Five fabulous Monroe movies
She is one of the most memorable screen presences.
The woman born Norma Jeane Mortenson only made 30 films during her 15-year screen career, but she became (and remains) a pop-culture icon, an actor who had top billing for a decade and whose movies grossed the modern-day equivalent of US$2 billion.
As the new and controversial biopic Blonde lands on Netflix, Stuff to Watch has compiled this list of Marilyn Monroe’s five most memorable flicks and where you can watch them.
How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) iTunes
The first 20th Century Fox film to be released in the supposedly more immersive CinemaScope, in this adaptation of two plays Monroe is joined by Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable as a trio of money-hungry Manhattan fashion models. ‘‘Fabulously cast and wickedly witty,’’ wrote Radio Times’ Tony Sloman.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) YouTube, Google Play, iTunes
Based on the 1949 stage musical of the same name, Howard Hawkes’ tale of two showgirls was a terrific showcase for Monroe and co-star Jane Russell. But while there are plenty of comedic moments, it’s Monroe’s performance, as Lorelei Lee, of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend that became iconic. ‘‘Russell is worldly, amused, intensely in touch: Monroe is sublimely unfocused and beatific,’’ wrote The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw.
The Misfits (1961) iTunes
Adapted by Monroe’s third husband, Arthur Miller, from a 1959 short story of his, this western was sadly the last movie she and co-star Clark Gable made before their deaths.
Monroe plays a divorcee who falls for Gable’s aged cowboy in a film originally more notable for its troubled shoot, as Miller and Monroe’s marriage fell apart and she struggled with alcohol and prescription drug addictions, but it is now considered a classic of its era. ‘‘John Huston’s latter-day western exerts a doomy, morbid fascination that goes beyond what we see on the screen,’’ wrote The Times’ Wendy Ide.
The Seven Year Itch (1955) iTunes, Google Play, YouTube
Although mainly remembered for ‘‘that dress’’, especially the scene where it billows up over a subway grate, Billy Wilder’s rom-com might not deign to give Monroe’s toothpaste commercial star a name, but viewers will find her as hard to forget (and to resist) as Tom Ewell’s hapless Richard Sherman does. ‘‘So arresting is Monroe’s presence that when she’s not on screen, we wait impatiently, wondering, Where have you gone, Mrs DiMaggio?,’’ wrote The Village Voice’s Melissa Anderson.
Some Like It Hot (1959) iTunes, Google Play
Billy Wilder’s magnificent romantic-comedy might be all about Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’s musicians’ attempts to disguise themselves as women to stay alive, but it’s Monroe’s luminous Sugar Kane who steals the show. ‘‘Nobody’s perfect, as the film’s immortal closing line has it, but some comedies are,’’ wrote The Times’ James Jackson.