Marilyn Monroe could make a comic line sound hopeful and doubtful at once. We rate her most highly when a film gives that timing room to work, rather than treating her beauty as sufficient reason to keep watching.
Fi1m perspective
Listen to the uncertainty in Sugar’s voice in Some Like It Hot (1959): Monroe can make hope and doubt audible within the same breath. Billy Wilder’s farce gives her plenty of comic commotion to work among, but she keeps this woman’s disappointments from being lost in it. We were moved by Sugar because disappointment keeps troubling Monroe’s hopeful delivery without stopping her being funny. She does this without slowing the comedy or asking for a separate moment of sympathy. That is acting we rate highly, and it is easily missed if we watch only for the glamour.
The early small parts in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and All About Eve (1950) were followed by leading roles in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The casting often asked for a glamorous woman assumed to be foolish, and her breathy voice helped make that image recognisable. Bus Stop (1956) offered a more grounded dramatic part as Cherie. By The Misfits (1961), her final completed film, she was again working in a more dramatic role.
In Some Like It Hot, cinematographer Charles Lang gives the small changes in her expression enough attention to register. Orry-Kelly’s dresses make walking part of the comedy, while Tony Curtis’s self-control and Jack Lemmon’s busier movements supply contrasting rhythms around her. Monroe’s timing makes Sugar a participant in these exchanges, not simply their reward. The film can be insistent about showing her beauty, and Wilder’s gangster passages sometimes interrupt the pleasure of watching the three leads together.
We would not use the more dramatic parts to apologise for the comedies. Getting hope, doubt and a joke into one line is demanding work, however lightly it is delivered. Monroe’s limited casting can make the roles sound interchangeable; Sugar is a good reason to look more carefully. Start with Some Like It Hot, and watch her even when Curtis and Lemmon are doing their best to keep us occupied.
Biography
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress. Born Norma Jeane Mortenson on 1 June 1926 in Los Angeles, she died on 5 August 1962.
She began her career in modelling during the Second World War, leading to short contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After minor roles, she gained notice in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and All About Eve (1950). She appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), River of No Return (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959) as Sugar Kane Kowalczyk. Later credits include The Misfits (1961).
