"What a Way to Go!" Stars, Style & No Substance

And the fashions are AMAZING! SO CHIC!

Edie

Hop, Hop, Hop to Hoppers!

It was all about the fashion, even the poster was designed around it.

Required her to get back in fighting shape...

"Oh no, Melrose..... I am SO sorry....." 🐂

OP Could it be any worse than 1965s John Goldfarb Please Come Home written by William Peter Blatty?

Typical Corden and Green with no music to save it.

I don't think I'll be seeing John Goldfarb anytime soon!

I liked Gambit...

I can’t believe this bitch got to spend a few years having sex with Robert Mitchum.

Here's a round up of Edith Head designs for Shirley MacLaine... a dry run for the over the top wardrobe for Lana in "Love Has Many Facelifts?"

r12 see r2

I wonder if this could get made today?

Comden and Green's humor completely failed them on this one.

Here's a very good copy of "What a Way to Go!" free on YouTube...

Herro...

Anyone ever see Woman Times Seven directed by Vittorio de Sica with Shirley playing all 7 women?

WAWTG was originally planned for Marilyn Monroe.

She would have made the material seem better than it is.

This piece of frou-frou was directed by someone who should have stayed in his lane.

Doing war movies and sex-maniac movies.

The Comden and Green story was beyond tired, and was their last feature film.

Marilyn didn't want to make this movie and the script lagged on a shelf for a couple of years before she died. The movie was better known for its glamour and the star cast when it came out but it looks remarkably cheap today except for the costumes. Shirley does her best in it.

Saw it as a kid. Seemed "sexy." I still love it.

Thanks R18! With a cast like that I have to see Woman Times Seven. Don't recall it being available on TCM. It's free on Amazon Prime. Just ordered it.

R19 Marilyn may have been a lousy actress but she had a bit more oomph than squeaky-voiced, flat-chested Kookey Shirley.

A lousy actress whose films made over $200 million over the course of her career. That's 2 BILLION adjusted into 2020 dollars.

She didn't make $200 million from her thespianism.

$50 million was from her left breast, $50 million was from her right breast, and I shall let you guess what brought the remainder.

Marilyn was incandescent on the screen and her acting abilities were yet to be fully demonstrated when she died but there are more than a few glimpses of it in films like Prince and the Showgirl.

I watched WAWTG when I was a young gayling and thought it was funny and entertaining and I still think so. Mitchum was so sexy in white tie!

I saw it as a gayling and thought it was embarrassingly bad. I tried watching it again I forget on what channel but it was even worse than I remembered. And I'm a big fam of Comden and Green but not even Shirley's wardrobe makes it watchable. Though I like her widow's outfit when she's lying on the couch in her therapist's office.

'fan'

Get the 4k of SITR.

Woman Times Seven is a weird concoction. Shirley was never believable as an European. She was the worst thing in Can Can playing French and doesn't fare any better playing an assortment of Italian and French women in WTS. Some of the segments are so short you wonder why they didn't make Woman Times Three instead.

Is that the one Patricia Routledge was in and claims Shirley acted very much the obnoxious star?

R34 No, that was The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom.

Why would a shrink need a couch that rises all the way up to the ceiling?

I don't think Marilyn refused it R23, it was one of several movies in discussion for her after her studio hired her back with a much more lucrative contract, just days before she died. Contrary to claims, her career was not in the shitter.

I wonder how Mitzi Gaynor would have faired in that role.

She certainly would have been a lot more fun in the dance segment with Gene Kelly at R5.

For some reason--probably because of her funny face--Shirley was always being cast in comedies, and she was rarely good in them ("Steel Magnolias" is a rare exception.) She was so much better in dramatic or tragicomic roles: "The Apartment," "Desperate Characters." "Terms of Endearment"...

I tried to watch that dreck because of this thread, but could only stomach the Gene Kelly sequence, and only because he was so hot and wonderful in it. It reminded me of a similar movie, the ghastly PENELOPE with Natalie Wood, and a slew of stars. painfully unfun, glossy, and badly written/directed/acted. Too many pills in Hollywood around that time

One of the weirdest things about the 60s were the sex comedies. Almost none of them dated very well at all.

[quote]One of the weirdest things about the 60s were the sex comedies. Almost none of them dated very well at all.

The genre started with the success of Pillow Talk in 1959. And compared to others, Doris's comedies have held up best.

Perhaps because the "sex" comedies were more like teases...

They are painfully embarrassing like The Impossible Years which is a family comedy and a sex comedy at the same time. You wonder what the hell everybody was thinking. And it was a hit Broadway show. I wonder if it was as bad as the movie. It was probably a big hit in summer stock. And then there was that comedy where Ethel Merman played a madam. And then there is The Secret Life of an American Wife...

[Quote]One of the weirdest things about the 60s were the sex comedies. Almost none of them dated very well at all.

with the glorious exception of Kubrick's Lolita (1962) and Mazursky's Bob&Carol&Ted&Alice (1969) 60s comedies were terrible and virtually anything with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Natalie Wood, Shirley Maclaine are a must to avoid.

[quote]I wonder how Mitzi Gaynor would have faired in that role.

Oh, dear.

Sex and the Single Girl has Wood and Tony Curtis and bunch of others, Curtis is also in Not With My Wife, You Don't!

"The Impossible Years " was the big Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall in 1968.

Unwatchable, op. I lost interest almost immediately and was really only interested in the over the top costumes. It's usually available on a streaming channel for free viewing.

I like most older and classic films except for this genre of goofy light comedies. There are a whole pile that feature Jack Lemon that also manage to irritate me. I can sometimes make it through for the cars and set designs, but it’s pretty tedious watching.

There’s something about really obvious and cheesy plot devices and this mannered type of acting that just reads so phony and so boring today.

I don't even like the music used in this film. I can't tell you what the story is because I never managed to watch this in it's entirety.

Blake Edward's The Great Race (1965) starring Lemon, Curtis and Wood is perhaps the epitome of over-produced 60s comedy. The slapstick is endless and unfunny with the screens longest pie throwing scene. Even the overly long It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad (1963) World is funnier.

Shirley had surprisingly nice tits but her face

I never really understood how Shirley became a star in the 50's, she was so homely and bland, esp in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. while she was great in the 70s. She's never thought of as a golden age star, though.

She’s great in The Apartment. Lots of nuance.

I always liked her sweet face.

Til I learned she was a huge cunt. (Still mostly a fan)

[quote]virtually anything with Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon, Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Natalie Wood, Shirley Maclaine are a must to avoid.

"Lover Come Back" is a well regarded comedy.

"Move Over, Darling", "The Thrill of It All", "Send Me No Flowers", "Pillow Talk" all have their charms. They're still fun to watch.

[Quote]"Move Over, Darling", "The Thrill of It All", "Send Me No Flowers", "Pillow Talk" all have their charms. They're still fun to watch.

They are also belabored, contrived and feel like extended sitcoms

[quote]Blake Edward's The Great Race (1965) starring Lemon, Curtis and Wood is perhaps the epitome of over-produced 60s comedy. The slapstick is endless and unfunny with the screens longest pie throwing scene.

How very dare you!

I actually liked "What a Way To Go." And another favorite of that era was the Jack Lemmon (it's LEMMON, people, not LEMON)-Romy Schneider-Dorothy Provine-Mike Connors "Good Neighbor Sam."

Some of these actually have good light jazz like scores by people like Neil Hefti and David Grusin.

But this one by Nelson Riddle isn't one of them.

Lousy screenplay but the costumes! Edith Head was a genius.

When she was doing her own work and not stealing credit and Oscars!

I was a kid when I saw this; I laughed so hard at the coffin scene my mom made me leave the room

I was always a hysterical child.

And smarmy underneath trying to hint the sex they couldn't do: Sunday in New York is all about who is going to bust Jane Fonda's hymen.

Under the Yum Yum Tree is another icky one, as is There's a Girl in My Soup.

R59 believe me it's LEMON and the belabored Good Neighbor Sam (1964) is a lemon as well. Filled with endless product placement and directed by David Swift who is anything but. At 2h10m the film is easily 30 minutes too long. It has all the style and ambience of an episode of Bewitched.

[quote] Sunday in New York is all about who is going to bust Jane Fonda's hymen.

Yuck!

Janey was a brainless little sex-pot in those days.

I've never seen it but Never Too Late sounds pretty bad. Everybody getting upset because Paul Ford fucked Maureen O'Sullivan. Which is understandable but still...

add to the endless list of tired comedies from the 60s

Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? The Glass Bottom Boat, With Six You Get Eggroll all starring Doris Day

Billy Wilder's Irma la Douce and Kiss Me, Stupid

Luv, A Guide for the Married Man

The Odd Couple with Lemmon and Matthau which is inferior to the 70s sitcom

Tall Story, Period of Adjustment and Any Wednesday with Jane Fonda

Dean Martin in How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life, Who's Got the Action, Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed, Marriage on the Rocks, Robin and the Seven Hoods . . .

growing up in the 70s these films were frequently shown on TV

[quote] I never really understood how Shirley became a star in the 50's, she was so homely and bland, esp in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.

She was a precursor to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype. The sexy "kooky" girl who could show you a good time, but was still too fresh-faced and like the girl next door to be threatening.

When I met Barbara Hershey, I said I'd been a fan since I saw " With Six You Get Eggroll" and she literally rolled her eyes and we both laughed. Didn't get he impression she was a fan of it.

[quote] The Odd Couple with Lemmon and Matthau which is inferior to the 70s sitcom

You're fucking insane.

Shirley is not homely. Nobody who’s a Hollywood actor can be called homely, maybe average looking, but not homely. She was a very very good actress for a long time, much better than most of her contemporaries.

[Quote] You're fucking insane.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I saw the series before the film. But the film is dreary, and I prefer the pairing of Klugman and Randall. Lemmon is annoying in the film above and beyond the requirements of the role.

Such a guilty pleasure these early '60' films. Before "the new Hollywood" of the late '60's early '70's. Although much better, many classic films, some of these earlier pictures were great stupid fun.

[quote] Nobody who’s a Hollywood actor can be called homely...

[Quote]I never really understood how Shirley became a star in the 50's, she was so homely and bland, esp in THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.

Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1958) with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra put MacLaine on the map. Shirley received her first Oscar nod. Her role is similar to Charity Valentine in Sweet Charity

Shirley was a moll in Frankie's RatPack.

[quote]believe me it's LEMON

That gentleman is no relation of mine, I can assure you.

Well, I for one like this film a lot. I found it to be adequately humorous, and a fine representation of what passed as a mid 1960's comedy film. SO NAA!! 😝

I have a real taste for bad 60s comedies as I was a boy at the time and there is a big nostalgia factor for me. But even as a boy I thought this was terrible and it is impossible to rewatch. I've tried.

[quote]They are also belabored, contrived and feel like extended sitcoms

As opposed to the delightful sophisticated comedies of today.

I LOVED What A Way To Go! One of the best comedies of the era!

[Quote] As opposed to the delightful sophisticated comedies of today.

No, they are trite, pointless, flat and unfunny without need for comparison and are vastly inferior to Trouble in Paradise, Some Like It Hot, Smile (1975), Miracle at Morgan's Creek, Tootsie, The Graduate, Young Frankenstein, The Gold Rush . . .

Shirley had a very nice body....great long beautiful legs. The costumes make up for the silly movie, especially in the scenes with Mitchum.

[Quote]Although much better, many classic films, some of these earlier pictures were great stupid fun.

WTF!?

This was the only movie I ever walked out on. It was so stupid and a waste of talents.

I think "Sunday in New York", besides the Doris Day sex comedies mentioned, holds up pretty well. There's even a joke about masturbation in "Sunday in New York" where Jane Fonda says her boyfriend says he's wants to have sex with her because he's "tired of playing handball at the gym". Rod Taylor is especially wonderful and sexy in that; the scene where he starts to get into with with Jane, before he finds out that she's a "beginner", it seems like Rod as his character is really showing off his pre-foreplay technique. Cliff Robertson and Robert Culp are fun in the movie too. "Barefoot in the Park" is pretty adorable too.

[quote] There's even a joke about masturbation in "Sunday in New York" where Jane Fonda says her boyfriend says he's wants to have sex with her because he's "tired of playing handball at the gym".

Females can masturbate there too.

I’d rather watch WAWTG than the endless mindless superhero films and sequels that Hollywood pumps out now

Even as a kid watching it on the late show, I knew he was prettier than her.

Egads! I forgot how many of these horrible "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" comedies existed. This one was the worst, I think. Billy Wilder should have retired after "The Apartment," Kim Novak was no Marilyn, Ray Walston no Jack Lemmon, etc. A 2 hour Playboy joke... My post-mortem here...

Irma la Douce 1963

2h 27m

When a policeman falls in love with a prostitute, he doesn't want her seeing other men and creates an alter ego who's to be her only customer.

Wilder followed the Apartment with Irma la Douce (1963) which reteamed MacLaine and Lemmon in an adaptation of the Broadway musical minus the music. At 2h27m it's a long, unfunny slog. It was however a huge hit and MacLaine received an Oscar nomination. Lemmon flounders in a role that would have been ideal for Peter Sellers.

[Quote]I’d rather watch WAWTG than the endless mindless superhero films and sequels that Hollywood pumps out no

I'd rather read a good book than watch any of that shit.

As a little gayling I busted some of my first masturbatory cums thinking of that scene where Robert Mitchum is stripped naked of his evening clothes on a table and taken in hand by a posse of gorgeous show girl types. IIRC the scene ends before it gets too explicit but my imagination nevertheless ran away with me under my covers later in bed.

I remember a big tie in with this film to the 1964 New York World's Fair with a subway line that had been installed to take passengers directly to the Fair's entrance in Queens. The subways were painted in sort of psychedelic pinks patterns and it was all themed: "What a Way to Go to The World's Fair!"

One truly great "sex comedy" from the early 60s was PLEASE DON'T EAT THE DAISIES based on Jean Kerr's theatrical memoir about her marriage with theatre critic Walter Kerr and their move to the wilds of the Connecticut suburbs.

It's really the only Day film of that era that I think truly holds up well, with a great cast including David Niven, Richard Haydn, Spring Byington, Patsy Kelly and the fabulous Janis Paige who steals every scene she's in. Doris becomes part of a local CT community theatre group and even gets to sing a cute number or two.

As a horny gayling, I would jerk off to the Paul Newman shirtless segment.

Please Don't Eat the Daisies was passed off as a family film and even was the Easter movie at Radio City. I was watching it on TV thinking WTF?

[R17]: “My Geisha” is sort of excruciating to sit through, but the film-within-a-film of “Madame Butterfly” is lovely and effective, completely eclipsing its surroundings. It also has a good underscore by film music great Franz Waxman.

As a boy I was taken to Radio City for the first time to see Any Wednesday. I loved it, the stage show and the theater and then after we went to Howard Johnson's. New York City! The city of That Girl. But then came the riots, the protests, the drugs, the prostitutes and everything else. Of course they always existed but this time the gloves came off.

Many years later a friend told me he watched AW on TV and it was horrible. I said no it was wonderful, the dazzling upper east side in the 60s and all those balloons in the air. Then I caught it and was like oh my god this really is pretty bad.

[quote]and the fabulous Janis Paige who steals every scene she's in.

Payback for "Romance on the High Seas," where Doris (in her film debut) stole the movie from Janis.

Rotten movie. Seriously over the top in terms of costumes and sets. The actors all drowned in it. Paul Newman and Robert Mitchum in a comedy? Lol.

And don't forget the sweet innocent Doris who in her bus band days probably slept with more musicians than a 16 year old groupie in the late 60s stole The Pajama Game as well.

[R90]: “Kiss Me, Stupid” might have been a lot better, had originally cast star Peter Sellers not had a heart attack during filming. Though the resulting publicity got people’s attention, the replacement casting of Ray Walston didn’t do it any favors.

I believe Irma was Wilder's last big success. And that was many many years before his career finally died. I don't think I was able to watch the whole thing I had to turn it off.

What's insane about Irma was that it was a musical, and the studio/Wilder took all the songs out... and it's still 2.5 hours! Made it through an hour of American actors playing French and gave up...

R102 who was the guy who said that he knew Doris before she was a virgin?

This genre of film I can't understand. Luv, starring Jack Lemmon and Peter Falk is also unwatchable.

Fedora

Oscar Levant.

I think it's worth it for Elaine, r107.

No, even her genius is unable to save this.

There was a really stupid movie with Tony Curtis that ended with a beach house in Malibu that was demolished by a mudslide. It had one of those awful European starlets in it.

Elke? Virna? Romy?

(^.^) Don't Make Waves (1967) with Sharon Tate

R112, “Don’t Make Waves”. Sharon Tate had a supporting role.

Oscar Levant also commented how Debbie Reynolds dominated so endearingly and that Elizabeth Taylor was always the bride, never the bridesmaid...

"Luv" is a very good three-person play, while the film version pretty much screwed it up with Jack Lemmon over-acting (perhaps as directed to do so). May is fine, but Peter Falk is quite good -- not directed to overplay things.

Lemmon also is over the top in "Under the Yum Yum Tree" with Carol Lynley and Dean Jones, but he's good opposite Virna Lisi in "How to Murder Your Wife" in which the director somehow kept him more under control.

Janis Paige also is superb in "Silk Stockings". She was especially good at showy, comedic roles, but the studios early on didn't think of her that way. She was very pretty, but she actually could have done the Doris Day part in "Romance" and done the comedy just great. Of course, Doris' vocals on "It's Magic" are truly magical, so I'm glad that part worked out all right. At least Janis got to see John Raitt shirtless every night on stage during the finale of "The Pajama Game", but she must have been a very enjoyable Babe Williams in the show.

Some of Billy Wilder's "Avanti" is kind of fun, but it is way overlong. Juliet Mills is cute (and was by contract order to gain weight for the role), and Jack Lemmon and she was nude in it, if you ever wanted to see Jack Lemmon backally naked and "Nanny and the Professor" 's tits, as well as Clive Reville from your "Oliver!" OCR (not nude, but in a role on screen).

Clive Revill, that is -- he was also in the stage musical of "Irma" which Wilder kind of screwed up by not making into a musical -- it has a really good score by the Marguerite Monnot, who wrote a lot of Edith Piaf's songs.

Personally I can't imagine why anybody would want to see Juliet Mills and Jack Lemmon naked. I would be so embarrassed for them. But that's just me.

Didn't Clive Reviill create the role of Fagin the musical of Oliver? I believe I heard that he and Georgia (Nancy) Brown couldn't stand each other.

Didn't he create it on Broadway? Did he in the original in London as well?

It's hard to fathom what could have happened to Billy Wilder in the 1960s and onward. The man who created Double Indemnity, The Major and the Minor, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, to mention only a few, really hit a brick wall and never recovered. Sad.

I do love One, Two, Three but I know it's far from a classic.

Wilder's The Fortune Cookie (1966) with the first teaming of Lemmon and Matthau isn't bad. Matthau won the supporting actor Oscar.

Dietrich complained about his low class wife (as a negative influence) and their low class television viewing habit, r123.

A director who directed so many great films, is allowed to fall off, imo.

Ron Moody played Fagin in London. I don't know why he didn't do the Broadway production. Maybe he was making one of those wonderful Miss Marple films with Margaret Rutherford at the time?

Wait! Now I'm wondering of it was Ron Moody and Georgia Brown who detested each other? And that was why he didn't do OLIVER on Broadway?

"One, Two, Three" is hilarious with DL fave Arlene Francis as wonderful James Cagney's wife, and eye candy Horst Buchholz and Pamella Tiffin as the younger set. It's dated now because of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but still a lot of fun.

Pamela, that is.

James Cagney hated making One, Two, Three so much it caused his retirement. He refused to even see it. Asked why he wouldn't see it he said, 'I never want to see Horst Bucholz again.'

Buchholz

[Quote] “Don’t Make Waves”. Sharon Tate had a supporting role.

Her bikini top certainly had a supporting role

That's a great catalog R68.

Goodbye Charlie probably belongs on this list too.

Shirley received a BAFTA nom and a Golden Globe nom for her girl-goes-to-the-city Julia Roberts-y romcom Ask Any Girl (1959) the year after Some Came Running. She was definitely a star by then.

[quote] Lemmon is annoying in the film above and beyond the requirements of the role.

Lemmon is annoying in every comedy he was ever in. He fared much better in some of his dramatic roles like Missing.

This thread has been taken over by Non-Americans expressing dislike over Mr Lemmon who we consider to be an icon of American thespianism.

I remember loving ASK ANY GIRL when I saw it on TV as a kid. It could almost be seen as THE APARTMENT from Fran Kubelik's point of view. Well....less bleaker than that. Nice to be reminded of it here.

Believe it or not, I fell in love with Shirley MacLaine as the Indian Princess Aouda in AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, one of the first films I ever saw. That casting must have seemed outrageous even in 1956.

Nobody knew her in 1956 and Americans were not as aware of ridiculous casting choices as they are today. Anne Baxter as Egyptian gun moll Nefretiri is from the same year.

Well....The 10 Commandments is filled with non-Egyptian actors, non-Semitic type actors, hardly the same issue. And the fact that Shirley wasn't a known name makes her casting even sillier. If she was a star, say Kim Novak, say Audrey Hepburn, you could ALMOST understand the casting better.

Of all the 60's romcoms I can only think of Lover Come Back, the second of the three Hudson/Day comedies, to hold up today and only because of it's genuinely witty dialogue. All the others look like mid or low(est) level TV sitcoms today.

"A Guide for the Married Man" (which has a catchy theme song by the Turtles) was a fun movie ... lots of cameos from people like Lucy, Joey Bishop, Jack Benny, Phil Silvers, Carl Reiner et al.

I finally saw The Thrill of It All on TV and realized I didn't miss a thing as a precocious teenaged gayling back in 1963, even as a big fan of Arlene Francis.

Arlene Francis' first big scene before the credits is like that of a prolonged orgasm -- at the news that she's pregnant!

The 'high' point of bad 60s comedies was 1968s Skidoo directed by Otto Preminger.

"I'm Beverly Boyer and I'm a pig" is a classic line, as are the cutaways to "A pig?", "A pig!", etc.

Marilyn Monroe was in talks to do "what a way to go" right after "something's got to give".... since WAWTG was a big box office hit with Maclaine, one would think it would have been even a bigger hit with Monroe, and presumably with the box office success of Something's got to give (ala the pool scene) Monroe after these 2 films would have been in high demand and her salary would have skyrocketed to rival Taylor's....

Monroe was also the first choice of Wilder to do "irma la duce" and "kiss me stupid" even though she was a pain in the ass to work with on "some like it hot" wilder knew there was only one marilyn.....There was also talk that Monroe would do a musical version of "a tree grows in brooklyn" with Sinatra....Would have like to have seen Marilyn also do the tv production of "RAIN" if she could have been convinced to give up lee strasberg (a.k.a. svengali grifter) as director...And of course if Strasberg really cared about Marilyn, he would HIMSELF have agreed to not direct and explained to Marilyn why, but he was a attention/star lover user don't think he would do this....

Typical Corden and Green with no music to save it.

R8 Almost as bad as Roberts and Hammerstein.

[Quote] This thread has been taken over by Non-Americans expressing dislike over Mr Lemmon who we consider to be an icon of American thespianism.

R134 apparently thinks it's un-American to have an opinion that differs from theirs

r145, was WAWTG a big box office hit? I thought it ultimately bombed.

I can't imagine Marilyn saving Irma or Kiss Me, Stupid. Those films would not have helped her legacy. And Marilyn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, presumably in Shirley Booth's Broadway role (Joan Blondell in the non-musical film)? I think MM would have been lost and also overwhelmed the material.

Marilyn had to do something like 4o or 50 takes to say the line, "It's me, Sugar", in Some Like It Hot, and she was a mess on The Misfits. She couldn't come to work to make Something Got To Give. She was basically through making movies. It only would have gotten worse.

R116, Oscar Levant hosted a “live” local Los Angeles evening talk show in the 1950s.

When it was announced that Marilyn had converted to the Jewish religion prior to marrying Arthur Miller, Oscar commented “Good, now he can eat her”.

That was his final show.

R140, Jayne Mansfield’s final film.

"What a Way to Go!" and "Irma La Douce" somehow made a lot of money... big stars, lavish productions, and "Irma" had been a hit Broadway musical. Marilyn COULD have been great in a lot of things, but she wasn't able to film a third of a movie piffle like "Something's Got to Give." Though Fox was going to give her another chance, I don't think the outcome would have been different. And can't imagine her issues being put up with while trying to work with multiple leading men and nearly a 100 costume changes...

R152, Dick Van Dyke was the weak link in WAWTG.

Nobody's mentioned "All in a Night's Work" which I think is one of the better 60's comedies, and Shirley is great in it. WAWTG is a major stinker, but a couple of segments from "Woman Times Seven" are pretty good and the last one, with Shirley and Anita Ekberg, is wonderful.

WAWTG was the 8th highest grossing film of 1964 along with My Fair Lady. #1 for the year was The Carpetbaggers.

[quote] The actors all drowned in it. Paul Newman and Robert Mitchum in a comedy?

Newman couldn't do comedy at all.

He was embarrassing in this failure.

Sex comedies of the early 60s were trying to be "naughty" buts stuck in a very 50s sort of sex, with very traditional sex roles.

As others have mentioned Maclaine excelled at "kooky" which should have been good for comedy but wasn't. Her later roles are mostly a brittle version of that which shows how she was more less better suited to drama.

An old story but worth repeating from an interview with Jack Lemmon. He said that during the filming of Some Like It Hot Billy Wilder took him and Tony Curtis aside and warned them that if Marilyn got a scene right he was printing it.

"the Impossible Years" was a dinner theater/strawhat circuit classic. Ozzie & Harriet Nelson toured in it.

They could print her decent takes because the camera lover her like no human could.

[quote] the camera loved her like no human could…

John Huston's camera in 'The Misfits' loved her.

At least three times in this arduously-long movie the camera zooms in to get a close-up, wide-screen shot of her derrière.

I saw the Misfits at Loew's Jersey and that huge star power filled the large screen quite nicely. And the chasing of the horses was exhilarating. None of that can be captured on a TV. I was surprised at how much I liked it. Sometimes, not always, films are a different experience in a movie theater.

The Misfits was panned by critics when it was first released. Even highbrow critics seemed not to get offbeat westerns, so not surprising. It's actually a pretty good film, not exactly a classic. It helps that the cast is rounded out by Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Monty was apparently as difficult as Marilyn. Gable fans blame Marilyn for Clark Gable's death soon afterward but I would guess that smoking and otherwise getting old were more important.

R163, Gable changed the tires on a truck/tractor on his property on a hot summer day and suffered a major heart attack a few hours later.

He was a heavy drinker and smoker throughout his adult years and looked older than 59 when he died.

Marilyn was not responsible for his death and Gable’s widow invited her to their son’s Christening, born after Gable died.

[Quote]Newman couldn't do comedy at all.

He was terrific in the sharp, profane comedy Slap Shot directed by George Roy Hill who directed Newman in The Sting and Butch Cassidy where he also showed a flair for comedy as well. Perhaps Lady L is to blame. “A silly, forgettable sex comedy that is a star vehicle for Sophia Loren.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Newman was never cast in a decent comedy so it's unfair to judge his comedic skills based on them. He was in that awful suburban sex comedy RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS with wife Joanne and Joan Collins. But don't blame him for its failure.

George Cukor's unfinished film Something's Got to Give with Marilyn Monroe became the Doris Day vehicle Move Over, Darling with Day playing the wife who's legally declared dead only to return as her husband is about to remarry.

Here's my take down on the making of "Something's Got to Give." The saga of it's making would make a fascinating movie in itself... but I think there's been enough MM bios for awhile!

My Favorite Husband…!

Enoch Arden!

R150 Thanks, I forgot he had that show and last night I watched one of them (only two still exist, I guess)- the one with Fred Astaire - or listened, as the picture of the one on YouTube is bad (worse than mere Kinescope-bad). My mom used to talk about that show. Oscar is a fav of mine from his movies. But what a nut he was on that show.

Newman was good at "character comedy" - maybe that's not the right term but it's how I would characterize Butch Cassidy's more comic parts, or Slap Shot. He was more of a character-actor comedian. He was bad at being a leading man in a comedy - for example, Rally Round The Flag, Boys - Jack Lemmon could have easily done that, or Glenn Ford. Newman wasn't funny (in my opinion) in The Prize - which required Cary Grant or David Niven-style quips. A New Kind Of Love (with Woodward) was another one he showed little talent for.

Rally Round the Flag, Boys, The Prize, A New Kind of Love - all terrible scripts that no leading man, not even Cary Grant could have saved.

Joan Collins REPEATEDLY cites “Rally” as her favorite film, yet it’s one that I’m sure Paul and Joanne would have rather forgotten.

R173 You're missing the point, probably deliberately. If Jack Lemmon was in a lousy comedy, you didn't suddenly think, "Jack Lemmon can't play comedy." You thought, "This movie isn't very good." With Newman in those films you thought, "He can't play comedy."

r175, but that's because Jack Lemmon appeared in a multitude of WELL-WRITTEN comedies, unlike Paul Newman. If Lemmon had only appeared in those 3 comedies of Newman's, I'm betting Lemmon's rep for comedic acting would not be very high.

And I don't mean to imply that Newman necessarily had the capacity to be a brilliant comedic actor. I'm only asserting that we'll never know because he never appeared in a well-written comedy. Can you not agree with that?

[quote] Well....The 10 Commandments is filled with non-Egyptian actors, non-Semitic type actors, hardly the same issue. And the fact that Shirley wasn't a known name makes her casting even sillier.

You're looking at this from a 21st century perspective. In 1956, studios cast Americans in 99% of ethnic roles because there were no ethnic leading ladies and because they would have never endorsed a biracial relationship, so SM's casting in AtWi80D makes perfect sense, for its time.

R176 No, actually, I don't agree with it. Newman's lack of comedy chops has always been obvious. Lemmon's gift is obvious. If you had put Charlton Heston in better comedies, would he have been a better comedian? No. Would Paul Newman have been good as Ensign Pulver in MIster Roberts, or Felix Unger in the Odd Couple, or in the lead of The Apartment? No.

Paul Newman was not funny and couldn't play funny. Period.

The only really good sequence in the film is the Gene Kelly one. If the movie is on TV I'll watch that part. Comden and Green knew how to write for Gene, as they proved a few times. I think the Mitchum sequence was originally supposed to have starred Sinatra.

I didn't even know Paul Newman starred in this, and I love the movies he made. This one I can't tolerate, not entertaining.

R179 Yes. We can't masturbate and laugh at the same time.

R176: A little Lemmon went a long way. He's best in his Billy Wilder films because Wilder couldn't take his overacting. He was often awful in dramas unless his sanctimonious hamminess added to the role as it did in Glengarry Glen Ross.

Paul Newman was pretty funny in that clip with James Dean, telling him that he couldn’t kiss him on camera.

And that was the end of Paul Newman's funnyman career.

For me Lemon's career ended with the Odd Couple. In The Out of Towners he is unbearable and you're supposed to find the guy sympathetic and funny. Honestly if somebody pushed him in front of a subway at the end you would consider it a happy ending.

And like Burnett he is an embarrassingly bad dramatic actor. It's astounding the two of them didn't make a drama together to show their acting chops. It would have been the ultimate hate watch film. A remake of Virginia Woolf would have been perfect.

[quote]She couldn't come to work to make Something Got To Give. She was basically through making movies.

This documentary from Fox explains why SGTG was doomed from the start. Bonus, you get to see some of her performance in the restored footage.

[quote] . Contrary to claims, her career was not in the shitter.

She was scheduled to start reshooting "Something's Got To Give" and suppposedly had other projects in the works. But it seems doubltful that she would have finished SGTG and gone on to star in various other films. Here's the thing about Marilyn Monroe near the end of her life: SHE COULDN'T WORK. Doing SGTG she missed twenty working days out of thirty-two; as outtakes from the film clearly show her "acting underwater" as George Cukor put it. She couldn't cut it anymore. Idiots were still willing to star her in their films because she was still a big name but she obviously incapable of showing up for work and knowing her lines. She could still look great on film, though. But in SGTG there were close ups of her that had to be heavily filtered.

^Funny how the documentary at R187 disproves your claims.

I like it. Stupid fun. It has Margaret Dumont, saying "Louisa, you have something to sell. Sell it!"

A lot more fun than any of those Doris Day I'm-a-virgin-at-45 movies.

Funny how R189 is one of those sad Marilyn fangurls who think Marilyn Monroe was perfectly well adjusted and a stellar actress at the peak of her form shortly before she was found dead of a drug ovedose. She couldn't show up on time for work and shen she did she didn't know her lines. That's a fact. But those Marilyn fangurls...they just can't face the facts about their dead blonde mental case.

[quote] But in SGTG there were close ups of her that had to be heavily filtered.

She was 36. In Hollywood they start filtering all women at 29. And she looked better than ever by the time she died.

And as Billy Wilder said, sort of, she was a pain in the ass but it was all worth it in the end for what you saw on the screen. Marilyn would have kept on working.

And to think, she lived 10 years longer than Jean Harlow.

[quote] Marilyn would have kept on workin

That seems doubtful, considering her behavior on "The Misfits" and "Something's Got To Give." She was a wreck during the making of thoses movies.

When I watch sex comedies and rom coms from earlier eras I always keep in mind these are films of their time. Some are still fun to watch. Others are terrible.

As for WAWTG, I thought it was an amusing movie. Very overblown, but fun. And certainly the costumes Shirley MacLaine wore were really something. As the wife of the entertainer "Pinky" she's seen heard to toe in pink, including her towering pile of hair.

All her co-workers liked Jean though.

The pink backyard in the movie was an exact replica of George Cukor's backyard. It was originally used in the unfinished Marilyn movie Something's Got to Give. It was then reused in the Doris Day version of the same story, Move Over Darling with minor modifications. It was finally used in WAWTG redressed in pink.

R186 Lemmon may have been a “ bad dramatic actor” but that didn’t stop him winning a Best Actor academy award for Save the Tiger.

R199, Jack Lemmon was excellent in “Missing” and “The China Syndrome”.

[quote]r20 Marilyn Monroe would have made the material seem better than it is.

She never would have made it through wardrobe fittings for 72 costume changes.

And even if she did, the ultra professional Edith Head probably would have stabbed her around week two.

[Quote]Lemmon may have been a “ bad dramatic actor” but that didn’t stop him winning a Best Actor academy award for Save the Tiger.

Save the Tiger is an awful film and so was Jack's sweat-under-the collar performance. Besides Oscars are rarely an indicator of excellence.

[quote]Save the Tiger is an awful film and so was Jack's sweat-under-the collar performance. Besides Oscars are rarely an indicator of excellence.

They are only excellent when you agree, right? Whatever you think of Lemmon, he won over Nicholson for "The Last Detail", Redford for "The Sting", Brando "Last Tango", and Pacino for "Serpico".

R203 remember Goodfellas lost to Dances with Wolves and Citizen Kane to How Green Was My Valley. Singing in the Rain, North by Northwest, Some Like It Hot, Psycho, Paths of Glory, Rosemary's Baby . . .were not even Best Picture nominees. History has proven the Academy shuns the best. Robert Redford, Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner all have Oscars for direction while Welles, Kubrick, Hitchcock don't. The Academy's choices don't stand the test of time.

R134 I had the pleasure of playing golf with Jack Lemmon many years ago. He is as nutsy as you'd imagine. He shakes and quakes even when he's standing perfectly still. It was a little off-putting until you got used to it. He was quite a nice man. Tense for sure, but nice.

Lemmon was an alcoholic R205

R206, That did not become widely known until after his death.

Some actors were able to hide their alcoholism, like Dick Van Dyke.

Dick Van Dyke was able to hide his alcoholism? I heard decades ago he was ruining projects because of it.

And Grace Kelly won an Oscar for wearing a drab sweater and eyeglasses. I do not believe I've read or heard anyone say she deserved it. Well not on DL anyway.

[quote]Funny how [R189] is one of those sad Marilyn fangurls...

Better than being a SGTG Troll who always posts the same bullshit "fangurls" comment whenever Monroe's career is discussed in a positive light.

Are you the low-budget Marilyn, Mamie Van Doren? Or perhaps Jeanne Carmen's son, Brandon?

R208, Not true. You cannot cite even one.

[quote]You cannot cite even one.

His Cockney accent in Mary Poppins had to been an intoxicated decision.

Paul Newman was elegantly comedic in 1994's Nobody's Fool. I don't know the name for the genre. Wistful dramedy? I think it is very well written and beautifully acted by all. Jessica Tandy and Bruce Willis are fine, and Melanie Griffith still doing very well what she could do. She's still a total sex bomb and you believe the flirt between her character and Newman's even though you aren't sure if they believe it enough themselves and know it's all wrong.

It must have been a knife in Edith Head's craw that she never got to costume Marilyn Monroe. The one that got away.

R211 The Music Man. You clown. Word at the time was rife.

I don't know who died and made some people the ultimate arbiter of taste in dramatic acting. I loved Lemmon in Days Of Wine And Roses. (Also saw the TV version with Cliff Robertson and thought the performances were different but equally excellent.) He was great in Missing, and The China Syndrome (for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival). Blow it out your ass, not everyone agrees with your pronouncements.

And you can blow your pronouncements out of your ass as well. He was bad in The China Syndrome. He could have won the Nobel Prize for it for all I care.

And if you think Burnett was a wonderful dramatic actress fine. It's your opinion as much as mine is that she stinks. I'm not saying that everyone must agree with me. But anybody who has eyes and ears of course they should.

R213: Newman got better as an actor over time. he's striking and gorgeous in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", but no where near anyone else in terms of his acting. He began to hit his stride in the 60s and was able to play very different kinds of roles well in his later films.

I don't know if Marilyn would have any issues with the costumes for What a way to go as mentioned above. Dress rehearsals, costume tests, being photographed were right up Marilyn's alley...

I do wonder however, when Marilyn came back to complete finishing of Something's got to give, what if she again for whatever reasons, didn't show up on set? Surely Marilyn would know no matter what she could not do this after being re-hired and given a second chance? I mean could she risk getting fired a second time and for good? Could she risk being sued for breach of contract and so on? Then again, with one of her favorite directors now directing her with Cukor gone and perhaps the script reverted back to the one that she liked by Johnson, another Marilyn favorite, who as she herself stated "could write Marilyn Monroe" maybe, just maybe she could have done it with no issues the second time around?...

R174.. Joan Collins has also said that the handsomest man she ever kissed with Paul Newman?

Uh, did she forget about someone called Jon Erik Hexum? To me, more handsomer than newman and of course a way way better body than newman and even Hexum's voice was manlier, deeper, sexier....

Interesting, as someone mentioned above, how Collins to my knowledge has never once commented about Hexum in any interview?

R217 In your opinion, which your mother probably convinced you was akin to a pronouncement from God. Try a little modesty once in a while.

R218 Burnett made that mistake that comics do when doing a dramatic role: they become flat and glum and don't smile. Here's Burnett in 1972s Pete 'n' Tillie. Her big dramatic solo scene is at 114:00 and you may find it comes close parody.

Geraldine Page's wig got an Oscar nomination for this, right?

God that's a horrible scene.

R225, How about the scene where Walter Matthau bared his ass?

[quote] It must have been a knife in Edith Head's craw that she never got to costume Marilyn Monroe. The one that got away.

In "Edith Head's Hollywood" it said that Edith Head "always regretted" not having dressed Marilyn Monroe. Of course she would ; Monroe was a hugh star. But I don't think it would have gone well. Marilyn was THE sex symbol; Head would not have been the right designer for someone like her. Plus MM was always late and uncooperative; Head would have gotten really mad at that.

Marilyn Monroe's favorite designer was Billy Travilla They got along well and she loved his creations. He designed the white halter dress from "The Seven Year Itch" and the pink gown from "Gentlemen Prefer BLondes."

Orr Kelly, who designed her costumes in "Some Like It Hot" had no liking for her. He said "I had been warned about Marilyn Monroe. She was difficult, she was always late, she was this and that." After the experience he said "I would rather go to Coney Island and open up a hot dog stand than dress that woman again."

Marilyn's costumes in "Something's Got to Give" were gorgeous. The best she ever looked. By Jean Louis.

R227: By that point, Orry Kelly was a dysfunctional drunk, who didn't work for a couple years after "Some Like it Hot".

We don't care about Mr Orry's private life. He never wore his dresses on screen.

Yes, r224.

[quote] Marilyn's costumes in "Something's Got to Give" were gorgeous. The best she ever looked.

I thought she looked her best in "The Seven Year Itch" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." Much better than SGTG, where she was very thin and pale as a ghost.

Marilyn's black Orry-Kelly SLIH dress...

[Quote]How about the scene where Walter Matthau bared his ass?

Not as bad as Jack Lemmon's bare ass in Wilder's Avanti (1972)

Mrs. Lemmon...

[Quote]How about the scene where Walter Matthau bared his ass?

Not as bad as Jack Lemmon's bare ass in Avant! (1972)

^ Rhinoplasty?

{quyote] Orry Kelly was a dysfunctional drunk, who didn't work for a couple years after "Some Like it Hot".

No doubt his experience with Marilyn Monroe drove him to drink and he needed time off to recover from the ordeal.

R218 Not sure who you're talking about but I don't think Carol Burnett is particularly talented at anything, comedy, drama, or singing. She was of her time.

Felicia Farr was the one charming thing about "Kiss Me, Stupid." But decided being Mrs. Jack Lemmon was a better gig.

Carol Burnett completely disappeared in her role as "Mrs Cratchett" (Forgot the name) in 'Noises Off'. I totally forgot it was her.

R238: He'd been a drunk for years, but it had just gotten worse. Ann Warner (Jack warner's wife) had been one of his few advocates at that point. he also managed to get some Billy Wilder films.

[quote]Sex comedies of the early 60s were trying to be "naughty" buts stuck in a very 50s sort of sex, with very traditional sex roles

While European films of that era were showing sex, Hollywood films could only hint at it, which is why many of the early '60s sex comedies seem rather contrived and puerile in hindsight.

In spite of drinking, Orry-Kelly's designs for Some Like It Hot are some of the most memorable costumes ever seen on the black& white screen. Not only Marilyn's iconic costumes but also those for Sweet Sue (Joan Shawlee) and her band and the hilarious drag looks for Tony and Jack, ironically dressed more authentically than the women in the film because the straight and sexless1920s silhouette and cloche hats so brilliantly aided in their disguises.

I'd also like to credit Travilla's Technicolor designs for both Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire. No one designed sexier and wittier costumes for the screen, certainly not Edith Head (the mind reels!).

It's worth noting that all of Monroe's many memorable film costumes were designed by men. Whether they were all gay men is questionable.

With "Somethings Got To Give", Marylin looked contemporary. Most of her 1950s blonde bombshell costumes look dated today. Those Jean Louis' simple shift dresses still look good. The almost white hair looked interesting.

Edith Head's costumes were pretty great (Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve, for ex. - she never looked better), and they hardly ever unduly distracted. Compared to Helen Rose (of MGM), for one example, E. H. was a genius. Travilla's costumes were cool - if obvious. They could be on the sleazy side, sometimes. But they add a lot of life and sex to the films.

[quote]He was bad in The China Syndrome. He could have won the Nobel Prize for it for all I care.

Yeah, well The Academy, The BAFTAs, The Cannes Film Festival, Golden Globes, and the National Society of Film Critics don't agree with you.

THIS IS MY THREAD, BITCHES!!!!

Shirl darling, you just look glum in that dance number with Gene Kelly. No sparkle. And that Jane Withers hair-do they gave you. Just awful.

But if you feel you deserve a creme brulee, have at it, Shirl.

Remember me, Mom?

R153....Van Dyke was the first husband...so, got his character out of the way in the beginning.

R252, But, didn’t she return to him in the end?

The drag costumes Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon wore in SLIH were wonderful. Their exaggerated feminine attire was very funny. But I always wondered: WHERE did they get all those outfits? In the scene where Jerry is dancing with Osgood Jerry is attired in a sparkling evening dress that looks damned expensive. Add to that a glittering necklace and jeweled headband. Where did the po0verty stricken duo GET all that stuff? Oh well, it was a comedy where you have to suspend your disbelief I guess.

I paid my girls very VERY well, r254.

R254 Orry Kelly.

R253...It was Dean Martin's character, who was rich and obnxious....who wanted to marry Shirley in the beginning, but she refused him. Dick Van Dyke's character was poor and that's what attracted her to marry him. He was her first husband. It was at the end, when Dean Martin's character went broke and Shirley met him in her doctor's office, when he became a janitor. She then married him at the end. These are very important details! ;)

She was a whore.

[quote]R246 Compared to Helen Rose (of MGM), for one example, E. H. was a genius.

Yet Grace Kelly chose Helen Rose over Edith Head to design her famous wedding dress.

Edith would have put her in something simple and monk-robe-like.

Edith Head was a famewhore who took credit for underlings' work. Kelly probably wanted someone who actually was paying attention to her.

R215 = Chris Lemmon

My favorite EH movie wedding gown. Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve.

[quote]Edith Head was a famewhore who took credit for underlings' work. Kelly probably wanted someone who actually was paying attention to her.

Dude every designer takes credit for underlings' work. Grow up.

R263, Travis Banton was hardly an underling.

All of the big studio heads resented the intimate relations, co-dependency and extravagant over-spending their head costume designers like Adrian (MGM), Orry-Kelly (Warner Bros.) and Travis Banton (Paramount) enjoyed with their leading ladies. Those men were all eventually replaced with efficient women designers, like Edith Head, Irene, Helen Rose and Mary Ann Nyberg, dependable "company men" who were loyal to their bosses.

R265 Adrian wasn't replaced, was he? I thought he retired and opened his own shop on Rodeo Drive. But you may be right, I don't know. I don't think Jean Louis was replaced. Or Charles Le Maire. Travis Banton was an alcoholic.

There's a good book published recently called Hollywood: An Oral History, that has a big section on costumes and designers. Mitchell Leisen (former designer, later a director) said at a gathering honoring costume designers Edith Head showed a dress designed by Banton for Mae West as if it were her own design, and also a dress Leisen designed that her department constructed, without given him credit.

Charles Le Maire also said the dressers didn't want to dress Marilyn because she would come to the studio in dirty pajama bottoms and dirty underwear, and one of them came to him and said they dressers weren't going to work with her again unless she put on clean underwear.

He and others also talked about her and said they were all rooting for her when she started to make it, at the studio, with All About Eve, and so forth. She was a delightful person and they all liked her. They were all on her side, but she got an attitude as she became more famous and was unfriendly and rude to the same people, and most of them turned against her.

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that Adrian was fired from MGM, just replaced by the more efficient Irene and then Helen Rose.

But Adrian saw the writing on the wall at MGM when his budgets were constantly slashed, his leading ladies, Garbo, Shearer and Crawford were all leaving the studio, and WWII was making it increasingly difficult to buy foreign materials. LB Mayer did not miss him.

Who was Adrian’s boyfriend?

“Luv” has a wonderful jazz score by the great Gerry Mulligan, and it’s always a treat to see the wonderful Elaine May. Peter Falk does a nice job, and Nina Wayne is beautiful.

[quote]Dude every designer takes credit for underlings' work. Grow up.

Travilla never took credit for an underlings work as he never had an underling. Everyone of his 100+ films and television shows was from his own creativity

Charles Le Maire also said the dressers didn't want to dress Marilyn because she would come to the studio in dirty pajama bottoms and dirty underwear, and one of them came to him and said they dressers weren't going to work with her again unless she put on clean underwear. He and others also talked about her and said they were all rooting for her when she started to make it, at the studio, with All About Eve, and so forth. She was a delightful person and they all liked her. They were all on her side, but she got an attitude as she became more famous and was unfriendly and rude to the same people, and most of them turned against her.

LeMaire only designed one Marilyn costume, her gown from AAE. Travilla started working with Marilyn in 1951 and Don't Bother to Knock until Bust Stop. They got along famously and he spoke lovingly about her while she was a live, but even moreso after she died. Of course, they did have a short affair before she married DiMaggio.

R268, Richard Halliday

Loved her in Bust Stop!

And "Oh, dear" myself for a live.

Dona Drake passed for white most of her life.

Dona...aka Rita Rio

It is interesting, knowledgeable and perceptive threads like this that keep me coming back to DL.

Bill & Dona

But, I believe for BUS STOP MM respectfully rejected some of Travilla's designs and requested they just go into Fox costume stock and pull a few outfits for a more worn and shabby look for Cherie.

The ensemble she wears in the film that's a green lace blouse and black pencil skirt was worn briefly by Susan Hayward when she played Jane Froman in With a Song In My Heart for the studio a few years earlier.

And the performance outfit for Cherie, singing "That Old Black Magic," a bustier beaded like a mermaid's scales and torn fishnet stockings was also pulled from stock.

MM was putting her Actor's Studio training to good use there.

R270 Charles Le Maire was the head of the costume department at Fox. As a department head, the dressers reported to him, and he made the rules for the department. Several dressers went to him and threatened to quit unless Marilyn started wearing clean underwear. So it doesn't matter if he designed costumes for MM or not, that wasn't the point.

How exactly were they soiled? Front, back or middle?

R280 I'm sorry I brought it up. You all can't handle some info from a reputable book. Really sorry I bothered.

[quote]Several dressers went to him and threatened to quit unless Marilyn started wearing clean underwear. So it doesn't matter if he designed costumes for MM or not, that wasn't the point.

Sorry. But what was the point of LeMaire bringing up such a thing? Sounds like sour grapes that aside from the AAE gown, he didn't contribute one iota to Marilyn's fashion fame and since he couldn't besmirch Travilla's talent, he went after the actress.

Travilla’s most well know creation.

I love this thread; it is what makes Datalounge unique.

[quote] a reputable book

R281 But was it by Dr Eric Cervini?

Billy Travilla told a sad story about him unexpectedly seeing Marllyn in some public place; he went over to greet her but she was so far gone by then she didn't seem to recognize him, the designer who created some of her most memorable film costumes. It was the last time he saw her.

R285 It's by Jeanine Basinger and Sam Wasson. I'm surprised more of you haven't read it.

R287, is this different from HOLLYWOOD: AN ORAL HISTORY by Nancy Davis Reagan?

R289 Sinatra's valet corroborates Marilyn's stank in his book, Mr. S, and says her lack of feminine hygiene was at the heart of why FS stopped wanting to fuck her on the regular with his uncircumcised penis that was so large a special truss was made to strap it down so he wouldn't appear indecent onscreen.

Sinatra’s valet also wrote that Frank complained that Betty Bacall gave lousy head.

Oh, please! I wouldn't touch Sinatra's valet's dick with a ten foot pole, and certainly not with my mouth! What a horrible flavah!!

[quote]288 is this different from HOLLYWOOD: AN ORAL HISTORY by Nancy Davis Reagan?

Yes. You’re mistaken. The final title for Nancy’s memoir was THE VIEW FROM MY ESOPHAGUS: TIPS AND TRICKS.

Marilyn’s maid (and best friend) Lena Pepitone said the lady was not always terribly fresh, sleeping on food and period stained sheets.

Baby Lamb was always trying to coax MM into the tub with a new bubble bath or something.

No wonder Arthur Miller slept in a separate room and hid in his study all day.

Obviously, R291 failed Reading Comprehension 101.

[quote]Marilyn’s maid (and best friend) Lena Pepitone

Pepitone didn't speak much English and her book was ghost written to make money.

The thought of Nancy Reagan engaging in any kind of sex is nauseating, jaw disengaged or not.

I thought Peptone’s memoir, wether real or embellished or whatever, was one of the more realistic biographies of Monroe.

[quote]R295 Pepitone didn't speak much English and her book was ghost written to make money.

[italic]Were you there??[/quote]

Love does not need a language.

Lena Pepitone WAS employed by Marilyn Monroe for a time. She was hired as a seatstress to take care of her clothes; her clothes were always getting ripped and she was always popping buttions or zippers because all of her clothes were so tight. Later she cooked for her, or so she said. I don't think Pepitone and Monroe because close, dear friends. In her book Pepitone and Marilyn have long heartfelt talks but that's ludicrous since Pepitone couldn't speak English. But I guess she was privy to Marilyn's habits. Here are some things in Pepitone's book about Marilyn's behavior and hygiene:

When Pepitone first met Marilyn Monroe she was nude (Marilyn, that is). She was in Monroe's apartemtn talking with some employees of hers, when Marilyn came stumbling in to the doorway "totally nude." Peptone would learn that Marilyn didn't like wearing clothes, any clothes, at home. She liked to loll around in bed most of the day, naked.

She said Marilyn smelled. Seems she didn't bathe very often.

Marilyn ate a lot of meat, steaks and lamb chops and what not. She would always have "a side dish of cottage cheese with her meat" probably because she thought it was a healthful diet food. She also liked Italisn food, which Pepitone would cook for her. She ate in bed and wiped her greasy hands on the bedclothes, which of course had to be changed.

Marilyn didn't use pads or tampons during her periods and because of that her bedclothes needed to be changed several times a day when she was having her period.

Marilyn never read; she liked to listen to phonograph records (Sinatra, mostly) and talk on the phone.

Arhtur Miller seemed to want to stay the hell away from Marilyn.. He would hole up in his study "working" and barely speak to her.

Pepitone said Marilyn never mentioned any affairs with the Kennedys but said that JFK was a big "tease" who would put his hand up her dress. One time he went up too far and found out Marilyn didn't wear underwear and was quite taken aback. Marilyn said he called Jackie "The Statue" and she commented "I bet he never puts his hand up HER dress."

Marilyn was friends with Montgomery Clift and was jealous of his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. She found it hard to believe he was gay; she figured he could have any girl he wanted, how could he bi gay. She invites him over and intends to seduce him, snuggling up against him, but he just pats her bottom, says she has a "terrific ass" and leaves. She laughs about it and comes to the conclusion that when it came to Elizabeth Taylor "she probably doesn't do anything with her, either."

R299, So, when did Eunice Murray become Marilyn's housekeeper?

[quote]Marilyn’s maid (and best friend) Lena Pepitone

Please.

[quote] So, when did Eunice Murray become Marilyn's housekeeper?

That was when she bought the "cheap hacienda", as one observer called it, in California. Her domineering psychiatrist Ralph Greenson encouraged her to get her first home, and she bought one that mimickedthe look of his Spanish-style house. Murray was not a "veteran psychiatric nurse" or a nurse of any kind. She was not a high school graduate. Greenson engaged her as a housekeeper/companion for Marilyn, Muarry was his "spy", keepig an eye on Marilyn and telling him everything about where she went and what she did and who she spoke to. Murray was a strange one. I don't think Marilyn wnated her around but her psychiatrist had a lot of control over her at that time, she she tolerated her. Murray was no "Baby Lamb."

Pepitone had a strong accent but she could understand and speak English.

[quote]r300 So, when did Eunice Murray become Marilyn's housekeeper?

MM relocated to the west coast. Lena (or Baby Lamb, as the star called her) had a husband and two kids in the Bronx or somewhere. So she couldn’t relocate. The creepy Eunice Murray became employed when MM bought a house (in Beverly Hills?)

Lena wasn’t a housekeeper, as r299 points out. She was in charge of keeping Monroe’s wardrobe mended, pressed, organized and altered. This was kind of a big job as MM would try on 12 different shirts and throw them across the room before deciding on one.

Marilyn’s sloppiness and poor hygiene were signs of how serious her mental illness was.

Marilyn had a really lousy childhood, orphanage, several foster homes, and I think she was a victim of sexual abuse. I'm not sure she had out and out mental illness (like schizophrenia) or a mental health disorder such as depression. But it's weird she would go to the studio and work with dressers without being clean. She was going to get talked about, being Marilyn Monroe. She wasn'r some nobody.

R251 Maybe she doesn't but I seem to recall you.

Poor hygience IS a sign of mental illness. I knew some guy who was bi-polar; it got so he rarely bathed or washed his hair or brushed his teeth. He was so far gone towards the end of his life, sluggish and not giving a damn about anything, that he would lie in bad and crap his pants rather than get up and use the toilet. Marilyn didn't get to that state, but obviously not bathing and having a smell didn't bother her much.

R306, depression and trauma.

Can the Marilyn obsessives go to another thread?

Cheryl’s is not the only pussy that stinks, apparently

Sure.

[italic]We know when we’re not wanted!

R308, Didn’t Steve Jobs have horrible hygiene?

Just when you thought this thread couldn't possibly go more off.-topic....

Here's a "making of" What a Way to Go! that appeared on television, narrated by Joseph Cotten. Seeing this shows why the finished product was pretty weak tea...

I can’t look at Shirley the same way anymore after her daughter came out with her book. Poor Sachi.

Shirley Dearest

I read Sachi Parker's memoir. It's remarkable that she turned out as reasonably sane as she is considered what atrocious parents she had. MacLaine was a movie star who fitted all over the world; no way was she going to take the time out to mother a child. She was also batshit crazy. Steve Parker was a con man and a pervert; he'd lick little Sachi all over (he called it "the licking game') and have her sleep in his bed with him, where she would feel his erection poking into her bottom. If there were ever two people who never should have had children it was Steve Parker and Shirley MacLaine.

Have to say, for someone who affected the air of "no-nonsense" Hollywood star, Shirley was just as much the curator of her image as any other star...

[quote]Can the Marilyn obsessives go to another thread?Can the Marilyn obsessives go to another thread?

I doubt a thread about the movie What A Way To Go! would have generated over 300 posts if it wasn't for people talking about Marilyn.

Surprised no one has brought up Shirley's New Age persuits, UFO contacts, and past life experiences.

How could she have been so stupid to believe that bullshit her husband told her about being an extraterrestrial being? All of that money she gave him.

And Sachi is an extraordinarily forgiving person to forgive both of them for their maltreatment of her.

R313 is worse than Hitler.

[quote]I doubt a thread about the movie What A Way To Go! would have generated over 300 posts if it wasn't for people talking about Marilyn.

Quality > Quantity

[quote] How could she have been so stupid to believe that bullshit her husband told her about being an extraterrestrial being? All of that money she gave him.

It's called extreme Narcissism. The whole belief that she's SPECIAL, has a SPECIAL (extraterrestrial!) husband, travels through space and time, talks to the dead, etc. Nobody else does that except the VERY SPECIAL people who surround her. Also, absolutely no empathy for her daughter, who she dumped on her sexually abusive and exploitative husband for all of her childhood and early youth as far as she could send her - Japan! Indeed, she shouldn't have had any children, maybe she did it... a little bit for the publicity.

Very interesting to watch the link at r315 on the HOLLYWOOD AND THE STARS episode that featured WAWTG one week back when the film was about to open. As a gayling I was obsessed with the that TV series (the teme music alone!!), which usually featured an aspect of Golden Age or Silent films each week, not a contemporary film. It was just before the craze for nostalgia started in the late 60s and my original way into that glorified world.

But OMG watching it now, the film comes off even worse than I remember with so much background footage of the making of it. Hard to believe that any of the actors involved, including even Shirley, thought they were participating in anything worthwhile.

How Hollywood would change in just a few years. It's truly amazing Shirley's career survived it. How do you think she managed that when so many of her contemporaries were left in the dust of Easy Rider and The Graduate.

Shirley had a bit of a drought when she bombed big time with Sweet Charity.

R325, The cast party, according to Joseph Cotten's narration, was in November of 1963, the month JFK was killed.

The film was not released until May of 1964.

R326, That wasn't her fault, big budget studio musicals were over by then.

R328 True but in Hollywood they always blame the star first and the producer second.

Frankly, Shirley's good-hearted broad had run to caricature by the time of "Charity."

Yeah, big budget Hollywood musicals were over until there was a Funny Girl.

[quote] True but in Hollywood they always blame the star first and the producer second.

Yes. But they should have been blaming the director.

The director was an Englishman who specialised in "Social Realist films" and men's films ("The Guns of Navarone'), horror films ('Cape Fear') and sick, sadist films (Return from the Ashes').

He was totally the wrong director for this over-long piece of girly, frothy frou-frou.

[Quote]Yeah, big budget Hollywood musicals were over until there was a Funny Girl.

Was Funny Girl a big budget musical like those expensive flops Camelot, Finian's Rainbow, Paint Your Wagon, Darling Lili, Star! and Sweet Charity? Only Funny Girl an Oliver were BO successes during that period.

R332, I resemble that remark

The point is that film musicals are always declared dead until one comes along that's actually good and makes money.

So funny you say that R335 because we've just had three that were one but didn't do the other: West Side Story, Tick Tick Boom, and In The Heights.

Proof, r336, that film musicals ARE NOW officially dead.

[Quote]The point is that film musicals are always declared dead until one comes along that's actually good and makes money.

R335 but Funny Girl isn't good at all except for Streisand. I prefer Hello Dolly and Sweet Charity.

R336 don't forget the film versions of Rent, Hamilton, Dreamgirls and The Producers as well as Blah, Blah Land

R318 Damn, are we talking about the same Steve Parker? He visited with us many times when passing through on his way to where ever, usually Japan as I recall. He was always a gentleman and a great friend to my parents. I'm having a tough time with this one.

(^.^) never heard of the charm of the psychopath.

It's true that "What A Way To Go!" was talked about as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe. Supposedly her career was on the upswing (yeah, right!) shortly before she died; she was rehired and was to begin shooting "Something's Got To Give" again in October, she had a new 2 million contract with Fox, a biopic about Jean Harlow was talked about. The producer/composer Jule Syyne called her and talked to her about doing a movie musical version of "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", he wanted her in the movie with an "all star cast" starring Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine. Yes, Marilyn's life seemed to be coming up roses. And then she was dead.

Marilyn told Billy Wilder she would have loved to have played Fran Kubelik in "The Apartment." She was played by Shirley McLaine. Actually Marilyn would have been quite wrong for the role; she was too flamboyantly good looking and sexy and glamorous. Who could believe her as an elevator operator? Who could believe that her sleazy boss/lover would keep stringing her along? Why, he would have left his wife for that piece in a hot minute.

Despite the living hell he went though making "Some LIke It Hot" with Marilyn, Billy WIlder was seriously considering casting her in "Irma La Douce." He thought she would be perfect as the sweet little hooker with a heart of gold who magnificently provides her tricks with exceptional sex. She and Wilder had made some kind of amends after the success of SLIH and it seemed they were amiable about working together again. But he said some things about her in an interview that rankled her and she hated him again. "Irma La Douce" eventually got made starring, once again. SHirley MacLaine.

WAWTG had a clear story line, big budget, big stars and everything else going for it except wit.

[quote] except wit.

Clumsy directors can kill wit.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda... Something's Got to Give made it pretty apparent that Marilyn wasn't capable of working anymore...

I am surprised that no one so far has commented on how much the script owes to Little Me.

That bit in Hollywood and the Stars at r315 with Comden & Green explaining their screenplay for WAWTG is just so embarrassing.

Yes, Little Me (both Patrick Dennis' book and the Broadway musical based on it with libretto by Neil Simon) preceded the film so it's very curious the Hollywood producers didn't just option it instead of creating this mishmash of their own. Comden & Green were often merely guns for hire and probably would have been happy to adapt it as they did of Dennis' Auntie Mame.

[quote] Comden & Green explaining their screenplay for WAWTG is just so embarrassing.

I was embarrassed.

He was behaving like a drunk.

Or an ape.

R347, Adolph was channeling “Carlo” in “My Man Godfrey”.

Good points on "Little Me" and Comden and Green, who were indeed absurd in that TV show promoting "WAWTG!"

Do you think Phyllis Newman was cringeing in the kitchen?

Yikes, that Comden & Green clip was indeed embarrassing!

The other hilarious clip from the Hollywood and the Stars TV episode was at the end when the film producers, the ad execs and the decorators are all squabbling like bitchy queens about the balloons and feathers and other decor details on the promo subway car "What a Way to Go to the World's Fair!"

On Fox Movie Channel (or whatever it's called now) RIGHT NOW!

It’s also on YouTube.

Watching the outtakes of Monroe from 'Something's Got To Give' the one thing that came across to me was Dean Martin had the patience of a saint.

Yes, Dean was extremely loyal to MM! But SGTG demonstrated that she couldn't even finish a fluff comedy at this point... after dust ups on The Prince and the Showgirl, Some Like it Hot, The Misfits, and Let's Make Love...

I wish Ask Any Girl would be released legitimately. It has been on TCM just once. I read it was one of Shirley's better MGM pictures.

R356 Maybe if the studio hadn't kept asking her to do nude scenes, it might have helped her? She did like to be thought of as being a serious actress and for her brain, part of the reason she married Arthur Miller. Even if some folks in the Actors Studio would take it all off for a role later on.

[quote]R358 Maybe if the studio hadn't kept asking her to do nude scenes, it might have helped her?

She loved that, though. As early as NIAGARA she tried to show more of herself, and the director had to keep repositioning her.

And here we go again with the Marilyn thread hijackers.

I thought this movie sucked but I do love one of her lesser known films, "All in a Night's Work." "Oh, Mr. Ryder!"

R357, why would TCM have issues showing Ask Any Girl whenever they wanted? It was an MGM movie and the studio would've owned it lock, stock, and barrel, with no modern day rights issues or clearances required.

It was a big hit at a time MGM was struggling and needed the cash. In the top 50 grossers for its year (1959). Shirley won the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress(!). The original novel by Winifred Wolfe is not on Internet Archive or any other digital source, but there are Ebay copies. It sounds like a comic The Best of Everything, but only about one girl instead of a bunch.

I wonder why MGM was struggling in the late '50s? They had Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gigi, and Ben Hur for starters...

...also Shirley's Some Came Running from '58. Ben Hur was the top grossing movie of '59, nearly 60 million dollars in '50s bucks... Also North by Northwest...

From the changes in leadership and the breakup of the studios owning the movie theatre chains. MGM actually lost money in 1957, and you can see the more pronounced set and costume recycling in their movies from the early CinemaScope era (the Schary years) onward. They let their contract players go by 1960 (Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, and Debbie Reynolds were among the last to depart).

R133 Do you think Funny Girl was a B picture?

I saw this movie when I was 12 in the summer of 1964, and most of it most have sailed clear over my head. I have a vague recollection that Life Magazine, which my family subscribed to, did a feature on Edith Head's costumes for this movie.

R262 Ben-Hur was what saved MGM. It was a big gamble that paid off. You're pointing to individual films, that were hits, but not blockbusters that could save a studio. In those days, studios were still producing multiple films a year, they still had departments of craftspeople under contract, and they had to make enough money to stay afloat. But in the 50s they were competing with all sorts of successful indie production, and the biggest stars had set up their own companies and were successfully competing with the majors. It was a transition phase from the old studio system, to a new system. It was nothing like today.

Peyton Place helped fill the coffers at Fox around the same time... I'd say most of the major studios were in the same boat, because they weren't keeping up with the changes of their business. MGM indeed had lost many of their great stars, but still scared up some hits. One of their last stars, Elizabeth Taylor, gave them Raintree County, Cat, and Butterfield 8 as a studio star, and The VIPS and The Sandpiper as an independent, all big money makers.

Here's a list of MGM films,1950 to 1959. Notice very few of them until about 1957-1958 were "distibution only" or co-productions with independent producers. You can see the studio system coming to an end. And also, note the 1959 releases- not a very distinguished or well known group, as a whole. The late 50s and early to mid-60s were not one of the greatest of Hollywood's eras.

Sorry - this is the link:

Haha. I don't get why it's not linking. Just google "List of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films (1950–1959)" I guess.

The post studio era felt like grasping at straws as to what would bring out audiences now home watching TV. And stars going independent. Seemed like a lot of overblown spectacles or multi star vehicles with weak plots... like "What a Way to Go!"

Jacobs looks miserable listening to Comden and Green. Like who would ever produce a film on what they're presenting to him? I know it's staged but it's probably how they originally told it to him. And the terrible film goes on to be a hit kick starting his career as a producer! Then he went onto produce the incredibly expensive Dr. DoLittle a musical even I find unwatchable. How lucky he was to have Planet of the Apes up his sleeve. And with all those sequels... I wonder if he had a family that held onto the Dolittle rights.

The discussion of Marilyn Monroe on this thread isn't hijacking the thread. The lead role in "What A Way To Go" was originally supposed to go to Marllyn. Marilyn wished she could have done the role MacLaine played in "The Apartment." MM was in talks with Billy WIlder to play Irma La Douce but MacLaine ws the one who evenvually played it. So Marilyn is a pertinent subject for this thread. She's also much more interesting to discuss than this movie and Shirley MacLaine. MM is an endless yopic of conversation.

Charles Laughton was going to be in Irma and the movie suffers that he wasn't in it. Irma is as lousy as WAWTG. Laughton and Monroe in the same film would have been wonderful. With a better script.

R376 Since Billy Wilder co-wrote his own films maybe he should have fired himself.

Actaully, I like Irma la Douce. It has a 7.3 score from IMDB so I guess I'm not alone.

I can't think of a Billy WIlder film before 1961 that I don't at least respect, and many that I adore, but all the films after that don't do anything for me, and most are horrible.

Here you go R376. But just for a minute. (Literally.)

]quote] Charles Laughton was going to be in Irma and the movie suffers that he wasn't in it. Irma is as lousy as WAWTG. Laughton and Monroe in the same film would have been wonderful. With a better script.

Billy Wilder much wanted Charles Laughton to play Moustache in ILD. But Laughton was sick and dying. They both knew Laughton would never be able to play the role but when Billy Wilder would visit him they would both talk of the movie as thought Laughton were going to play it, although they both knew it would never come to be. It was a sweet delusion for both of them.

After the success of "Some LIke It Hot" Wilder and Marilyn became friends again. They had a falling out (he said some things about her in in ainterview that made her mad) but were seemingly on amicalbe terms again. Then Wilder again said some things in an interview that pissed her off. So her playing Irma was out. It was just as well, especially for WIlder. Making another movie with MM might have given him a heart attack and killed him, like it did with Clark Gable.

Tall, dark and handsome Bruce Yarnell played Irma's abusive pimp but I liked him better than the stupid Jack Lemmon character,. maybe because Yarnell was a more appealing actor. He was also a talented baritone, and performed in productions of "Carousel" , "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Bye, Bye Birdie." He was also a pilot; tragically he died at only age 37,

That's what kills Irma for me, the stupid Jack Lemmon character. When I was in Paris in the 90s I walked up a street exactly that in the movie. It's like it had been staged. They were calling out to me calling me tall because well I am. I thought ladies you're barking up the wrong tree.

Another '60s Shirley epic was on TCM today (part of their salute to Alain Delon): "The Yellow Rolls-Royce."

Alain's swimsuit was the best part of that segment with Shirl!

I LOVE this movie. Everything is over the top. It's a masterpiece. The sets, the clothes, everything.

I loved that movie as a kid, r379. The Last Leaf...Wahhhhhh!

[quote]Making another movie with MM might have given him a heart attack and killed him, like it did with Clark Gable.

Um....Bullshit.

[quote]A lot more fun than any of those Doris Day I'm-a-virgin-at-45 movies.

There's only one comedy where Doris Day ever played an adult woman who's a virgin: THAT TOUCH OF MINK.

The thing about the sex comedies of the 60s is that they seem so bad now because of what they were anticipating: the coming of the sexual revolution. The enormous popularity of the publications of the Kinsey report in the 40s paved the way, and in the 50s Hugh Hefner had begun to profit enormously from the American desire to talk more explicitly about sex and sexuality.

All those Shirley Maclaine, Doris Day and Jack Lemmon sex comedies were testing the waters for the full explosion of the sexual revolution that began in 1966 with the publication of the masters and Johnson book and then rreally exploded the next year with the Summer of love. By that time sex comedies more of less began to go out of style, since what was being hinted at or teased could now be talked about much more openly. The last two great examples of the genre were BOB AND CAROL AND TED AND ALICE, because it went further than middle-class people thought they were ready for and yet was still very funny and well done, and SHAMPOO, which is really more of a political comedy than a sexual comedy.

[quote] Um....Bullshit.

Making a movie with Marilyn Monroe (and directed by John Huston, who was a bastard) did contribute to his demise. He had his physical issues but he was under prolonged severe stress during the making off that movie, which no doubt helped bring on the fatal heart attack. How could it not?

r389, that's not an actual argument; that's just a lazy supposition.

[quote] He had his physical issues

I'm no fan of any of the people in 'The Misfits' but I did see it recently at my city art gallery on the big screen. And it wasn't as bad as I remembered.

Arthur MIller's writing made sense— especially in the character played by Eli Wallach.

But they obviously had issues filming the climatic wild horse scene because the screen was 70% black. You heard the noise but could hardly see any thing

[quote]There's only one comedy where Doris Day ever played an adult woman who's a virgin: THAT TOUCH OF MINK.

You don't think she was a virgin in "Pillow Talk" or "Lover Come Back?"

Hollywood pablum then and mediocre stuff now that exhibits an attempt at Hollywood star vehicle movie making. Early 60s attempt at risqué before the damn broke in the later 60s and the creaky system completely blew apart and some good films came out of Hollywood.

R391 I don't know what print you saw but I saw it on a large screen and the scene is pretty exciting and beautiful and cruel. And it is a better film than most people say.

Substance? What comedy has that?

[quote] But they obviously had issues filming the climatic wild horse scene because the screen was 70% black.

Not in a good print.

[quote] And it is a better film than most people say.

R394 Yes, I was pleasantly surprised.

Monroe was on screen in every scene and (admittedly she was playing a dumb woman but) she can't have been exhibiting the bad behavior we've heard so much about on the sets for Wilder and Olivier.

[quote] You don't think she was a virgin in "Pillow Talk" or "Lover Come Back?"

It's never said so explicitly, nor is it overtly implied.

Her characters are uptight in those movies (and, as is usual in her comedies, often pissed off); but that's a completely different thing than being a virgin. Only in THAT TOUCH OF MINK is her character explicitly identified as a virgin.

She was already playing a mother early in her career.

[quote] that's not an actual argument; that's just a lazy supposition.

Yeah, enduring the hell of working with Marilyn Monroe had NOTHING to do with his having a heart attack and dying shortly after filming ended. Snort!

Anyway, here's some interesting info from a biograpy of Gable and Carole Lombard by Warren G. Harris:

[quote] Gable was 59 when he started "The Misfits." For some time, his age had been catching up with him. He was now puffy in the face and paunchy in the waist, his hands shook a great deal and he was having trouble learning lines. Whether the tremors were caused by his years of hard drinking or a sign of advancing Parkinson's disease, Gable was in no condition to endure the nervous tensions created by Marilyn Monroe's erratic moods.

[quote] Clark Gable had no history of heart trouble. Though she didn't mention Marilyn Monroe by name his widow said that "The Misfits" had "helped kill him." Kay Gable said "It wasn't the physical exertion that did it. It was the horrible tension, that eternal waiting, waiting, waiting. He waited around forever, for everybody. He'd get so angry, waiting, that he'd just go ahead and do anything to keep occupied. That's why he did those awful horse scenes where they dragged him at 25 to 30 miles an hour behind a truck. He had a stand-in and a stunt man, but he did them himself. I told him "You're crazy" but he wouldn't listen."

I knew Marilyn Monroe before she was a virgin.

Gable got top billing but his character had less lines than Monroe and Wallach.

Clift enters the drama half way through and Ritter exits half way through.

God dammit, I meant Doris Day

[quote]But they obviously had issues filming the climatic wild horse scene because the screen was 70% black

What did it have to do with the weather?

R404 It was me who experienced the screen getting progressively darker in the last scene.

That was the scene when the geriatric Gable had to wrestle with the wild horses so I naturally assumed the director/editor was forced to include the badly-lit footage because Gable was too sick to do any re-shooting.

This still picture is barely legible.

MM looks puffy in much of The Misfits, but I do like the black dress Jean Louis made for her in it. It’s hard to design a little black dress that’s original, but this one seems to have a cord that runs around the neckline, and then the irregular edge of the top is somehow looped over it. Interesting.

The jacket looks good with it, too. The opening at the throat highlights that cord detail.

The back is very low, which unfortunately starts to make the whole thing too whory.

Jean Louis was a genius.

Yes. William Travilla gave MM all those flashy showgirl outfits and sumptuous evening gowns, but she didn’t wear many really chic things in movies - probably because she didn’t play rich women. But that black dress of his, the “Something’s Got to Give” wardrobe, and the sparkling dress for the JFK birthday telecast made her look much more stylish. rather than just pinup sexy.

There was a dress in "The Misfits" that is supposed to be one of MM's classic costimes: the white dress with the cherries on it. But I didn't think it was very flattering. Her wigs in that movie were dreadful; they all looked so fake.

[quote]It's never said so explicitly, nor is it overtly implied.

R398 You're being too literal. In films of those days, unmarried women who were "good girls" were assumed to be virgins. We can also assume she's a virgin in It's A Great Feeling, Calamity Jane, Tea For Two, Young At Heart (the first half), etc.

[quote]R411 There was a dress in "The Misfits" that is supposed to be one of MM's classic costumes: the white dress with the cherries on it. But I didn't think it was very flattering.

She was a mess during that shooting, even getting sent off to rehab. Bloated and unhappy.

I’m not sure it’s really that dress’ fault.

I liked that dress. I don't think she had much of a choice about the wig, since her hair was in bad shape. Looks too lank and limp, though.

Marilyn was pregnant when she did the costume and hair tests for "The Misfits," but she lost the baby before the shoot started. Supposedly, the baby's father was Yves Montand, so this may very well have been induced. This obviously wrecked her marriage to Arthur Miller and affected her already precarious mental state since she had longed to have children.

I love her, but if Marilyn had a baby it would probably be deformed considering all the drugs she took.

Is the photo at r415 from a MISFITS wardrobe test or just a candid? It looks like the same wig she wore in the film. Or is that not a wig here?

I think this is a fabulous thread even if it's not all about Shirley MacLaine and WAWTG.

In hindsight the mid 1960s are a fascinating and curious time in American film when so little in mainstream commercial movies seemed to be reflecting what was happening (or about to happen) in American culture.

Speaking of Gable, the last film of his that he saw was It Happened In Naples; he wasn't around when The Misfits opened. It is a delightful film, still entertaining today. The actual location photography adds immeasurably. By the late 1950's, most backlot substitutes for Europe detracted from the story.

Anyway, Gable had issues with Sophia as well, but the film was still a hit.

In regard to the above poster bringing in quotes by Gable's Widow, and others : ignore them. They are subject to the masochism of the era. Gable always drank, smoked and whored around like Johnny Depp did today. Probably worse - but it was socially acceptable then to do those things. Gable's shenanigans were protected by the studio until he became a liability. It was rumored he even killed a child while driving drunk with Ava Gardner - who lived, and died at 67, he was 59.

Also, John Huston was an SOB and a tyrant, but he was still A list then so escaped much of the wrath.

Finally, the death of Gable's lifelong best friend, Ward Bond, less than 2 weeks earlier, hit him very hard. Gable made sure Wade had a part in Gone With The Wind and other films of his. So while Monroe's antics didn't help, they were not a factor in his demise at 59 (he looked 69).

[quote]Gable always drank, smoked and whored around like Johnny Depp did today. Probably worse - but it was socially acceptable then to do those things.

R419 It wasn't socially acceptable to "whore around". Or to drink and smoke to excess. The 50's were a much more puritanical time than now. I grew up in the 60s and the early 70s, and even that was more puritanical than now, in regular, everyday America.

Gable smoke, drank like a chimney and a fish for years, on The Misfits, insisted on doing his own stunts, and huston spent alot of time gambling...

but per usual, EVERYTHING was Monroe's fault....

r420, you are so wrong on the smoking and drinking part. Did you ever spend time in the bar car of commuter train in the 50s or 60s? The smoking and drinking was rampant. But it was really everywhere, even tolerated in movie theaters and airplanes and, of course, restaurants, country clubs and bars. Puritanical ideals, which may have been extolled sexually, were not affected by smoking and drinking.

[quote] It was rumored he even killed a child while driving drunk with Ava Gardner

That is a total lie. The untrue gossip was that Gable "killed a pedestrian while driving drunk, but MGM covered up the accident and sent another man to jail in his place." It was a load of bullshit that was effectively debunked by Snopes.com.

[quote] but per usual, EVERYTHING was Monroe's fault....

Well, it sure didn't help his blood pressure to be kept waiting for hours and hours on a movie set in temperatures over a hundred degrees.. He did his own stunts out of boredom. I guess that shows how desperate he was for some respit. Anything to relieve the tension of waiting around for hours.

r405 Whoosh.

R422 No, I didn't spend time on a train in the 50s or 60s, I'm not that old. But what I meant was, we're talking about what was socially acceptable. Having social drinks was acceptable. Of course. But drinking to excess has never been socially acceptable. I'm in my 60s and even in the 70s and 80s, smoking was everywhere, but the post was basically trying to say being overindulgent in booze, smoking, and sex was somehow the norm. Maybe among sophisticates or people in club cars. But not everybody lived in cities or in a John Cheever universe. The 50s was also small-town America, rural America, religious, puritanical. Censored. You didn't go to your aunt's house in Iowa on Thanksgiving and wear provocative clothing or swear or get drunk or chain-smoke like a slut. Or if you did, it wasn't considered acceptable.

R417, it is a candid shot taken of Marilyn outside Fox Studios in New York, where the tests took place. Here's another:

Look at the belly of Mariyn in that picture at R427! Was she pregnant? That sure looks like a baby bump. But maybe she was just in one of her plump phases.

R428, this photo is from a few photos taken by her fan/friend james haspiel....

she was NOT pregnant, but she suffered from endometriosis (spelling) which caused her belly to swell from time to time...

So if those are candid shots of Marilyn, then that's presumably her own hair and not a wig. It looks exactly as it does in The Misfits, so I'm guessing her hair in film is her own and not a wig.

R429, the photos were taken by Frieda Hull, who claimed Marilyn was pregnant.

R431.. all I know is that these photos were in James Haspiel who created the monroe fan group book...

I doubt Marilyn would pose for photos showing herself pregnant regardless who was the father... I don't even know due to marilyn's miscarriages with Miller how far along her pregnancies even got (to show a baby bump) before she suffered said miscarriages due to her medical conditions (endometriosis)...

MM's hair in the "Misfits" were wigs. She wore them because her hair would have wilted in a second in the intense desert heat.

In some Marilyn Monroe bios James Haspiel is depicted as a dear, close friend of Marilyn Monroe's. In Donald Spoto's bio of her (which is VERY worshipful) he claimed Haspiel was a fan who took some pictures of her and parlayed that into a career as Marilyn's close friend. Haspiel is of the opinion that Marillyn was murdered. He and Tony Curtis were on some talk show (Curtis was there by remote) and Curtis seemed enraged by that. He spat at Haspiel "Who do you think killed her? Sam Giancana? The Kennedys?" He thought the murder talk was absurd. So do I.

[quote]so I'm guessing her hair in film is her own and not a wig.

R430 Wrong.

When did Gene Kelly start wearing his toupee? I think he is wearing one in WAWTG.

Kelly was wigged practically from the day he began at Metro.

R435 I think he's wearing one in his first film, For Me And My Gal. Even something on the sides. But on Cover Girl, he looks more natural, and may have been wearing a partial hairpiece, or nothing, because some of his candids in those days look fine. Later in the 40s he had to have a hairpiece all the time, or a hat.

Donald Spoto just passed away, the hack.

R438, Does that mean I move up a notch?

Darwin Porter still has to compete with William Mann for bottoim of the barrel. I suspect Mann is the Spoto-hate troll.

Kelly didn't always wear one off camera. There are candids that go far back where he wasn't wearing one. He was at his most beautiful when he was doing Pal Joey. His smile and dancing are sensational. And then a great score by Rodgers and Hart. How could such talent once have existed?

This is probably the wrong thread, but what’s wrong with Donald Spoto and William J. Mann?

I know Darwin Porter is an infamous fabulist but what’s the problem with the other two?

Donald Spoto wrote by the numbers film bios, cranking them out like sausage. Then he discovered by throwing something scandalous as a talking point to his other wise recycled materials, he got more pr for his books. He's like the male Charlotte Chandler, another hack. Darwin Porter just writes gay fan fiction porn. William Mann is okay, but a little too on the nose with some his celeb book premises...

Spoto was a clown.

R440, Danforth Prince is in that crowded bottom with them.

[quote] Donald Spoto just passed away, the hack.

I won't be mourning him. For some reason he hated Alfred Hitchcock and put out not one, not two, but THREE books raking him over the coals. He portrays Hitchcock as a perverse, sexually malajusted, nasty, misfit who wasn't even really that good a director. But Marilyn Monroe he worships. He was a big ol' Marilyn Mnroe queen; in his biography of her he kisses her ass from here to kingdom come, insisting she was NOT a drug addict, NOT promiscous, and that although she had her moments of being "difficult" she was no more unprofessional than a lot of other actors (HAH!). She was just a sensitive artist who got overwhelmed sometimes.

He got a lot of press for his claim in his bio of Laurence Olivier that Olivier and Danny Kaye had a serious affair. Olivier and Kaye were friends but there's no real evidence to suggest they were lovers. Spoto made the bombshell claim up to sell books. In a new bio of Olivier and Vivien Leigh by Stephen Galloway ("Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century" ) one of the pictures featuring Danny Kaye has the caption that he was "falsely" accused of being Olivier's lover. Spota was evidently full of shit.

In the late 90s, he spoke about his "journey" writing his MM book at the Los Angeles based Marilyn Remembered Fan Club. Got into a heated discussion with MM-author James Spada regarding the validity of the JFK-MM affair as to length of time and intensity. Two queens bickering about a dead movie star.

You know what was a biography I devoured? Fasten Your Seatbelts: The Passionate Life of Bette Davis by Lawrence J. Quirk. That one hasn't been debunked, has it? It's where I learned Clark Gable had a nasty dick.

Correcting a point from way at the start of the thread: Ethel Merman wasn't actually playing a madam in "Call Me Madam." Just so you know.

r446 Say what? Next you'll be trying to convince us that Jeff Chandler never wore polka dots.

I have to say I loved Mann's biography of Katherine Hepburn.

Who’s she?

[quote] Katherine Hepburn.

R451 Katharine Hepburn

R448 - what exactly is a "nasty dick"? It was ugly? Small? Malformed? Bad circumcision?

Probably still had a foreskin.

A foreskin that he didn't regularly clean, attached to (as I recall) a somewhat broken penis.

And of all these dames we're discussing here, the topic queen Shirley MacLaine is still alive and working. All the rest are gone.

R457, I have been alive, in many different forms, for over 2 millennia.

Shirley lost Pete Hamill to Jackie back in the 1970s after living with him for years.

Jackie and Pete were hot and heavy until some vintage very unkind articles surfaced that Pete had written criticizing Jackie's marriage to Onassis.

Romance over.

Clark Gable had some nerve. He was the one who mocked Joan Crawford's crab-ridden nether regions, when his weren't much better.

[quote] A foreskin that he didn't regularly clean, attached to (as I recall) a somewhat broken penis.

His penis sure wasn't "broken." It always worked. He fucked with impunity. And I never heard he had anything bad to say about Joan Crawford. In an interview after his death she spoke of him with fondness and admiration.

Is Shirley still working? I enjoy her performances despite making Joan Crawford look like the reason Mother's Day was created.

R457 Carroll Baker is still alive.

Joanne Woodward doesn't ever seem to be talked about at all when the blondes of the 50s and 60s are discussed around here.

[quote] Joanne Woodward doesn't ever seem to be talked about at all when the blondes of the 50s and 60s are discussed around here.

Probably because she was a character actress, not a sex symbol.

And she was borderline boring in most everything, at that.

R465 Maybe she was a character actress later, but she was a leading lady/movie star in her prime.

R466 Amazing how popular and successful she was, in that case.

I don't think r465 used the term "character actress" to mean a supporting actress, but more as an actor who actually suppresses their own persona to become a character unlike themselves.

And in her early work, at least, 3 Faces of Eve, No Down Payment, Orpheus Descending, The Long Hot Summer and a few others, she could be electrifying. But yeah, she became very boring by the 1980s, maybe even a lot of the 1970s.

I was frankly frightened by her as a child when I saw “A New Kind of Love” on TV. I thought she was a transsexual.

I do think she’s good as the psychiatrist in “Sybil”. The part doesn’t require any variety, though - not terribly difficult.

She was inept in this imitation Tennessee Williams mess.

She seemed to be imitating Julie Harris.

Yul Brynner wore a wig and was pretending to be a normal man.

And the divine Margaret Leighton (who is usually so reliable) pretends at a Scarlett O'Hara accent.

Woodward did a lot of great roles later in her career. (I love SUMMER WISHES, WINTER DREAMS) I was never a big fan of her early stuff. In fact, I still think Eleanor Parker is much better in LIZZIE (though not a great fi,m) than Woodward is in 3 FACES.

Woodward had a voice like she was congested all the time. Every time I see her I want to say, "Either blow your fucking nose or swallow, you got a booger there."

Terminally boring actress.

Always found Woodward boring. Always thought she had a career because of Newman. Towards the end they were quite the culture vultures. Saw them a couple of times at the Met and Carnegie. Though she was probably dragging him along. Poor guy. Women would stare at him like he was some freak and he didn't seem all that comfortable with it.

r449-

[quote]Ethel Merman wasn't actually playing a madam in "Call Me Madam." Just so you know.

"I'm the Madam and you're just one of the boys."

Newman always explained not having affairs with, “Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?” But this was confusing, as Woodward wasn’t overly attractive.

Maybe she did secret things with her twat.

R475, Their marriage was from the idyllic narrative that was fed to the public for decades.

R475, Such bullshit, Paul fucked around.

Who were his affairs with?

What did you expect him to say, r477?

I think her bitchy, snobby, ice-blond rich girl in From The Terrace was a departure for her and she did a great job in that. I liked her in A Kiss Before Dying, with Robert Wagner, as the innocent victim to his spychopath. And as someone mentioned, The Long, Hot Summer - and No Down Payment.

*psychopath

The film was big box office, the 7th highest grossing movie of 1964

And people decry the lack of quality NOW!

Jeez, this movie is a turd.

I remember going to see this movie with my parents as a family Saturday outing. I must have been seven. I liked the guys, I liked the clothes, the women fabulous. Gay.

I'm just happy to see this thread get bumped to see Shirl's mink hat and eyebrows in passing.

[quote] Jeez, this movie is a turd.

Oh, please. I've seen much, much worse. It's a fun movie if its time.

If it's tme for what?

To die?

To take a dump

Shouldn’t it be:

To take a dump, Rose…

Joanne Woodward is a fantastic actress, you are all crazy. She is the superior talent to Paul. She wasn't quite beautiful enough to get the movie parts she really deserved, like Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But she can act circles around Liz Taylor.

There was a version of The Glass Menagerie Paul directed, with Joanne. She was really good in it. She would have been a great Maggie The Cat, though I have no problem with Taylor.

I think she’s a B+ actress with C+ looks.

R491, Joanne Woodward speaks in a monotone that is very grating.

Shirley MacLaine's first Oscar nom, for "Some Came Running." Shirl has her moments, but at times sounds like Lucy Ricardo on a bender! My take on this Vincente Minnelli meller...

Shirley Maclaine got her second Oscar nom for one of her best roles & most restrained performances in Billy Wilder's "The Apartment." My look here...

[quote]Poor guy. Women would stare at him like he was some freak and he didn't seem all that comfortable with it.

Paul Newman was a bona fide movie star most of his life. You think he hadn't made peace with the looks in public decades ago? The Newman's were very social and out all the time at functions.

[quote] Such bullshit, Paul fucked around.

Wow, intimate details about a complete stranger. Imagine what you would know if you had actually met him?

^MARY!!!

It's on NOW bitches!!!

On FXMHD

[quote]The Newman's were very social and out all the time at functions.

Oh, dear.

His wife was talking with friends so he was standing slightly apart. He did not look like he had made peace with it. He wasn't mortified by it but he did look somewhat uncomfortable.