AN ACTRESS NO ONE HAS FORGOTTEN.

Anyone who thinks that Marilyn Monroe was not a great actress is sadly mistaken. Monroe, like Elvis Presley, was forced by the studio into trite commercial roles, and prevented from proving their skills in more serious fare. For instance Monroe was considered to star in Oklahoma with James Dean, Nixed. She was chosen for the role of Grushenka in The Brother Karamazov, nixed; and talks were underway for her to play Kate Nolan in the musical version of, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn opposite Frank Sinatra, also nixed. At the Actors' Studio, she did a scene from A Streetcar Named Desire in which the fellow actors were astounded by her brilliant Blanche Dubois. While she did star in some major productions, there were many major films which were denied to her because she was such big box office in lighter, weaker roles. So movie-goers were often cheated out of seeing just how brilliant Marilyn was. Imagine, for instance, what an impact she would have made did she not have to turn down the role of Lola in Damn Yankees. Tab Hunter and Marilyn Monroe. Now that's movie magic. Sadly we will never see these unmade films, yet even with the few quality productions she made, she won the affection of the world, which is why even today, 57 years after her death, she is still famous, admired and recognized all over the world.

PRAISED AND PANNED. PHOOEY.

It's interesting how some films are highly praised and others are panned or overlooked. I recently saw the film My Fair Lady, which I detest for being overproduced and claustrophobic (Get me out of that library). It also has several songs that are just incredibly ordinary and boring like "Just You Wait, 'Enry 'Iggins" and "Without You". Yuck. On the other hand the same team wrote Brigadoon, a film I loved and have watched many times, including last night. This film, which doesn't have a single bad song was panned by the critics in 1954 and lost money for MGM. (One critic called it a Technicolor disaster. So much for critics, it was filmed in Ansco color). Another critic raved about Robert Goulet in the later TV version (so much for critics. Great voice. Overacted). So I, for one, am a huge fan of Brigadoon and truly believe My Fair Lady is good, not great. And speaking of rotten films based on an incredibly ordinary stage musicals, you can't do worse than Camelot, also by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.