An Education In Marilyn Munroe

I think I’ve mentioned this before in a previous post but for somebody who carries the reputation of being a film fanatic amongst my friends, I feel as though I haven’t seen nearly enough of the classics to warrant such a reputation.  My pile of shame (famous films that I’ve never seen) includes The Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Easy Rider, Singing In The Rain, Schindler’s List, It’s A Wonderful Life…I could go on.  I think I once worked out that I have seen less than a third of IMDB Top 250 films of all time.

Anyway, periodically, I get motivated to create pet projects for myself to try and remedy these things.

Recently, I realized that I haven’t seen a single Marilyn Munroe film before.  She is an iconic screen actress and has been in some bona fide classics.  She’s also been in some pretty rubbishy stuff too.  Anyway, a month ago I picked up a Marilyn Munroe boxset on the cheap and I’ll be plugging away through some of her most famous films (The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, How To Marry A Millionaire) and some of the filler that also came in the boxset (River Of No Return, Niagara).

Regardless of the quality of the films I’m about to review, I can definitely recommend the Forever Marilyn boxset if you’re even remotely interested in her body of work.  The picture quality in these films is fantastic and they’re all stacked with extra features which do a good job providing some additional context and background information to the more interesting films.

First up:  Niagara!