Years later when asked about Monroe, Groucho Marx said of her audition, “The whole room revolved when she walked.”Īnother small, uncredited role for Monroe, this time in a film directed by John Sturges, starring Dick Powell and Ricardo Montalban. Monroe has a tiny walk-on role - she isn’t onscreen long enough to leave much of an impression beyond her beauty. Love Happy is generally (and rightly, I might add) considered the weakest of the Marx Brothers films. Monroe diehards shouldn’t waste their time tracking this down. Monroe appears in two scenes, and not even her natural charm makes it worth watching. The Fireball, starring an exceedingly over-the-top and loudmouth Mickey Rooney as a hot-shot competitive roller-skater, is one of the best examples of this. That’s why it isn’t surprising just how many middling to outright-bad films Monroe appeared very briefly in. A lot of stars, even the greatest among them, have a lot of minor appearances in forgettable work, particularly at the very beginning of their careers. One important aspect of classic Hollywood’s studio system, which was in its twilight as Monroe rose to stardom, is the sheer breadth of work actors were forced to do by the demanding contracts their studios locked them into. This ranking of Monroe’s 29 films - based on her performance in each - gives a sense of what a supremely talented comedian and dramatic actress she was, with a keen understanding of the camera that few actors can replicate. But Monroe was more complex than her legacy suggests, as both an actress and a woman. She’s been linked to falsely attributed quotes, conspiracy theories, and lurid rumors. She’s been flattened onto dorm-room posters, mugs, T-shirts, artist renderings. These warring images have lasted long after Monroe’s death in 1962 at 36 years old, and they’re easy to twist into caricature. The picture of mid-century femininity - wasp-waisted, platinum blonde, and buxom. You probably had an image of Monroe in your mind long before you ever saw her on film. But no blonde sex symbol has had a deeper and more long-lasting impact on film and American culture than Marilyn Monroe. Hollywood has been creating a mythology around blonde bombshells since its beginnings. We have republished it with Blonde in theaters. This list was originally published in 2017.
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