Day: August 13, 2018

We’ve all considered the Candle in the Wind aspect of Marilyn Monroe‘s sad tale. Then again she knew how and why her career bread was buttered. It’s hard to recall episodes in Monroe’s life in which she didn’t generate flashes of eros and sexuality to stoke the fires. Especially during the making of Some Like It Hot, Let’s Make Love, The Misfits and Something’s Got To Give. Not to mention the photo sessions, including the famous 1962 one with Bert Stern at the Hotel Bel Air.

Yesterday it was reported that a brief, never-used nude scene from The Misfits was discovered many years ago by Curtice Taylor, the son of producer Frank Taylor, and that it might, you know, slip out somehow. This morning an odd piece in Vanity Fair by Yohana Desta, titled “Monroe Nude Scene Has Been Found — What Happens Now?,” suggested maybe it shouldn’t.

Desta says that because Monroe was sexually exploited throughout her career, it might be a good idea not to let anyone see the scene in question. Why re-boot that old cruel karma of ogling a naked but very sad movie star who died of an overdose at age 36?

Hollywood Elsewhere will understand if the scene never hits YouTube. Let it be, keep it in the drawer, etc. Then again why did Charles Casillo, author of “Marilyn Monroe: The Private Life of a Public Icon,” mention the discovery if he wasn’t planning to leak it?

Monroe resented the public’s leering interest, of course, but in film after film she never stopped winking at it. She knew what she was doing, and there were suggestions and peeks aplenty in The Misfits. Okay, I’ll admit it — I want to see the scene. But I’ll survive if I can’t.

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Originally posted on 3.18.12: “I was behind this couple at the Westside Pavillion a couple of nights ago. The excitement they were feeling when it was finally their turn to order from the counter guy was almost sexual. It was certainly infectious. I was imagining their delight as they sat down in their seats with a double-large popcorn tub with extra butter, an extra-large Red Twisters, two hot dogs with mustard, two half-gallon-sized cups of Coke. It was playtime. They were really happy.

Just as we know that Ryan Coogler‘s Black Panther will wind up winning the just-announced Best Achievement in Popular Film Oscar (a.k.a. the Popcorn-With-Extra-Butter Oscar for the Film That Knuckle-Draggers Like The Most), we also know which films will be nominated for this dubious award.

I’m presuming there will only be five nominees. Panther, of course, along with Crazy Rich Asians (representation counts, especially for the first mainstream release with an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club) and John Krasinki‘s A Quiet Place (elevated horror, big dough). The other two will almost certainly be Mission: Impossible — Fallout and one of two Disney releases — Incredibles 2 and Mary Poppins Returns. Panther might manage a regular Best Picture nomination and that’s fine, but at the end of the night it’ll take the Extra Butter Popcorn Oscar. Done, finito.

Hollywood Elsewhere presumes that a Starsky and Hutch version of a BlacKKKlansman poster was created to inform “conservative” rural types that Spike Lee‘s film is a salt-and-pepper two-hander. I only noticed this poster last weekend — created for the British market.

Last night Showbiz 411‘s Roger Freidman broke the sad news about the imminent passing of Aretha Franklin. The 76 year-old soul singer has been grappling with cancer for some time now, and is reportedly not far from walking across the footbridge. I’m very sorry. HE hugs and heartfelt condolences to family, friends and fans.

It’s not the time to discuss business matters, but down the road it would be wonderful to finally see Sydney Pollack‘s Amazing Grace, a never-released 1972 doc about Aretha Franklin performing gospel tunes inside a Los Angeles church. The doc almost appeared at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival, but the showing was blocked by an injunction filed by Franklin’s attorney. Some mucky-muck about rights or revenue sharing or something in that realm.

Franklin’s gospel concert, performed inside L.A.’s New Temple Missionary Baptist Church (So. Broadway near 87th Place), happened 46 and 2/3 years ago. Pollack shot over 20 hours of 16mm footage and had hoped to put the film out in concert with Franklin’s Amazing Grace album. But a release never happened due to music rights issues or some other monetary hangup.

Franklin’s performances happened on Thursday, 1.13.72 and Friday, 1.14.72. A double platinum album was released about six months later. Amazing Grace is still Franklin’s biggest seller ever.

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Had it not been for a recent Steven Gaydos tweet, I never would’ve even considered re-watching The First Deadly Sin, which I recall being a doleful, partly unbelievable detective-hunts-serial-killer flick. An above-average Frank Sinatra performance — his last starring role and a kind of companion piece to his New York cop role in The Detective (’68).

“Sinatra who plays this role close to his chest, and who looks and acts very touchingly like a tired old cop on the threshold of retirement,” Roger Ebert wrote on 10.30.80. “We can empathize with him, and that’s partly because he resists any temptation to give us a reprise of those wisecracking wiseasses he played in the 1960s. This is a new performance, built from the ground up.”

There’s no First Deadly Sin Bluray or HD streaming option, but there’s a 480p version streaming from Amazon, and in a 1.37 aspect ratio. Boxy Sinatra is beautiful.

I have about six or seven umbrellas in the WeHo pad, but I rarely get to use them. Serious rainstorms don’t happen much in Los Angeles, and so my mantra has always been “I love it when it rains…good for the city, good for the reservoirs and everything smells good when it ends.” The northeast corridor, on the other hand, has been waterlogged for the last three weeks or so, and I’m starting to get really sick of it, sick of it, sick of it. The current forecast is that another monsoon has begun, and that it won’t clear until mid-week. The after-aroma smells better in this woodsy environment than it does in West Hollywood, but I’ve had enough.