Best Marilyn FILM? Best Marilyn PERFORMANCE?

Honestly in MY personal opinion Marilyn's best film was either How to Marry a Millionaire or Some Like it Hot, despite naysayers who despise her, the woman had comedic skills and was more than just a ditz.

Her best performance has got to be The Misfits. Despite being panned and her despising the role that Arthur Miller wrote for her, she showed so much range; she was more than just a comedic eye candy and typecast as a sexpot, she had depth. No one can deny that.

You mustn't give your heart to a wild thing

I think her best movie was probably "Some Like it Hot"... It was funny and entertaining.

Her best performance was in "Clash by Night". Her role was small, but she turned in an understated, natural performance as a cannery worker. A close second to that performance would be her role as Peggy Martin in "Ladies of the Chorus". She was very young and "green" in this early role, but she was charming and very watchable. And her singing voice was sweet!

film - Some Like It Hot
performance - Don't Bother To Knock

All around best performance is probably "The Prince and the Showgirl" although the film is hard to get through. She is superb in every way, an extraordinarily deft, lively, charming turn, that won her best actress awards from Italy and France.

"Bus Stop" is another great performance in yet another sub-par film that has not aged well. Most fabulous and entertaining movie is "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." That one actually gets better as time goes on. It's perfect. She's marvelous in "Some Like It Hot" but so very much objectified. Sugar is a supporting role, and while she lifts the film and humanizes it, it is a back-step from what were real leading lady roles in "Prince..." and "Bus Stop."

"The Misfits" is a disaster. Poorly written and she has no concept of how to play Miller's idealized version of herself--a self who is also condescended to, humiliated and dismissed throughout the movie. The scene with "Roslyn's" old pin-up photos on the inside of the closet door pretty much sums up what Miller and Huston thought of her. How sad that she submitted to that moment. I recall seeing the film in the early 1970's, and the audience gasped in shock--dismayed shock---when MM opened that door, and we see her famous 1950s publicity pix. And there, on-screen, was an older, plumper MM. Who thought that was a good idea, or funny?

Best film: Some Like It Hot. ___She is the obvious star in more ways than one. Without her it would not be one of the greatest films ever made.

Best Performance: The Misfits and Don't Bother To Knock.
___Two dramas ten years apart, Marilyn's acting ability is jarringly versatile.
___Comedy; Again SLIH, and The 7 Year Itch.
___As much pain as it caused him, Billy Wilder got the best out of MM
___In 1962 he is quoted in a rather negative overall magazine article from Show Business Illustrated:
"I can tell you my mouth is watering to have her in another picture. The idea that she may be slipping is like saying marble is out of fashion when 100 sculptors are just waiting to get their chisels in a choice piece. The greatest thing about Monroe is not her chest. It is her ear. She is a master of delivery. She can read comedy better than anyone else in the world..."

Dear Dorian---

Wilder never could make up his mind on her. For years after her death he either called her "the meanest woman I ever met in Hollywood," or cry that she was no longer alive to make films. Apparently, he was somehow offended by the "cult" of MM that grew after her death. As if anybody really cared one way or another what he thought. And I am not so sure on the "pain" she caused him. I think they were both power-tripping during "SLIH." And she was pregnant again. There were no major problems, other than her already legendary tardiness, during "The Seven Year Itch." He would even praise her for preforming so well under the strain of the DiMaggio marriage collapsing. Of course, when she abandoned Hollywood, he joined in with everybody else, mocking her. (How many of Wilder's cruel 1954/55 remarks came back to her, as she worked on "Hot" I wonder?)

Marilyn herself was disappointed in her screen time in "Some Like It Hot." She wrote to her friend Norman Rosten about it, after the premiere. Rosten seemed to agree that there should have been more of her, but tried to assure her she was fabulous anyway. And yet ,with screen time on her mind, how could she have accepted a REALLY minor role in "Let's Make Love." It boggles the mind. As if Arthur Miller knew a thing about writing comedy?! His lines for her are absurd, like a rough draft of "The Misfits." And her character has nothing to do. During production of "The Misfits" she would say in an interview that "Let's Make Love" was incredibly difficult because: "There was absolutely nothing for that girl to do!"

Marilyn was depressed over the Show Business Illustrated story--which was one of quite a few suggesting that she was fading. But when she accidentally ran into the author of the piece--an old friend--she said, "Do you really believe what you wrote? Do you think my career is over?" He was embarrassed, and MM let him off the hook. She laughed: "Oh, forget it. I'm sure that's just the way they wanted the story to read."

Dear Denis,
___The SBI article was horrible, using somewhat old photos and an extremely negative slant that graduates to ending upbeat and flattering. I certainly see how upsetting the article would be to Marilyn. To top off the ugly article, they even published her address, causing her to move prematurely into the Helena address before the remodeling was done. The empty look shocked everyone when she died, and was even used in documentaries to show she was a drug addict who didn't care about her surroundings. Such evil garbage. The press was really nipping at her heals that last year, it had to be very stressful.
Dorian

Dear Dorian--

"nipping at her heels?" Honey, they were trying to rip her head off!

Yeah, more furniture arrived at the Brentwood house the very day of her death. But several of the rooms were already nicely done, and photographed at the time of her passing. However, she was never, ever going to favor a luxurious bedroom, a movie star type of boudoir. The bedroom was just this place she went to TRY and go to sleep. But the clutter of the bedroom fit the scenario, and so that's what the press focused on.

What she had already done with the place looked charming. Richard Meryman, who conducted the last Life magazine interview, said that the most surprising thing about her was her good taste in the art, sculpture and furniture that she did have, when he spoke with her.