Ahead of publication of Burying Norma Jeane and Sunday’s related events, please enjoy this blog post by author Leah Rogin.
When I started writing my novel, Burying Norma Jeane, it began as a short story response to finding out that Marilyn Monroe was sharing crypt-space with Hugh Hefner for the rest of eternity without ever having given permission.
I measured that 2020-pandemic era in terms of “High Covid” (when we were baking pineapple upside down cakes and wondering how we’d isolate for six whole weeks), “Middle Covid,” (when the weeks turned to years and all that baking caught up with us), and “Low Covid,” (which no one likes to talk about). It was right between Middle Covid and Low Covid when I started watching all the Marilyn movies. I’d only watched a couple before, and I was working on this short story about visiting her crypt, and it was a way to help the days pass. While I was watching them, I’d write these snarky film reviews of each one, as a way to talk back to the chauvinism, the 1950s cheesiness, the way men kept lassoing Marilyn, both literally and metaphorically. Eventually I realized this was all part of the same project, that the short story and the film reviews belonged together, and trying to figure out how to sew them took me through most of Low Covid. As I brought my book into the world, I realized that while almost everyone knows who Marilyn Monroe is, many folks have never seen one of her movies all the way through. I was raised by a cinephile and have always been a classic film fan, so this possibility had not occurred to me! If you’ve never seen a Marilyn Monroe movie, watch one of these three and then tell me about it at leahrogin@gmail.com
- Some Like it Hot (1959) is probably the quintessential Marilyn Monroe movie, and it’s super gender-bendery in ways that hold up surprisingly well. Men posing as women, posing as men are working hard to break down gender binaries before anyone knew that was a thing, and the closing scene is a particularly classic representation of this. It was given the #22 spot on the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Top 100 films celebrating 100 years of Hollywood, and was named the #1 Comedy on AFI’s 100 Funniest American Movies of All Time. Everyone involved in it was nominated for an Academy Award except Marilyn Monroe, who carries the whole freakin movie, which tells you a lot of what you need to know about how she was treated in Hollywood. Watch it with a lover in a sexy nightie; swap pajamas halfway through.
- The Misfits (1961) was Marilyn Monroe’s last released movie (after it was completed she worked on never-finished Something’s Got to Give). She starred in it with her quintessential Daddy figure, Clark Gable, who died 10 days after filming wrapped. It was a rough movie for all involved. An anti-western that uses the backdrop of the evaporating cowboy lifestyle, it was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning fink, Arthur Miller. Marilyn’s third husband, and author of prestigious plays like Death of a Salesman, Miller probably didn’t marry Marilyn just to break into Hollywood? And he definitely didn’t write this whole movie just to torture the wife who was about to leave him? Whatever the case, Marilyn definitely should have won an Academy Award for this one. and probably a “not murdering her superfink of a husband” award if such things were being passed out. Watch it in a cowboy hat and invite some friends.
- Gentleman Prefer Blondes (1953) is my personal favorite Marilyn Monroe musical. I grew up watching it as a kid and must have seen it 20-30 times. I was surprised when I got to graduate school and read the 1925 novel by Anita Loos in my feminist literature class, and maybe that whole juxtaposition is what started my journey of taking Marilyn more seriously. Whether or not you want to see it through a post-feminist lens, Jane Russell and Marilyn have hilarious chemistry, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” is the single best musical number ever (fight me!) that you probably don’t realize you’ve seen spoofed / homaged everywhere from Madonna to Moulin Rouge to Beyonce. Watch it with a swanky cocktail party and lots of glamorous costume changes.
Bonus Watches if you’re feeling Noir-y: Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) and Niagara (1953) I could keep gushing about Marilyn Monroe movies, and if you’ve never seen one, I encourage you to make a night of it. I think both Don’t Bother to Knock, and maybe especially Niagara are the best noir films of the 1950s, and they show a dark side to her acting talents that you won’t see in the films above.
You can also pick up Burying Norma Jeane and read my version of Marilyn’s biography in the form of movies, while also cheering for Matilda and Miriam to liberate her body from Hugh Hefner’s stanky clutches. And if you’re in the L.A. area on August 4th, Marilyn’s Death-versary, come see another kind of film at the Hollywood Library: Deanne Stillman’s “Marilyn Monroe Flees her Grave When Hugh Hefner is Buried Next Door” and hear me read from and sign copies of Burying Norma Jeane. You might even win a Marilyn Monroe trading card or other swag from Blackwater Press and the Library.
And extra bonus video.