Cinema Sunday's Multiple Movie March wraps up with a pair of films about blondes.
Some Like It Hot opened in the week ending March 24, 1959
Today's post starts off with a short film, only 23 minutes long, about a short moment in the movie that took a long time to shoot,
47 takes to say 3 words.
The short film is called It's Me, Sugar.
In the film Some Like It Hot, Marilyn Monroe's character Sugar knocks on a hotel room door and say ‘It's me. Sugar.'
With director Billy Wilder, her co-stars, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, and her husband, Arthur Miller, looking on, Marilyn nails the line.
After 47 takes.
Why did it take 47 takes to say "It's me, Sugar!"
Well... take your pick.
- Addiction to pills.
- Excessive drinking.
- Lack of sleep.
- Poor concentration attributable to all of the above.
Or she just had a case of the yips.
As defined in Young Sheldon, the yips is when you've climbed too far in your own head and suddenly find doing things that are second nature are now not so easy.
For all the troubles Marilyn Monroe was experiencing as noted above, for a beach scene with Tony Curtis that Billy Wilder scheduled to shoot over 3 days, Marilyn was perfect and the shoot was finished in 20 minutes.
Now she can't say "It's me, Sugar"?
Instead she says "Sugar, it's me" or "It's Sugar, me".
Efforts are made to help mitigate whatever problems Marilyn is having. For example, "It's me, Sugar" is put up on large cue cards. Which seems to only exacerbate Marilyn's difficulties.
Billy Wilder spoke in 1959 about his experience with working with Marilyn Monroe: "I have discussed this with my doctor and my psychiatrist and they tell me I'm too old and too rich to go through this again. My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?"
The text of Billy's comments from that interview are used in It's Me, Sugar as part of Billy's "Go get 'em" speech to Marilyn.
The speech works after Marilyn nails "It's me, Sugar" on take #47.
Commenting on why it took her so long to get this right, Marilyn shrugs and says, "Well, nobody's perfect," which is the iconic closing line of Some Like It Hot.
Next up is a movie that is exactly 1 minute less than an hour long. Clocking in at a run time of 59 minutes, from 1937, it's Smart Blonde. Glenda Farrell is Torchy Blane, a fast-talking wisecracking female reporter investigating the killing of an investor who just bought a popular local nightclub.
Tiny Torgenson is coming to town to buy the Million Club and various gambling and sporting enterprises from his old friend Fitz Mularkey. Fitz has decided to quit the business due to his upcoming marriage to Marcia Friel.
Tiny barely steps off the train before he's shot. Dead. It's "moidah" I tells ya and Torchy's on the scene with the scoop and the start of her next big story. Torchy is on the case!
So is Steve McBride, police detective and Torchy's erstwhile boyfriend. Steve is a big guy with a badge so he gets in to talk to big wheels like business owners and the like while Torchy has to settle for talking to hat check girls, waitresses and bartenders and such.
Guess who winds up spinning his wheels looking for clues that ain't there and guess which brassy blonde dame is get the real scoop on whose doing what with who and why and getting closer to who really killed Tiny and why? Of course Steve is the flummoxed ox and Torchy's the one with a bead on who the real killer is.
Everyone talks fast and walks fast but we got a lot of murder mystery ground to cover in only 59 minutes.
In 1936, Warner Bros. began to develop an adaptation of the MacBride and Kennedy stories by detective novelist Frederick Nebel. According to what I read about this film, Kennedy was changed to a woman named "Torchy" Blane who was more compatible with the Hays Code than a faithful on-screen adaptation of Kennedy would have been.
You can make of that what you will.
Smart Blonde was the first of nine Torchy Blane films by Warner Bros. I've only seen the first one.
The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department
- Playing the role of Steve's detective buddy Gahagan was Tom Kennedy who had an uncredited role as a Bouncer in Some Like It Hot.
Which brings us full circle for this post.
Coming up next week in Cinema Sunday: Shazam! Fury of the Gods!
Coming up the week aftr next week in Cinema Sunday:This year's Oscar winner for Best Picture... Everything Everywhere All At Once!
Until then, remember to be good to one another and it's me, Sugar!
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