Sterling Hayward, Louis Calhern, Marilyn Monroe (Angela Phinlay)
A major jewelry heist by a group of career criminals goes off as planned, but all the principals are either dead or in custody as the gritty film noir
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
PRODUCER: Arthur Hornblow Jr.
DIRECTOR/COWRITER: John Huston
COWRITER: Ben Maddow
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Harold Rosson
Mickey Rooney, Pat O’Brien, Marilyn Monroe (Polly)
Thirty-year-old Rooney plays a teenage fugitive from an orphanage who struggles before becoming a skating star in the roller derby, very big on early TV. Father O’Hara (O’Brien) tries to save him from himself, much as Father Flanagan did for Whitey Marsh in
20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Bert Friedlob
DIRECTOR/COWRITER: Tay Garnett
COWRITER: Horace McCoy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lester White
Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Marilyn Monroe (Claudia Casswell)
A ruthless, conniving ingenue insinuates her way into the inner circle of a legendary, aging Broadway star, leaving wrecked lives and shattered relationships in her wake, as she claws her way to the very pinnacle of theatrical stardom. Of the set pieces, Marilyn shines in two of them, earning kudos from the critics. Widely considered the best film about the theater ever made and, by the American Film Institute, among others, one of the best films of all time. The script contains a number of memorable lines, not the least being Davis’s warning to her captive audience to “fasten your seatbelts.” Nominated for fourteen Academy Awards, winning six, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. 138 minutes.
20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Darryl F. Zanuck
DIRECTOR/WRITER: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Milton Krasner
June Allyson, Dick Powell, Ricardo Montalban, Marilyn Monroe (Dusky LeDoux)
Anglo-Latino romantic entanglements are unresolved as they play out against the story of a Chicano fighter (Montalban) trying to hang on to his boxing career after a hand injury leaves him a noncontender. Allyson is in his corner, but not necessarily in his bed. Marilyn plays a bar girl who has a brief encounter with Powell, Montalban’s best friend. Pretty dull going, but good production values help. 90 minutes.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
PRODUCER: Armand Deutsch
DIRECTOR: John Sturges
WRITER: Charles Schnee
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Norbert Brodine
Jeffrey Lynn, Donald Crisp, Marilyn Monroe (Iris Martin)
After losing a hard-fought reelection bid to the legislature, Jeffrey Lynn assumes control of the hometown newspaper and launches a bitter attack on the man he holds responsible for his defeat, Donald Crisp, the powerful head of the town’s biggest business. The film was made on the MGM lot by General Motors’ public relations department, which rejected the final result as substandard. Metro deemed it unworthy of copyright renewal and it languished in the public domain until Marilyn’s fans rediscovered it. She has a two-minute scene as a receptionist in the newspaper office. 61 minutes.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
PRODUCER/WRITER/DIRECTOR: Arthur Pierson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien Andriot
Monty Wooley, Thelma Ritter, David Wayne, Constance Bennett, Marilyn Monroe (Harriet)
A sixty-five-year-old factory worker (Wooley), forced into an unwanted retirement, impersonates the company president and saves the firm from bankruptcy, proving his worth and saving his job. Solid cast makes the story believable, with Marilyn in small role as an office worker. Marilyn devotees know this is the film where she and Arthur Miller first met. 77 minutes.
20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Lamar Trotti
DIRECTOR: Harmon Jones
WRITER: Lamar Trotti (story by Paddy Chayevsky)
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Joe McDonald
William Lundigan, June Haver, Marilyn Monroe (Roberta “Bobbie” Stevens)
A post–World War II sex comedy, without the sex and short on comedy, with ex-GI Lundigan and Haver as newlyweds and new owners of an aged brownstone in New York. Tenant and ex-WAC, Marilyn’s role is described in one review as “an extended cameo,” the highlight being a scene in which she emerges from the shower draped only in a towel. 84 minutes.
20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: Jules Buck
DIRECTOR: Joseph Newman
WRITER: I. A. L. Diamond
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lloyd Ahern
Claudette Colbert, Macdonald Carey, Zachary Scott, Robert Wagner, Marilyn Monroe (Joyce Mannering)
Miriam and Hugh Halsworth (Colbert and Carey), after a twenty-year marriage, are in the throes of a divorce when an old suitor (Zachary Scott) of hers rolls into town. Marilyn’s contributions are mostly decorative as she spends much of her screen time in a swimsuit. Of the romantic comedy, one critic wrote, “[It] feels overstretched even at an hour and a quarter.” It’s hard to believe that this is the best Miss Colbert could manage following her withdrawal only a year earlier for medical reasons as Margo Channing in
20th Century-Fox
PRODUCER: F. Hugh Herbert
DIRECTOR: Richard Sale
COWRITERS: I. A. L. Diamond and F. Hugh Herbert
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Lucien Ballard
Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe (Peggy)
After a hard-knock life in New York, Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) returns to her hometown, a coastal California village, to live with her fisherman brother. She is courted by a boat owner, Jerry (Douglas), eventually marries him, has a child, and begins an adulterous, reckless affair with the brutal Earl (Robert Ryan), all under the nose of her husband. Monroe is a cannery worker, married to Mae’s brother, and they both look great in their beachwear, but add nothing to the goings-on in this noirish melodrama. 105 minutes.
RKO Pictures—(A Wald-Krasna Production)
PRODUCER: Harriet Parsons
