Free The Genius and the Goddess by Jeffrey Meyers Page A

hysterical performance as a drab, unglamorous,
psychopathic babysitter who almost murders the child in her care. In Niagara (1953) she played a beer-hall waitress, a good-time girl married
to a psychopath,Joseph Cotton.Oscar Wilde had called Niagara Falls
"the second great disappointment of the American bride," but Marilyn
managed to complement the orgasmic fortissimo of the cataract. The
film was advertised with a poster of a gigantic Marilyn, reclining across
the entire width of the Falls, which equated her powerful sexuality
with its immense volume, everlasting duration and uncontrollable force.
When she sees some young couples dancing outside her motel room,
she puts a record on the phonograph and sings, "Kiss me . . . take me
in your arms and make my life perfection. . . . Perfection ." The gloomy
Cotton, who seems impotent when confronted with Marilyn's seductive
sensuality and mocked by the romantic theme of her song, rushes
out of their room and smashes the record.
    Marilyn is naked in bed as well as in the shower, and wears a tight,
red-hot dress (one man observes) "cut so low you can see her kneecaps."
In one scene, as she lies in a hospital bed, a fringe of down shows
up on her cheek. Adorned with heavy make-up, she has characteristically
pouting lips, half-open mouth and girlish giggle. The camera
then follows her and captures, from behind and in a long-shot, her
patented sensuouswalk. Always fueled by an erotic flame, she stirs the
men around her as she moves. But her acting in this melodrama is
mannered, uncertain and unconvincing.
    When a Hollywood columnist noted that "her derrière looked like
two puppies fighting under a silk sheet," Marilyn, stretching the truth
in an amusing remark, defended her natural gait: "I learned to walk
when I was ten months old, and I've been walking this way ever
since." In a rather stilted statement, almost certainly written by a studio
publicist and designed to separate her sleazy character on screen from
the respectable Miss Monroe, she tried to dissociate herself from her
role: "The girl I played was an amoral type whose plot to kill her
husband was attempted with no apparent cost to her conscience. She
had been picked out of a beer parlour, she entirely lacked the social
graces and she was overdressed, over made-up, and completely wanton.
The uninhibited deportment in the motel room and the walk seemed
normal facets of such a character's portrayal. I honestly believe such
a girl would behave in that manner." 14
    In Marilyn's last two films of 1953 she played her typical and most
popular incarnation: the gold-digger with a heart of gold. In Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes – based on the book and musical comedy by Anita Loos
and directed by Howard Hawks – a dumb blonde and a showgirl,
both well endowed, sail to Paris to find rich husbands. In one scene
of Gentlemen Marilyn wears a top hat, long black gloves, transparent
black stockings, high heels and a gaudy sequined costume cut like a
bathing suit. In another, wearing a strapless, floor-length, pink satin
gown, with long-sleeved gloves, she steals the show by singing
"Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend." The best lines in the film –
"Those girls couldn't drown. Something about them tells me they
couldn't sink" – were cut by the censor.
    In Gentlemen Marilyn has pouting lips, whispery speech and a
kittenish way of saying, "don't wowwy" and "get mawwied." She
arrives at the ship bound for Cherbourg dressed in a leopard skin
cape and muff, and asks, "Is this the way to Europe France?" When
introduced to people on the ship, she says, "A pleasure to meet you
I'm ever so sure." She's comically obsessed by jewels and money, and
there's a long shot of her wiggling her behind while dancing in order
to attract rich men. A little boy on the ship, who has a deep voice
and uses uncommonly long words, provides an amusing contrast to
her character. In a French court, the black-hairedJane Russell, wearing
a blond wig, pretends to be Marilyn