Sky Movies are running lots of Marilyn movies just now, but never THE MISFITS. I used to be obsessed about this 1961 John Huston film when I was younger, and saw it lots of times in that pre-video world - I had to go to any screening of it. Its one I need to see again now, before too long. Lots on it at MM labels. 
Birdie enters with Margo's breakfast on a tray A glass of orange juice sitting in a bowl of ice - perhaps fresh chilled orange juice was not available in supermarkets 65 years ago? One can just picture Birdie squeezing the oranges every morning and the ice in the bowl keeps it cold without diluting it. Margo then has a coffee and a cigarette ....
I was obsessed about THE MISFITS for a long time, back in my twenties when back in that pre-video age before we could own copies of favourite films, I could never miss a screening. Apart from the cast, it has maybe the most perfect black and white photography, as lensed by Russell Metty (who did TOUCH OF EVIL among others) . It was a very difficult shoot, with all the world press covering it - including Magnum's Eve Arnold, who knew Monroe and later published her book on the film and its making - Eve Arnold label. I was a kid at the time and remember all the press coverage. Like EAST OF EDEN, PLEIN SOLEIL or the later BLOW-UP, it was a film that just spoke to me .... particularly as the Monroe mythology took off in the early '60s. 
Gable seems sadly aged here, after his previous one IT STARTED IN NAPLES where he looks fine with Sophia Loren (over 30 years younger than him), Clift is of course marvellous as usual, after his great WILD RIVER with Kazan, and before going back to Huston for the questionable FREUD, Wallach (who lived on to 98, it was fascinating seeing him as a wizened old man) scores as the bitter, resentful Guido using the death of his wife to try to score with Marilyn's Roslyn, while Thelma Ritter is bliss as the Reno landlady used to the ways of those cowboys. As in ALL ABOUT EVE (which of course Marilyn was also in as Miss Caswell) she vanishes from the film too soon.
The scenes with the horses too are perfectly done and perfectly Huston. 
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| NIGHT OF THE IGUANA |
Anne Baxter (after that comedy western A TICKET TO TOMAHAWK forgotten now apart from that Marilyn was in it too) and George Sanders (after another biblical, the enjoyable SAMSON & DELILAH) must have relished gettng their teeth into dialogue like this (while Bette had one of her most iconic roles after her years at Warners). 
I have written here before about A LETTER TO THREE WIVES (see Darnell, Mankiewicz labels), maybe my favourite Joseph L. Mankiewicz film, even more so than ALL ABOUT EVE, and an enduring 1940s classic (which Mank wrote and made in 1949, a year before EVE - winning Oscars both years for directing and writing, his 1950 NO WAY OUT is also a terrific discovery). 
cue flashbacks on each marrage, done in Mank's best style as we savour all that dialogue and witty situations, and of course its that 1940s dreamworld personified, where they are all comfortably off with large, roomy houses, those big estate cars and domestic help for when entertaining - cue Thelma Ritter as Sadie in the maid's outfit.
Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas) and marvel at how she reels him in, with that ladder in her stockings and holding out until that New Year's Eve when he gives in, and calls and asks her to marry him. Her mother Connie Gilchrist indeed cries "Bingo"! But she and Porter end up resenting each other, until Addie Ross comes along and chooses a husband .. |
| Thelma's Sadie |
We never see Addie, but she is voiced by Celeste Holm.
This after all is written and directed by Melville Shavelson, who did some delightful '50s comedies that still work now, like HOUSEBOAT and IT STARTED IN NAPLES, both showcasing Sophia Loren perfectly. But it seems that, like Billy Wilder, he too was stranded as the '60s took off and he suddenly appeared dated. The Newmans were probably looking for a change of pace - they had already done Paris seriously in PARIS BLUES for Martin Ritt in 1961, and comedy in RALLY ROUND THE FLAG BOYS in 1958 (review at Newman label). But this romantic comedy set in Paris falls very flat like champagne that has lost its zing. 
THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE BROKER – I saw this 1951 comedy on tv
decades ago and it left a vivid memory but I had never seen it since and
it never plays here, but this minor Cukor comedy (now on Fox Archives dvd) is sheer delight, as
scripted and produced by Charles Brackett. It has that Fox early ‘50s
looks in spades too, with those Fox regulars Jeanne Crain as the model
and Thelma Ritter as the marriage-broker. 
THE MODEL AND THE MARRIAGE BROKER fell into the range
of those small New York based Cukor films, between ADAM'S RIB and PAT
AND MIKE and of course those later Judy Hollidays. Brackett's script
must have been written with Thelma in mind. And we also get a nod
towards George's THE WOMEN with that nice scene at the model shop where
Crain walks around wearing that stunning cape while the women meet and
talk, and where she learns of Ritter's profession. Crain makes a much better impression here than in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES, Mankiewicz's classic and a favourite from 1949, where hers was the least interesting story.
Thankfully, rich nice girl Mona Freeman enters to write a
story on the rising young boxer, but her father was a deaf mute and she
knows sign language and before we know it Tony is having an operation to
restore his hearing… how will this affect his boxing and can Mona
extract him from the clutches of gold-digging Jan? This is vastly
enjoyable at a cracking 79 minutes, as directed by studio regular (I won’t say hack) Joseph
Pevney who certainly churned them out in the ‘50s. Wallace Ford and
Connie Gilchrist provide able support. Another of Tony's young guy on
the make movies, like MISTER CORY, but its a surprise treat now.
Bette and Themla Ritter have great interplay here and of course in the dressing-room scene when Eve first appears, and in the great party scene ... Mankiewicz later regretted that we saw no more of Birdie (who sees through Eve's duplicity right away) once the story moved away from Margo's duplex ... Bette effortlessly dominates the first half of the film but really the roles of Margo, Eve and Karen (Celeste Holm) are more or less equal [like the 3 women in his previous A LETTER TO 3 WIVES in 1949] - Margo is rather sidelined in the second half as Eve, Karen and Addison De Witt (George Sanders) take centre stage; it would have been the icing on the cake to have seen more of Birdie too.
NO WAY OUT, one of Joseph L Mankiewicz's two 20th Century Fox films in 1950 (the other was some little trifle called ALL ABOUT EVE) is still a stunning drama; no wonder it is never revived or seen on television these days, it is a tough racist drama which does not pull its punches with all that racist language spewed out by Richard Widmark as the petty, mean hood who thinks black hospital doctor Sidney Poitier (one of his first roles) was responsible for his brother's death and he means vengance. Stephen McNally is the dependable head of the hospital and Linda is the down-on-her-luck girlfriend of Widmark's nasty hood - that roominghouse room they reside in looks all too real. Tensions escalate as the local racists gather for a fight, a scene illuminated with a flare gun; and it still shocks to see Poitier with the spit on his face from a bigot - Widmark gets more deranged and self-pitying as he launches his final attack on Poitier and then realises just what a hateful unloved mess he is .... Linda is admirable as she comes to her senses and realises where her loyalties lie. It is a good downbeat role for her after those 40s glamour roles in the likes of FOREVER AMBER and Preminger's FALLEN ANGEL. Prior to this the only NO WAY OUT I knew was the 80s Kevin Costner flick.
How can I convey how much I love A LETTER TO THREE WIVES - it is surely one of the most perfect 40s American movies showing that 40s dreamworld of plush suburbia where the women all have roomy comfortable homes, drive big estate cars and have domestic help (Themla Ritter!) when entertaining. It is just as good if not better than ALL ABOUT EVE (which really has the same format being about 3 women: Margo, Karen and Eve all with about equal screen time; it is though a more wittily acidic curdled cocktail of a movie). Each wife here represents a different type of the upwardly mobile post-WWII woman. Jeanne Crain is a pretty, stay-at-home type of modest background, grateful and anxious to fit in with the country club set. Ann Sothern is the married career girl both proud and worried that she makes more than her schoolteacher husband (young Kirk Douglas), as she writes for the radio soaps. Linda is the unrepentant social climber from the wrong side of town who plays the cards she’s dealt with masterfully, but can’t get over the golddigger persona she feels saddled with, as she lands the rich Paul Douglas who feels he has bought her.
Mankiewicz delights in pricking and celebrating the pride and pretensions of each woman, succeeding especially with Sothern and Darnell as they worry (when away on a day trip) over which of their husbands has run off with the town socialite Addie Ross who has thoughtfully had a note delivered to them advising that she is leaving town with one of their men! It remains visually expressive though of course the story would not work now in the modern world where people are never out of contact without their telephone! The first story with Jeanne Crain is the slightest, then there is the dinner party from hell with Florence Bates as the radio executive with much verbal wit with that amusing wordplay on Sadie the maid (Thelma) being saturated and penetrated by the radio ads - Gracias!; and then the story of how Linda's Lora Mae from the shack by the railroad (wait till the trains pass by..) snares her department store boss Porter Hollingsway (Douglas), she too can be a girl in a silver frame on a piano. The poor sap does not stand a chance as Lora Mae ladders her nylons to emphasise her legs and retorts "what I got don't need beads" when implored by her mother Connie Gilchrist to put on a necklace.
It climaxes nicely on New Year's Eve when Porter calls to capitulate and Lora Mae bitterly realises she has won, they do not find out they love each other until that nice moment at the end with her "you big gorilla"! This enduring classic (there was a rubbish television remake but who remembers that...or even saw it) and HOUSE OF STRANGERS made 1949 a terrific year for Mankiewicz (right), winning Oscars for writing and directing here, as he did again in 1950 with ALL ABOUT EVE, and also directing NO WAY OUT - just like a decade later Billy Wilder scored with SOME LIKE IT HOT followed by THE APARTMENT where he won his awards - as he lost out to BEN HUR the previous year). Mank of course is one of Hollywood's great writer-director-producers and he also romanced quite a few leading ladies: Darnell, Lana, Judy and so many others... as well as producing Joan Crawford movies and stuff like WOMAN OF THE YEAR where he made that remark that Tracy would cut Hepburn down to size ... I still have his FIVE FINGERS and PEOPLE WILL TALK to watch, and I always like seeing CLEOPATRA, SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER, THE HONEYPOT, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (which Linda was set to play, but then Ava was the bigger star).
I had been looking forward to Preston Sturges' UNFAITHFULLY YOURS from 1948 - I like Prestons's other films a lot: SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, THE LADY EVE, THE PALM BEACH STORY are all classics, I even like those Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton comedies of his - so UNFAITHFULLY YOURS looked like it would be a treat. However I did not like it all, I found the humour laboured as famous conductor Rex Harrison suspects his lovely wife Daphne (Linda Darnell) of infidelity. While leading his orchestra in three different pieces, he elaborately daydreams various forms of revenge, each one accompanied by a classical music piece. First, in a complex and ingenious fantasy to Rossini's music, he murders Daphne and plots to frame and convict Anthony Windborn (Kurt Kreuger), his own suspected young private secretary, for the crime.
Linda's great era was the 1940s of course - she still had some successes in the '50s, I like SATURDAY ISLAND or ISLAND OF DESIRE where she is on a desert island with young marine Tab Hunter (looking like a go-go dancer in his sawn off shorts), and as per review at Linda Darnell label, I love her 1954 melodrama THIS IS MY LOVE, also directed by Stuart Heisler [thanks to IMDb pals Melvelvit and Timshelboy for that one].
