Irrefutably, Marilyn Monroe was one of the icons of the 1950's. Her legend has far outlasted most of her contemporaries. And despite detractors, imitators and the like, it's Monroe's iconography that continues to take seed in each new generation of actresses hoping to outdo Monroe's sex goddess image.
Those too quick to discount Monroe's assets as those firmly situated just beneath the neck and slightly above the knees have been remiss in discounting Monroe's infectious appeal, not as a dumb, flaxen-haired sex bomb or blonde that gentlemen preferred, but as the total package - a woman with instinct, sex appeal, undeniable physical beauty, and a mind she kept quietly concealed, to release her smarts perfectly on cue when the chips were down or to prove her critics wrong.
Monroe today remains a titanic influence on pop culture, fashion and sexiness. The tragedy of her untimely death has neither marred nor eclipsed her galvanized screen persona.
So, it's perhaps more than a tad insulting that 20th Century Fox failed to offer up any sort of comprehensive Monroe box set on Blu-ray. Disney, now the custodians of the Monroe legacy are likely to fare no better at the exultation.
What we have of Monroe on Blu-ray is, frankly, substandard, with few exceptions. They are, for starters, the pluperfect 4K rendering of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, and, Fox's restored Blu's of Niagara and Bus Stop.
The other Blu's crammed into the Monroe set of 1999 were barely adequate in their day. But in reviewing them during a weekend-long Monroe festival at my house, with friends, I was appalled by how badly these transfers have worn.
For starters, we need complete 'ground up' remasters of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry A Millionaire, There's No Business Like Show Business, The Seven Year Itch and River of No Return.
What's wrong with them currently? Where to begin?
Of the aforementioned, There's No Business Like Show Business fares the best, with color fidelity so vivid, despite it being a DeLuxe color release, you'd swear you were looking at vintage 3-strip Technicolor in its prime. The problem here is the transfer is soft with not a lot of fine detail coming forth except occasionally in close-ups.
How To Marry A Millionaire, Monroe's first 'scope' release, and the first comedy, in fact, to be released in Fox's patented Cinemascope process, is a disaster. The black tuxedos during the 'Street Scene' orchestral prologue register royal blue. Flesh tones are flat and pasty and fine detail is wanting.
The Seven Year Itch, one of Monroe's brightest moneymakers, despite being a rather stilted comedy, has its entire last act marred by atrocious color mis-registration issues. Check out the scenes where Monroe and co-star, Tom Ewell, as the harried hubby, are found out by the superintendent of their duplex, with annoying/distracting red halos around every detail.
River of No Return suffers from one of the muddiest color transfers on record. For a picture shot in the lush outdoors, every color here leans to a beige/blue palette, with verdant foliage now registering flat, pasty and dull. Spectral highlights are tinged in a blue caste and the image is dull, dull, dull.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has one of the worst instances of DNR applied, rendering the entire image waxy. Colors pop. But detail is complete lost and grain is non-existent. Ugh!
In the Monroe box set are also a copy of Wilder's Some Like It Hot, sporting a tired transfer before it was given a deluxe remaster, and, an even more careworn transfer of Monroe's final film, The Misfits. Neither impresses herein.
Twilight Time released a Blu of Don't Bother To Knock. This was adequate, but not exemplary.
Fox also gave us a brilliant transfer of All About Eve in which Monroe sparkled in a cameo. We also have Monroe in MGM's The Asphalt Jungle, via Criterion by way of Warner Home Video.
But Warner has dragged its heels on remastering The Prince and the Showgirl, a Monroe tour de force, sadly underrated, or Clash By Night, in which Monroe is memorable with Keith Andres as her brutish lover.
As for Fox - it never came around to releasing Blu's of O'Henry's Full House, Monkey Business, Let's Make Love, We're Not Married, Let's Make It Legal, Love Nest, and, As Young As You Feel.
Given that Monroe's career was relatively short, and her legacy, ingrained in the hearts and minds of filmgoers ever since, wouldn't it be nice if someone, somewhere elected to give Monroe movies the restoration/remastering they deserve?
Then again, I feel the same way about the faded and forgotten legacies of Shirley Temple and Betty Grable - the other Fox blondes who preceded Monroe and made their marks respectively.
Thoughts, ideas, ranting, lamenting. Lay it on - thick or otherwise.
Those too quick to discount Monroe's assets as those firmly situated just beneath the neck and slightly above the knees have been remiss in discounting Monroe's infectious appeal, not as a dumb, flaxen-haired sex bomb or blonde that gentlemen preferred, but as the total package - a woman with instinct, sex appeal, undeniable physical beauty, and a mind she kept quietly concealed, to release her smarts perfectly on cue when the chips were down or to prove her critics wrong.
Monroe today remains a titanic influence on pop culture, fashion and sexiness. The tragedy of her untimely death has neither marred nor eclipsed her galvanized screen persona.
So, it's perhaps more than a tad insulting that 20th Century Fox failed to offer up any sort of comprehensive Monroe box set on Blu-ray. Disney, now the custodians of the Monroe legacy are likely to fare no better at the exultation.
What we have of Monroe on Blu-ray is, frankly, substandard, with few exceptions. They are, for starters, the pluperfect 4K rendering of Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, and, Fox's restored Blu's of Niagara and Bus Stop.
The other Blu's crammed into the Monroe set of 1999 were barely adequate in their day. But in reviewing them during a weekend-long Monroe festival at my house, with friends, I was appalled by how badly these transfers have worn.
For starters, we need complete 'ground up' remasters of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry A Millionaire, There's No Business Like Show Business, The Seven Year Itch and River of No Return.
What's wrong with them currently? Where to begin?
Of the aforementioned, There's No Business Like Show Business fares the best, with color fidelity so vivid, despite it being a DeLuxe color release, you'd swear you were looking at vintage 3-strip Technicolor in its prime. The problem here is the transfer is soft with not a lot of fine detail coming forth except occasionally in close-ups.
How To Marry A Millionaire, Monroe's first 'scope' release, and the first comedy, in fact, to be released in Fox's patented Cinemascope process, is a disaster. The black tuxedos during the 'Street Scene' orchestral prologue register royal blue. Flesh tones are flat and pasty and fine detail is wanting.
The Seven Year Itch, one of Monroe's brightest moneymakers, despite being a rather stilted comedy, has its entire last act marred by atrocious color mis-registration issues. Check out the scenes where Monroe and co-star, Tom Ewell, as the harried hubby, are found out by the superintendent of their duplex, with annoying/distracting red halos around every detail.
River of No Return suffers from one of the muddiest color transfers on record. For a picture shot in the lush outdoors, every color here leans to a beige/blue palette, with verdant foliage now registering flat, pasty and dull. Spectral highlights are tinged in a blue caste and the image is dull, dull, dull.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has one of the worst instances of DNR applied, rendering the entire image waxy. Colors pop. But detail is complete lost and grain is non-existent. Ugh!
In the Monroe box set are also a copy of Wilder's Some Like It Hot, sporting a tired transfer before it was given a deluxe remaster, and, an even more careworn transfer of Monroe's final film, The Misfits. Neither impresses herein.
Twilight Time released a Blu of Don't Bother To Knock. This was adequate, but not exemplary.
Fox also gave us a brilliant transfer of All About Eve in which Monroe sparkled in a cameo. We also have Monroe in MGM's The Asphalt Jungle, via Criterion by way of Warner Home Video.
But Warner has dragged its heels on remastering The Prince and the Showgirl, a Monroe tour de force, sadly underrated, or Clash By Night, in which Monroe is memorable with Keith Andres as her brutish lover.
As for Fox - it never came around to releasing Blu's of O'Henry's Full House, Monkey Business, Let's Make Love, We're Not Married, Let's Make It Legal, Love Nest, and, As Young As You Feel.
Given that Monroe's career was relatively short, and her legacy, ingrained in the hearts and minds of filmgoers ever since, wouldn't it be nice if someone, somewhere elected to give Monroe movies the restoration/remastering they deserve?
Then again, I feel the same way about the faded and forgotten legacies of Shirley Temple and Betty Grable - the other Fox blondes who preceded Monroe and made their marks respectively.
Thoughts, ideas, ranting, lamenting. Lay it on - thick or otherwise.
