“The Prince and the Showgirl” (1957)
The film for which the making of forms the backdrop of “My Week With Marilyn,” Laurence Olivier‘s “The Prince and the Showgirl” is, like many of the films in which Monroe gave her best performances, far from a classic, but perhaps worth evaluating now that it’s back in the headlines. Penned by “The Deep Blue Sea” writer Terence Rattigan (whose frequent themes of repression and thwarted love lend a little texture to the film’s glossiness), based on his play “The Sleeping Prince,” it follows Elsie (Monroe), a chorus girl in London in 1911, who catches the attention of Prince Charles of Carpathia (Olivier), who’s in town for the coronation of King George V. Whisked off to the Carpathian embassy, she soon discovers that Charles’ young son, the King-in-waiting, is planning a coup, which she manages to thwart, helping to bring democracy to the nation. It’s an odd, uneven mix of rom-com and political intrigue, and Olivier (who rarely directed on screen again, having being maddened by his co-star — and the lack of chemistry shows a little) can’t quite get it all on the same page. But despite troubles in her personal life during filming (as seen in “My Week With Marilyn”), Monroe is a delight, typically warm and sexy, while able to play a little cannier than she was usually allowed to. To match up to a man often called the greatest actor of the 20th century is no mean feat, but she pretty much blows him off the screen — one wonders if his emnity partly stemmed from that. While the film doesn’t have an awful lot more to recommend it, besides Jack Cardiff‘s typically lush photography and Sybil Thorndike‘s witty performance as the Dowager Queen, it’s worth it to see a prime, late-period turn from its star.
“The Misfits” (1961)
So if “Some Like It Hot” is a film so robust it can absorb the supernova-level starriness of Monroe and emerge intact, perhaps “The Misfits” is that film’s mirror image: here too, we get a star-studded ensemble in front of the camera and big names behind it, and here too, we have a monochrome Monroe playing a been-around-the-block gal reaching out for a probably doomed love. But, aside from the massive tonal/genre disparity between the films, the truth is “The Misfits,” despite some career-best performances, verges on the tedious — it is only in its real-life context that it truly grips the imagination. Because, well, what a context. Written for Monroe by her then-husband, famed playwright Arthur Miller, it co-starred her childhood idol Clark Gable, was shot by an ever-inebriated John Huston, from a script that Miller was constantly rewriting, even as his marriage to Monroe crumbled (is it any wonder the film, with its concerns of loss, aging, dissolution and the fragility of human connection, cannot escape the metatextuality of its origins?) And if that weren’t enough, “The Misfits” also has the dubious legacy of being the last completed film of both Gable (himself the biggest star of his day) and Monroe, lending the already portentous themes extra tragic resonance. Still, within the film, there is much to admire: the script meanders but is never unintelligent; the photography of swirling dust and snorting mustangs is evocative and darkly beautiful; Gable, playing a craggy, slightly broken has-been, gives one of those beautiful, seemingly self-aware grace-note performances; and Marilyn, despite notorious lateness, breakdowns, hiatuses and looming divorce, is at her glimmering, tender best. But even so, it’s her death that casts the longest shadow, and it’s hard to resist ghoulishly reinterpreting the film in light of it. And here, at least, “The Misfits” does not disappoint. In a stroke of macabre serendipity, just moments before the film ends (with no credits, no outro, no “the end”), Marilyn delivers her goosebump-raising last words in a feature film: “How do you find your way back in the dark?”
Honorable Mentions: Of those early supporting turns, it’s “The Asphalt Jungle” and “All About Eve” that make the most impact, the former as Louis Calhern‘s beguilling mistress in John Huston‘s excellent noir, the latter as an aspiring actress, a graduate of “The Copacabana School of Dramatic Art.” Her supporting performance in Howard Hawks‘ “Monkey Business,” with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers, released just before she became a star, is also worth checking out.
She reteamed with Hawks, joined by Jane Russell, to far greater effect on “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” arguably the film that cemented her stardom, even if the film doesn’t hold a candle to “Some Like It Hot,” something doubly true of the same year’s “How To Marry A Millionaire,” although the central trio of Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall is undeniable. Finally, she was nominated for a Golden Globe for “Bus Stop,” as a small-town singer who’s borderline-stalked by a rodeo rider. The film is a somewhat uncomfortable watch, but it’s a good showcase of Monroe’s range. – Jessica Kiang & Oliver Lyttelton
