Was ATROCIOUS in this film. Dear God it was a challenge for me to even sit through the first half knowing I would have to endure more of her shrill whiny accent. For some reason it's supposed to be her best performance but I highly disagree. I think her best performance will always be the Misfits. In this movie she overacted and her accent was just too terrible for words.
shareBeing a Southern girl myself, her accent sounded like a deaf backwoods hick with a cold - If I didn't know better, I would have thought I was listening to Mystery Science Theater 3000! Pure-tee hilarious!! I love Marilyn Monroe, but alas, her dialect was distracting...
shareShe sounded like Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias.
shareWell that might be true...but this was a point in time when she started to use her normal voice in movies, not her deep breathy seductive voice that she is famous for. In this movie she was using her normal voice plus a southern accent which is somewhat harmful to the ears.
shareWell, Marilyn was a California girl so her attempt at a southern accent is forgiven.
...why thank you ever so, I never buy insurance. - Lorelei Lee
Her accent is strong, but it is consistent! She does not waver. Unlike Elizabeth Taylor, whose Southern girls always slip into actressy faux, British, that MGM style they were all taught. And if you want a bad, strong Southern accent, check out La Liz in "Raintree County."
I think Marilyn played Cherie as totally unrefined, used-up, truly dumb. Cherie was from the Ozarks, no matter how she tried to style herself as seductive "chanteuse." Although she DIDN'T like Bo calling her "Cherry" I love when she says, "Well, it's just not...dignified." Great moment, great expression on her face.
I just saw this movie last week, and I must (alas) disagree with the "consistent" contention. :( I'm from Louisiana and I thought her accent was all *over* the place (and not just the various southern states). Sorry, but I just found it incredibly irritating!
shareI lied...it's definitely Mae from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
shareIt was pretty bad, but I love the part where she says "Why he aint got no manners at all!!"
shareIt only bothered me when she started singing. I thought it badly affected her singing voice, which is otherwise fairly good.
Pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'cos its bugger all down here on Earth.
Her singing was to sound "bad" in this film on purpose; the character of Cherie was supposed to be really no good at her chanteuse act.
I thought her accent was pretty good; she was supposed to sound "stupid" and "hick-like".
d i v e t o b l u e
http://kaitouace.deviantart.com
I support her performance, too! We live practically next door to the Ozarks, and I've traveled in that region many times and talked to a variety of people. Marilyn's accent is dead on perfect! I laugh so much every time I see "Bus Stop" especially because I have met girls who speak in that high-pitched voice with that cadence and pronunciations. It's a delightful sound to me, so it's sad to hear that others can't appreciate it. She did an amazing job and should have earned an Oscar nomination over Don Murray. I can't understand attacking her accent or anything else about her performance. Too pale? She's a night-shift worker! Too shabby? She's a poor performer, lucky to get work in bars/night clubs. She did a remarkable job bringing this character to life.
(I defend his performance because he IS supposed to be an over-the-top, bursting-with-good-health young man, sort of a bull in the china shop scenario. He's not used to being around people, just cattle!)
~~MystMoonstruck~~
You are tight on, cynsemele. Although I dont' think she's is a great actress, not eve very good, in Bus Stop she was fanstastic . . . and so was her accent!
www.joekeck.com
Having lived in the south for about 10 years, I'd say the accent is pretty terrible.
It sounds like she's either A) Deaf or B) suffering from some sort of speech impediment. I never met anyone in the south who sounded anything at all like her.
"Dumb and hicklike?" Wow... that's not stereotypical at all. Northerners equate a southern accent with ignorance and stupidity... and they can't even tell a genuine one from a horrible fake. So tell me, who is ignorant here?
To openseason88
Apparenty, we're a little confused on our regional dialects, aren't we.
You said she didn't have a Southern accent, and your perspicasity with regard to that point specifically would be admirable . . . if it weren't for you ignorance of the original point you were feebly attempting to make.
Yes, she did not have a Southern accent . . . that's because her character didn't come from The South. She came from the Ozarks. When last I checked, Arkansas, Missouri, and parts of Oklahoma are not The South. And as far as a Hillbilly accent goes, Monroe's as Cheri was impeccable. Recall if you would, her boss at the club even calling her a "Hillbilly."
Learning, it's a life long job for us all.
www.joekeck.com
I lived in KY. it bordered Missouri. They're obviously different areas, but the accents are more similar than you'd expect. Just like KY had the appalacians, Missouri has the Ozarks. I had friends from missouri that sounded a fair bit like the people I knew in kentucky.
I never once met anyone while I was travelling through Missouri or Arkansas (did it a fair number of times) that sounded like Marilyn Monroe did. The old people occasionally would, but it was still pretty far off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yljP2qyk6BU
This is what I think of when I think of what a hillbilly from Missouri sounds like. Sounds a lot like a hillbilly from eastern kentucky, really.
No need to be so derisive/combative.
We can disagree. Perhaps you've been to some areas that I haven't. My suspicion, however, is that Marilyn tried to do a fairly generic southern accent and missed the mark.
openseason88 -
I didn't intend to be derisive nor combative. I was attempting humor. I guess I failed. My apologies for that.
However, my point still stands. You said in your previous post, "Having lived in the south for about 10 years . . ." and "I never met anyone in the south who sounded anything at all like her" and again, "Northerners equate a southern accent with ignorance and stupidity . . ."
I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm guessing you're assuming it is a Southern accent that Monroe used. It appears you have your teeth dug in on this one. Again, not to be demeaning, but you seem to hold onto your ignorance like a dog on a pantleg. You even reiterated in your post just prior to this one, "My suspicion, however, is that Marilyn tried to do a fairly generic southern accent . . ."
As I have clearly demonstrated, your "suspicion" is wrong. It wasn't a Southern accent she was trying to do. It was, again, an Ozark accent. And as I mentioned before, it was absolutely spot on! Even when she was in casual conversation she nailed it perfectly. I must admit, I was shocked at her abilities in this sphere of thespian requirements, as well as her overall capabilities in the role of Cheri. I would never have dreamed she could pull off such an amazing bit of work. She "Retired the role," which is my way of categorizing certain superlative acting performances (that's when someone's performance in a film is so perfect that it can't be bested unless it is literally identically duplicated). Think Maryl Streep in Sophie's Choice, Al Pacino in The Godfather I & II, Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and just about everything else he did.
But back to the point at hand. I appeal to you, for your own good as well as mine. Please, just admit that you were wrong in your assumption that it was a Southern accent that she was using in Bus Stop. And, if you cannot distinguish a Southern accent from an Ozark one, then I think we can be quite confident that you are not one to whom we should look for advise on accents. Yes?
www.joekeck.com
Marilyn's accent was dead on. She was meant to be a hillbilly. from the Ozarks.
Just because you don't often hear people talk that way any more does not mean they did not used to. Accents die out. With the spread of mass media, accents tend to soften around the edges.
Marilyn's accent was spot on. The criticisms of it generally come from people who state she was no actress in the first place. Even her most critical reviewers of the time praised her performance. Bosley Crowther - who was a pig - conceded her performance was excellent.
Thanks for the comment winter-1. Of course I agree with you, but if I may, I'd like to correct you on one one minor point. The accent hasn't died out in the Ozarks. If you go there, certain areas still have the very same sounds and regional dialectic articulations as Monroe displayed in her performance. That's why I was so impressed with the accent she employed as well as her acting.
I admit that such an outstanding performance from her was surprising, given the shortcomings of her previous performances in other films. But here, she indeed turned in an amazing performance. She in fact 'retired the role'. That's a term I use when an actor gives a performance that cannot be bettered.
www.joekeck.com
Thanks joekeck. i have never been to the USA let alone the Ozarks, so my opinion is a little uninformed. It was more by way of a general observation that, due to the spread of mass media, accents- -in some cases- do soften or disappear entirely. therefore people may watch old films and hear people speak in a way they do not recognise.
EXAMPLE: I live in Australia. If one views documentary footage from 60 years ago, people speak with a very broad "strine" that is seldom heard in this country anymore outside specific regional areas. This is due to changing times, the dominance of American entertainment culture and other factors. perhaps this is why so many actors get the Australian accent so wrong. The best example of an australian accent by a non australian (obviously) was Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke. sorry. little off point. but i hope you get what i mean
anyway. MARILYN WAS AWESOME
She's SUPPOSED to be a bad singer! Thats the point--she's so pathetic, thinking she can make it movies. Did you notice the sour expression the manager makes just before she comes on, like "watch out, this is bad!"
As for her regular singing voice, it was quite good.
She sounded like the kid who played young Forrest Gump.
shareI love what she did with the accent, it's a bit over the top--yet has this incredibly endearing and sincere quality to it, nonetheless. It also reminds my boyfriend and I of Tom Hanks' accent in Forest Gump, so now we wonder if he might have been inspired by it for his character.
shareI live in Oklahoma and I have heard a very similar accent from those who come from the ozark side of Oklahoma. I'm not originally from here but come from New Mexico and if anything is off in this film I would say her friend Vera shouldn't have a southern-y accent if she is from Arizona.
In many movies they always portray people from the desert southwest as having a hodge podge southern accent. Most people in the desert southwest don't really have an accent, except those who are bilingual spanish/english speaking. My mother doesn't speak spanish but because many of her extended family do, she has developed a spanglish english accent. Something that she didn't have when I was a kid, which is odd.
I don't know that Vera is supposed to be a native Arizonan because it isn't said one way or another... but I'm just assuming that she would have been.
Again that is all speculation.
Marylin was great and my kids and myself have really grown to esteem her acting.
If you look at the teleplay (which you can access on YouTube) she sounds very much like Kim Stanley who originated the role on stage. Not to take anything away from MM, but a lot of stars will do this when researching a part for the screen which originated somewhere else. Kim Stanley was magnificent but Marilyn had the charm and charisma to pull it off on screen.
shareWatching it now TCM. Heh, she sounds an awful lot like Gomer Pyle's g/f Lou Ann Poovie.
shareShe sounds like she is from the Ozark area. I have family in the Missouri-Oklahoma area, and some of them do speak that way. I have heard some people speak like that in Kansas too.
The Divine Genealogy Goddess