Hitihiti (as William Bambridge)

Marion Clayton Anderson as Mary Ellison (as Marion Clayton)

Stanley Fields as Muspratt

Wallis Clark as Morrison

Crauford Kent as Lieutenant Edwards (as Craufurd Kent)

Pat Flaherty as Churchill

This was a Clark Gable movie and it was about mutiny!! So the story revolves around the relationship between, Christian and Capt. Bligh this nasty mean dude who looks like my turd on a Wednesday. I really didn't think I would like this movie, because I don't like movies that have asshole characters in them, like All the King's Men, but I found that I really enjoyed it. I think what really did it for me was the character of Hititi. The chief of the island of Tahiti, it was like the little bit of fun and laughter the movie needed. I also liked the weird but hilariously pathetic boatswain ( I believe thats what they call the boats janitor). I don;t even remember his name to be honest but the performance was unforgettable. One thing however was I didn't understand why the last guy Byam, best friend to Gable's character got a Oscar nod when he was forgettable. Furthermore I had a real problem with the ending of the movie. I understand it was mutiny but the officers didn't deserve to be hanged. That made me upset because Bligh deserved to die in the sea! I swear he should have been ripped to bits! And then he should regenerate and they do it again all over again!!! He is one nasty piece of work. This is the second movie that won best picture for Clark Gable.

Day 35: It Happened One Night

It Happened one Night: 1934: Winner of the 7th Academy Award

Starring:

Clark Gable as Peter Warne

Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews

Walter Connolly as Alexander Andrews

Roscoe Karns as Oscar Shapeley

Jameson Thomas as "King" Westley

Alan Hale as Danker

Arthur Hoyt as Zeke

Blanche Friderici as Zeke's wife

Charles C. Wilson as Joe Gordon

Wow,  Claudette Colbert, show your gams girl! I never knew that the showing of the leg to get some  male traveler to stop was from this gem from the mid -thirtes. Starring two of the greatest actors of the time, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. Gable has also popped out on “Mutiny on the Bounty” and the very small movie “Gone with the Wind.”  Although in this one he plays a lovelorn sailor, I mean a lovelorn gambler, I mean a lovelorn journalist. Ah yes that’s the ticket. Well he is a down on his luck journalist who finds himself riding on the same bus to New York with a millionaire’s daughter who in her discontent has run away from home.  So he takes her on after she loses her luggage and any material possession she may own.  As per diem she falls in love with him and it’s a bit of a cat and chase movie until the end.    I saw this movie in the Sex and the City 2 movie actually. The very first scene where Carrie and Big are at the Hotel after Stanford’s wedding. They watch the movie and Carrie says Claudette Colbert is “pretty” (sorry I don’t think so.) I like Clark Gable in this movie I really do. It might actually be my favorite. But considering I have only watched.. umm three Clark Gable movies not sure if that stands. Also I had a bit of a marathon watched all three Clark Gable included movies, so saw his many facets and could see why he was so loved by studios. Even though I will say his justification air of authority annoyed me in Mutiny on the Bounty. 

It also won awards for :

Best Picture :Columbia Pictures (Frank Capra and Harry Cohn)

Best Director: Frank Capra

Best Actor :Clark Gable

Best Actress: Claudette Colbert

Best Writing, Adaptation: Robert Riskin

Day 34: Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind:1938: Winner of the 12th Academy Award

Starring:

Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

Clark Gable as Rhett Butler

Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes

Olivia de Havilland as Melanie Hamilton

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy

Thomas Mitchell as Gerald O'Hara

Barbara O'Neil as Ellen O'Hara

Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara

Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara

George Reeves as Stuart Tarleton

Fred Crane as Brent Tarleton

Oscar Polk as Pork

Butterfly McQueen as Prissy

Victor Jory as Jonas Wilkerson

Howard Hickman as John Wilkes

Alicia Rhett as India Wilkes

You will at one point in your life watch this movie. Guaranteed, if you don’t watch it at school then you shall watch it on AMC. If you don’t have cable you will most surely see it on Netflix. And if you don’t have that you may watch it on some other movie. Maybe not all of it but enough to strike your fancy and so then you shall watch it in entirety. I watched it when I was 13 after I read “Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” The movie was so riveting and so new for its  time no wonder it won a bajillion awards. Although true “The Wizard of Oz” was also nominated for the Best Picture award it lost. There was no competition for this.  This movie not only sweeps in awards it sweeps in time. It also provided America with it’s exit line. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”  Rhett Butler don’t we all want him, nobody wanted that pansy of an Ashley! Scarlett was out of her damn jealous mind. And Milly that kind hearted soul.  The story of how the civil war riveted the south how it changed it people and the struggle of one beautiful girl who with determination and a helping of ugly prevailed and got to keep her land.

It also won awards for:

Best Director: Victor Fleming

Best Actress :Vivien Leigh

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sidney Howard

Awarded posthumously

Best Supporting Actress: Hattie McDaniel

Received a miniature "Oscar" statuette on a plaque

Best Cinematography, Color: Ernest Haller and Ray Rennahan

Best Film Editing :Hal C. Kern and James E. Newcom

Received a miniature "Oscar" statuette on a plaque, replaced with a regular statuette in 1962

Best Art Directiion : Lyle Wheeler