Let's Make Love (1960)

Let me first say that I watched this movie in three installments at the gym.  This led me to wonder really inconsequential things, like, why does Amanda (Marilyn Monroe) knit in the first section of the movie but not in the second section?
"What are you making?"
"I haven't decided yet.  It keeps my hands busy."
It turns out she does in fact knit in the third section... she knits sequined yarn in a musical fantasy dreamed by Jean-Marc Clement (Yves Montand).  Phew.  I was worried about continuity.
I also noticed that I was not in any rush to go back to the gym to find out what happened to the characters.

Let's Make Love is your standard "I must pretend to be someone I am not so that you will see the true me and love me.  And then you will quickly (VERY QUICKLY) forget how humiliated you felt by my lying and fall into my arms" movie.  Sometimes this works for me, sometimes it doesn't.  This time it didn't.  Maybe because I just couldn't get myself to care at all about the characters.

Poor Jean-Marc Clement.  He is a French billionaire, and someone is making an off-Broadway musical that uses ten seconds of its stage time to make a joke about him!  His PR man convinces him to visit a rehearsal to show that he can laugh at himself, thus making other people laughing at him seem a little more friendly.  And there on stage at the rehearsal, slithering down poles in a sweater and panty hose, is Amanda (Marilyn Monroe).  Jean-Marc is told he bears a striking resemblance to Jean-Marc Clement, Amanda makes disparaging remarks about the "real" Jean-Marc Clement, and Jean-Marc decides to assume a new name and get cast in the show as himself to get close to Amanda.

More songs, skimpier outfits, Jean-Marc making hoity toity remarks...  and so on.

Highlight for me:  When Jean-Marc needs to learn how to dance (so to better woo Amanda), Gene Kelly comes to his office and gives him a lesson.  Not a great scene, but got me to perk up and pay attention.  Cameos from Bing Crosby and Milton Berle as well.

Two stars, and I don't want to see this again.

Monkey Business (1952)

Despite what the box might make you think, this movie is not about Marilyn Monroe's character at all. This is a movie about Barnaby (Cary Grant), who thinks he has created some magical formula that makes you act and feel much younger than you are, and his wife Edwina (Ginger Rogers). Marilyn Monroe plays a secretary at the chemical lab where Barnaby works, and she goes along with him on his day of feeling 20. They roller skate, go to the pool, crash a car... But Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers are the fun parts of this not-so-wonderful movie.

If I could ignore the fact that the plot is touched off by a chimpanzee getting loose, accidentally creating a brilliant chemical formula, and then dumping the formula in the water cooler so it can begin to confuse and alter everyone, I could concentrate on the fact that I would like to see more of Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers. "Tell me, is anyone giving a party tonight we can stay home from?" Grant and Rogers have some good lines together. And she dances, and he even does a cartwheel. And he sings. Just leave out the chimps, and put them in a different movie together. Two stars, because this movie was so much better than Thank Your Lucky Stars, which I also just wrote about, but I am ready to search out other Grant/Rogers films.

The Seven Year Itch (1955)

I won't be seeing this movie again. I can say I've seen the famous blowing dress scene and move on.
Richard Sherman's wife and son, along with all the wives and children of the New York businessmen, have left the city for the summer. So what are all the husbands to do? "Drinking, smoking, picking up girls, playing chopsticks..."
Richard Sherman wastes no time in getting to all of this, but it's okay, because he's been married for seven years, and it is a well-known fact that men experience a seven year itch and need to branch out a bit. And anyways, he just spends most of his time thinking about cheating and running around being sneaky... So no worries. Despite Richard's assertion that "no pretty girl wants me. She wants Gregory Peck," he quickly picks up his new upstairs neighbor Marilyn Monroe, known as "The Girl." Does she even have a name? She's ditzy, she wears sexy dresses, and she's willing to kiss him just for fun, because he's married and she doesn't have to worry about him proposing or anything. Richard narrates the whole movie. We hear his every thought. And I don't find him likeable. So can I give the movie zero stars?

Yes, I would have preferred:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Life is grand... Dorothy (Jane Russell) and Lorelei (Marilyn Monroe) are off to Paris, and who happens to be on their ocean liner? The US Olympic team! Dorothy gets to cavort with the Olympians (there is even a gymnastics dance), while Lorelei says goodbye to her trusting fiance who will be staying at home.
Hilarity ensues as Lorelei becomes rather friendly with a rich old owner of a diamond mine (he gives her his wife's prized diamond tiara!), and Dorothy becomes smitten with a private detective hired by the father of Lorelei's fiance to track her every move.
The women have to become very crafty in order to evade jealous fiances, angry wives, incriminating rolls of film, and French prison sentences. "I can be smart when it's important, but most people don't like it." Doesn't that sound just like a Marilyn Monroe line?

Such a fun movie.

"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"

So yay! Four stars! Would watch again!

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

So, here is my very naive question: Is there a movie in which Marilyn Monroe does not play a ditz? Yes, yes, I'm supposed to know things like this. I just haven't seen very many of her movies. Only Some Like It Hot and Bus Stop (Amy, do you remember Bus Stop?). Oh, and that little moment of a part in All About Eve. This time, Marilyn plays a ditz with glasses who has to take her glasses off any time there is a chance of being seen by men. "You know what they say about girls who wear glasses." Sadly, this causes her to bump into things frequently and get even more confused than she is with the glasses on.

Three models, Schatze (Lauren Bacall), Pola (Monroe), and Loco (Betty Grable) move into a luxury condo in order to meet and catch millionaires to marry. Unfortunately for them, the rent is much too steep and they are forced to keep pawning their rented furniture. Schatze, having been married and cheated before, is adamant that the girls not waste any time on men without a fortune. Men like the ones Loco keeps bringing home.

One of Loco's unacceptable finds, Tom Brookman, falls for Schatze, but she only has eyes for the rich Texan widower J.D. Hanley (William Powell). Little does Schatze know that Brookman is in fact a millionaire. But while Brookman goes to great lengths to court Schatze (even booking the three girls to model clothes for him in a store!), he is careful not to let Schatze know about his wealth lest she pick him based on that. While Schatze chases after Hanley, who is afraid that she would be wasting her life to marry an old man, her friends go off and find the loves of their lives: men with no money! I will not give away the hilarious circumstances under which they find their loves. Her friends' happiness eventually causes Schatze to re-think her obsession with rich men, with terrible timing for the poor Mr. Hanley.

Three stars, and I would definitely see this again. Now, if I only I could write a new ending for William Powell's character.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

I love this movie. I tried to watch it outside at the Boston Harbor Hotel last summer, and a thunderstorm half an hour into the movie foiled my attempt. Now a year later, I have finally seen it again. Four stars... plan to see it many more times. Why do I love it? Because it is fifty years old, and yet the comedy is still hilarious... Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis are perfect... It is immensely quotable... It's just so funny.

Joe (Curtis) and Jerry (Lemmon) have to flee town when they accidentally witness a mob mass killing. Best way to skip town? Dress up like women, of course, and join a women's band on its way to Florida.

Hilarity ensues as both men take turns falling for their band mate Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), who confides to Joe's alter ego Josephine that she is hoping to meet a dashing millionaire in Florida. Even more hilarity as a millionaire man falls for Jerry's alter ego Daphne.

And the wonderful ending. If for some reason you have never seen the ending or had it quoted to you and you just love surprises, don't watch.