MARILYN MONROE The Final Days (TV) [2001]

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Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days (2001) (TV)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286809/

Somethings Got to Give is an unfinished 1962 American feature film, directed by George Cukor and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, it was Monroes last work; from the beginning its production was disrupted by her personal troubles, and after her death on August 5, 1962 the film was abandoned. Most of its completed footage remained unseen for many years.

Marilyn Monroe had been absent from the screen for over a year. She had recently undergone gallbladder surgery, and had lost more than 25 pounds, reaching the lowest weight of her adult life. In six hours of testing, Monroe wore some of her own clothes and some of those commissioned by Fox for the film. Her costumes included a long blonde wig meant for the beginning of the film, a two-piece black wool suit (also worn in Lets Make Love), a black and white spaghetti strap silk dress, and a lime green two-piece bathing suit with a bottom designed to cover her navel.

Before shooting had begun, Monroe had let producer Henry Weinstein know that she had been asked by the White House to perform for President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in honor of his birthday on May 29, 1962. The producer granted her permission to attend the gala, believing there would be no problems on the set.

On the first day of production, April 23, 1962, Monroe telephoned Weinstein to tell him that she had a severe sinus infection and would not be on the set that morning. Apparently she had caught the infection after a trip to New York City during which she had visited her acting coach, Lee Strasberg of The Actors Studio, to go over her role. The studio sent staff doctor Lee Siegel to examine the star at her home. His diagnosis would have postponed the movie for a month, but George Cukor refused to wait. Instead he reorganized the shooting schedule to film scenes around his leading lady. At 7:30 am, Cyd Charisse was telephoned and summoned to the Fox lot. Later that morning the first scene filmed involved Martins character and Charisse, in an encounter with children building a tree house.

Over the next month filming continued mostly without Monroe, who showed up only occasionally. The production began to fall behind schedule. As Kennedys birthday approached, no one on the production thought Monroe would keep her commitment to the White House and miss almost a week of shooting, but she did. Studio documents released after Monroes death confirm that her appearance at the political fundraising event was approved by Fox executives.

By this time the production was over budget, and the script was still not completely finalised despite writer Walter Bernsteins efforts. The continual rewrites aggravated Monroes well-known problems with remembering dialogue. When not before the camera, she spent much of her time on the set in her dressing room with Lee Strasbergs wife, Paula.

Upon her return from New York, Monroe decided to give the film a publicity boost by doing something no major Hollywood actress had done before. In the scene where Ellen is swimming at night, she calls playfully up to Nicks bedroom window and invites him to join her. Nick tells her to get out of the pool and then realizes she is nude. A body stocking was made for her, but Monroe took it off and swam around in only a flesh-colored bikini bottom. The set was closed to all but necessary crew. However, Monroe had asked photographers to come in, including William Woodfield, and after filming was completed, Monroe was photographed in the bikini bottom, and without it.

The decision to fire Monroe was influenced by the progress of Foxs epic film Cleopatra, also in production that summer and far over its budget. Executives had planned for a Christmas holiday release for Somethings Got To Give, as a source of revenue to offset Cleopatras increasing cost.

Monroe quickly gave interviews and photo essays for Life, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue magazines. The Life interview with Richard Meryman, published on August 3, 1962 included her reflections on the positive and negative aspects of fame. Fame is fickle, she said. I now live in my work and in a few relationships with the few people I can really count on. Fame will go by, and so long, Ive had you, fame. If it goes by, Ive always known it was fickle. So, at least its something I experienced, but thats not where I live.

Monroe was to be replaced with actress Lee Remick, who was fitted into Monroes costumes and photographed with Cukor. However, Dean Martin had final approval of his leading lady, and refused to continue without Monroe. Fox relented and re-hired her, even agreeing to pay her more than her previous salary of $100,000; however she had to agree to make two more films for Fox. She accepted the offer on the condition that Cukor be replaced with Jean Negulesco, who had directed her in How to Marry a Millionaire. Filming was set to resume in October, but no more work was done after Monroes death.

In April 1963, Fox released the 83-minute documentary Marilyn which included brief clips from the screen-tests and unfinished film showing Monroe. This was the only footage from the film seen by the public until the hour-long 1990 documentary Marilyn: Somethings Got To Give, which used extensive excerpts from the footage.

Fox later produced another version of the script, more closely resembling the original 1940 film, but it utilized some of the sets from the abandoned version, as well as costumes (with variations) and hair styles designed for Monroe. Retitled Move Over, Darling and starring Doris Day, James Garner, and Polly Bergen, it was released by Twentieth Century Fox in December 1963.

Nine hours of largely unseen footage from the film remained in the vaults at 20th Century Fox until 1999, when it was digitally restored by Prometheus Entertainment and assembled into a 37-minute segment for the two-hour documentary, Marilyn: The Final Days. It first aired on American Movie Classics on June 1, 2001, which would have been Monroes 75th birthday.

I recall seeing a VHS tape about this incident, with similar reconstruction footage, 20 years ago in the 1980s, however I can find no trace of that film.