Marilyn Monroe remains a film and American con, not unlike others that died young, starting with Jeanne Eagles, a star of the 1920s, who died of drugs and alcoholism at age 39. Others, like Jean Harlow, the first blond bombshell, Judy Garland, and James Dean followed that same path to fan immortality. Aside from Monroe, there were many other great women stars, and the critics knew talent when they saw it: Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Mary Astor, Greer Garson, Meryl Streep, Claudette Colbert, Vivian Leigh, Barbara Stanwyck, Katherine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, Susan Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, Audrey Hepburn and Ginger Rogers among many others. By the way, they were all attractive. If not, they could never have made it in the Golden Age of Hollywood.

As for blond bombshells there have been many that followed Jean Harlow, like, Virginia Mayo and Carol Landis. But no one could capture to her electricity. Others, like; Lana Turner, Betty Grable and ultimately Marilyn Monroe were the heirs to Harlow. Monroe certainly created a new look that brought on her own imitators, like Jayne Mansfield, Diana Dors, Joi Lansing, and Carol Wayne, who was an almost a regular on the Johnny Carson Show.

Cary Grant also had tremendous sex appeal to both genders and is possibly the most popular star of the Golden Age of Movies. He was part of a whole generation of British stars who came across the pond and made their fame and fortune in Hollywood. Among the many, the two most appreciated were Leslie Howard and Ronald Colman. Others like David Niven, James Mason and Noel Coward were very talented, but never big box office.

As for Marilyn, no one could deny her sex appeal and film charisma. But, In fact, I would judge Jean Harlow to be miles ahead of Monroe in talent. She also had her problems with her mother and her home life, like Mary Astor and many others. Throughout Hollywood history a number of husbands exploited their working wives, but in fact, neither Jim Daugherty, baseball super star, Joe DiMaggio nor famed playwright Arthur Miller exploited her. She dumped first husband Jim Daugherty, DiMaggio was a misogynist and had no clue regarding social graces, and Miller dumped his first wife for her. What else is new? Nothing can be deprecated regarding her strong sex-appeal. But this is nothing new in the world of Hollywood. In fact, the original “It Girl,” was Clara Bow. There were many, many others like, Lauren Bacall, Ava Gardner, Hedy LaMarr and Rita Hayworth, who many fans often call great actresses. They were far from it. Some have had more talent than others, but they would hardly be compared with other stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood: Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Greer Garson, Joan Crawford, Ida Lupino, Claudette Colbert, Rosalind Russell, Vivien Leigh, Irene Dunne, and Barbara Stanwyck

For sure, not every evaluation is based on sex or sexism. Not every man is a male chauvinist, and there have been countless women who have taken advantage of their good looks to climb up the ladder of fame, success and fortune. I believe, and know, that Monroe had enough talent to come off the pages of the fan magazine, pass a screen text, and be shaped by the body and face sculptors of Hollywood. After that re-make effort, one must really judge her body of work, not just her body! Frankly, I have always liked her in pretty much whatever she did. But, whom am I, but another red-blooded American boy!

Obviously there are film buffs, critics, casual fans and others who buy into “the cult of the personality.” In reading various comments on Marilyn Monroe, one finds two overwhelming dynamics: one an over-analysis of all of her films as some critics and fans try to find the secret to her electricity, allure, and as Billy Wilder said, “flesh appeal” and the other, a more detailed look at what she really accomplished, the depth of her roles, her actual skills and how they evolved. She, unlike Cary Grant (Archie Leach), was most often the character the studio poobahs cast he as in film after film. Hollywood loves to milk success to the last drop.

Obviously, the great actor can play almost any role and that doesn’t include playing themselves. From my perspective, both Jean Baker/Monroe and leach/Grant developed certain personas that the studios and the fans could easily buy into! They certainly both remained decent box office almost to the end.

Of course, in the male-dominated world of Hollywood, where “meatier” roles for women were often as rare as hen’s teeth. It was where powerful males, before WWII, who dominated: Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, Tyrone Power, James Cagney, etc. Later on more sensitive roles developed for a new generation of male stars, like Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart and even Humphrey Bogart. Archie Leach/Cary Grant, especially before the war, was able to maintain his strong masculine appeal while basically playing light comedy, for which he was well-suited and quite unique.

As with Cary Grant, I liked him for decades. I thought he was sort of funny, irreverent and charming, in sort of an insincere way. He certainly was entertaining in Gunga Din, Our Gal Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace. But, in his more realistic roles with Notorious and Suspicion, two Hitchcock films, I found him playing himself, but this time, of course, in a more serious vein. His jealousy over Bergman/Huberman’s marriage to former N*zi Claude Rains/Huberman in Argentina was hard to swallow. Was he good in it? Others could have played it better. We are led into a tangled web of love, marriage, alienation, spying and international politics. In this treatment, the heroine, Ingrid Bergman/Alicia Huberman is basically forced to marry and spy on a man she does not love. Her safety and well-being becomes almost immediately compromised and her real lover, Cary Grant/TR Devlin must decide where his loyalties lie, with her, or her mission. Of course, he didn’t write the script, but was he realistic? I didn’t think so!

Other films that should be mentioned!

Sylvia Scarlett

Topper

The Awful Truth

Holiday

The Philadelphia Story

The Talk of the Town

As for Suspicion, the film was so distorted at the end, that it was unbelievable. Does he kill his wife or not? That wasn’t his fault. The film was all about Hitchcockian suspense, but its ending was as pathetic as North by Northwest. Why does Hitchcock create this duplicitous, almost transparent bounder, and in the last scene turn him back to some misunderstood lover? My guess is that the studio didn’t want to see Cary Grant as a wife killer!  Maybe he should have cast Joseph Cotton or Dan Duryea for the part, but they weren’t “boffo” or big box-office.

.In fact, was there anything realistic about North by Northwest? If there was, it escapes me. In the crop duster spraying Roger (Grant) his hair was hardly mussed, then the crop duster crashes into an oil truck! Huh! He pulls a knife from the back of someone stabbed at the UN, the house where he is nearly drowned by liquor suddenly being cleaned out in 5 minutes, and then the idiotic ending at Mount Rushmore. Hitchcock threw everything into that finish, reminiscent of Saboteurs ending at the Statue of Liberty. The whole film was so ridiculous and could it been better without Grant, who knows? Again is it Cary Grant playing Cary Grant or is it Archie Leach, the cockney from Bristol, England?

Of course, getting back to North by Northwest, which seems, by all the ratings and many critics, to be a very popular and entertaining film, is typical Hitchcockian!  Cary Grant aka Roger Thornhill, becomes the typical Hitchcock foil or fool, the man who gets sucked into the vortex of miss-identification  not unlike, the main characters in Saboteur, Strangers on a Train, or The Wrong Man.

Aside from his obvious sex appeal to both men and women, Leach/Grant’s sexuality was always rumored about, especially from the time he shared a beach house with Randolph Scott in Malibu, through his five marriages. Of course, there have been rumors about every Hollywood personage since day one. One notorious incident was seen on television back in 1980.

On Tom Snyder’s talk show Tomorrow, Chevy Chase was asked, “People say you’re going to be the next Cary Grant,” and I said, “That’s crazy, there’s nobody like Cary Grant and there will never be another Cary Grant and I understand he was a homo,” In that 1980 appearance, Chase had followed up with, “He was brilliant. What a gal!” in reference to Grant.

The day after Chase’s NBC talk show appearance, Grant filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against the comedian for his comments. The case was reportedly settled in court and, though neither actor commented on the settlement, it is reported Chase paid $1 million in damages. A lesson to the wise, watch what you say in public.

But, he wasn’t the first one to speculate on Grant, or Monroe, or many others. Whatever they were, their performances are still around for all of us to see. As time has moved on, it seems their fans seem to continue to grow and no one really remembers the rumors, their backgrounds or what really motivated them.

The following were mostly Grant’s WWII era and Post war films:

 Once Upon a Honeymoon

Mr. Lucky (all right)

Night and Day (Grant as Cole Porter- incredibly miscast and the film a total fabrication)

The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer

Every Girl Should be Married

Destination Tokyo (typical war film, American captain with a British accent)

I was a War Bride

Crisis

People Will Talk 

Room for One More

Monkey Business

To Catch a Thief (silly)

An Affair to Remember

Pride and the Passion (horrible)

Kiss Them for Me

Indiscreet

House Boat

North by Northwest

Operation Petticoat

That Touch of Mink                              

Charade

Father Goose

Walk Don’t Run

 What can one say for that body of work? Aside from None but the Lonely Heart., few had real critical acclaim or are memorable. These films aren’t completely his fault. He was paid to be an actor, given roles and fulfilled them. But, generally speaking, I couldn’t sit through any of them today, and most are forgettable. Again is Leach playing Cary Grant in another venue. As for To Catch a Thief and Charade, they are again almost frivolous, light comedy, basically ridiculous, and unbelievable, I assume they were quite entertaining at the time. Whenever I see them, I laugh!

Of course, here is a list of ALL of Monroe’s films. The last, Something’s Got to Give was never made. Of all the 31 others, she did not become a headliner until #22 Gentleman Prefer Blondes. As for the rest, maybe 5 or 6 were worthy of critical comment! By the way, they were both in Monkey Business.

1. Dangerous Years(1947)
2. The Shocking Miss Pilgrim(1947)
3. Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!(1948)
4. Green Grass of Wyoming(1948)
5. Ladies of the Chorus(1948)
6. Love Happy(1949)
7. A Ticket to Tomahawk(1950)
8. The Asphalt Jungle(1950)
9. Right Cross(1950)
10. The Fireball(1950)
11. All About Eve(1950)
12. Home Town Story(1951)
13. As Young as You Feel(1951)
14. Love Nest(1951)
15. Let’s Make It Legal(1951)
16. Clash by Night(1952)
17. We’re Not Married!(1952)
18. Don’t Bother to Knock(1952)
19. O. Henry’s Full House(1952)
20. Monkey Business(1952)
21. Niagara(1953)
22. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes(1953)
23. How to Marry a Millionaire(1953)
24. River of No Return(1954)
25. There’s No Business Like Show Business(1954)
26. The Seven Year Itch(1955)
27. Bus Stop(1956)
28. The Prince and the Showgirl(1957)
29. Some Like It Hot(1959)
30. Let’s Make Love(1960)
31. The Misfits(1961)
32. Something’s Got to Give(1962)

 For sure, not every evaluation is based on sex or sexism. Not every man is a male chauvinist, and there have been countless women who have taken advantage of their good looks to climb up the ladder of fame, success and fortune. I believe, and know, that Monroe had enough talent to come off the pages of the fan magazine, pass a screen text, and be shaped by the body and face sculptors of Hollywood. After that re-make effort, one must really judge her body of work, not just her body! Frankly, I have always liked her in pretty much whatever she did. But, whom am I, but another red-blooded American boy!

Obviously there are film buffs, critics, casual fans and others who buy into “the cult of the personality.” In reading various comments on Marilyn Monroe, one finds two overwhelming dynamics: one an over-analysis of all of her films as some critics and fans try to find the secret to her electricity, allure, and as Billy Wilder said, “flesh appeal” and the other, a more detailed look at what she really accomplished, the depth of her roles, her actual skills and how they evolved. She, unlike Cary Grant (Archie Leach), was most often the character the studio poobahs cast he as in film after film. Hollywood loves to milk success to the last drop.