Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days Movie Review 2000

AMC cable channel documentary on Marilyn Monroe. The unedited footage from the aborted "Something's Gotta Give" has been shown in ghoulish glimpses and bits for 40 years, but here we get an honest and thorough look at the entire set of raw dailies. In almost every take, Marilyn comes off as disoriented and strained, incapable of good work, for whatever reason. It's a good documentary, with frank discussions of the kind of sticky production intrigues that studios usually avoid in favor of publicity pap. The movie was intended as a remake of "My Favorite Wife," and eventually done as "Move Over, Darling," with Doris Day. Playing a woman with children for the first time might have begun a great central section for Monroe's career, but as the dailies make very clear, her performance is forced and distracted, not quite as pathetic as Judy Garland's for "Annie Get Your Gun," but just as useless.

Distribution

Fox Home Entertainment, PO Box 900, Beverly Hills, CA 90213, Phone: (310)369-3900, Toll-free: 888-223-4FOX, Fax: (310)369-5811, URL: http://www.foxmovies.com/index1.html, Remarks: Also known as Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Available on DVD
Running time 120 minutes.

Cast and Crew

Genres

Documentary Films, Biography: Show Business

Cast

Cyd Charisse, Walter Bernstein, Henry Weinstein

Director

Patty Ivins

Other

James Coburn