Yes, Marilyn Could Do Drama

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"The female race is always cheesing up my life."

Jed (Richard Widmark)

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Even though she was before my time, I am a fan of Marilyn Monroe.

My admiration goes beyond her obvious physical appeal. I think she was a talented actress, too, unappreciated during her life and still so decades after her death.

And I thought I had seen all of her movies — until one day a few years ago when I happened to see "Don't Bother to Knock" being televised. I realized I had never seen it before so I watched it. That movie, which premiered 65 years ago today, was definitive proof of talent that did not depend on good looks.

In that sense, I was reminded of Grace Kelly in "The Country Girl."

Like Kelly, Monroe was always beautiful, but there were variations to her beauty. Sometimes she was glamorous; in "Don't Bother to Knock," I guess her beauty was more understated. It would take concentrated effort to mar her beauty, but you could drape her in clothes that were rather plain and that would bring her beauty down a notch or two.

That, I would say, is what they did in "Don't Bother to Knock."

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And Monroe reciprocated with a riveting performance.

It was part of her character. At first she came across as shy and demure. Her clothes were plain. Her demeanor was almost unassuming. But that was all deceptive.

Her character wanted to wear nice clothes and expensive jewelry. But she, like so many others then and now, did not feel she could ever have the finer things she desired. Some people turn to lives of crime to gain the things they want in life. When the audience first saw her in "Don't Bother to Knock," Monroe's character was content to take risks but not necessarily to commit crimes. Well, not exactly, but we'll come back to that.

She was Richard Widmark's love interest. He was on the rebound after being jilted by Anne Bancroft, who was the real glamour girl, a sultry lounge singer. Bancroft had had a fling with Widmark, decided it was one of those things and wrote him a Dear John letter. In this case, I guess you'd call it a Dear Jed letter.

Jed came to New York to try to talk Bancroft out of it, but she didn't budge. Back in his hotel room, Jed looked out his window and saw Monroe across the courtyard, wearing clothes and jewelry that belonged to her employers for the evening, an out–of–town couple (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle) who hired her to babysit their daughter (Donna Corcoran) while they were attending a banquet downstairs.

Widmark and Monroe agreed to have a liaison in Monroe's room. Widmark was unaware that the young girl was sleeping in the adjacent room until the girl walked in on them.

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As the evening progressed, Widmark became more and more aware that Monroe's character was mentally unstable. At one point, he thought Monroe would push the child out an open window — modern audiences would probably be shocked to see no barriers of any kind on upstairs windows — no rails or bars or anything at a time when air conditioning was still a rare luxury and the only relief to be found on a hot night came from open windows.

I'll leave some of the intricacies of the plot for you to discover for yourself, but Monroe's character continued to descend into a mental state in which she was convinced that Widmark was actually her deceased fiance.

She also bound and gagged the child with whom she had been sitting that evening. Turned out she had a history of mental issues. She had been institutionalized after her fiance's death. She had tried to kill herself, too, by slashing her wrists.

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"Don't Bother to Knock" was a mostly forgettable movie, I suppose. The characters lacked emotional depth, and there wasn't a lot of context given until near the end (which, I suppose, was typical of film noir).

But Monroe's performance as the psychologically fragile Nell undoubtedly was influenced by Monroe's own experiences with her mother. That alone would make "Don't Bother to Knock" worth watching.

It was Monroe's first truly dramatic effort after appearing in 17 other films, mostly comedies, and it was a few years before the comedies for which Monroe is best remembered — "The Seven–Year Itch" and "Some Like It Hot."

It was Bancroft's debut.

Monroe's wasn't the first film portrayal of a mentally disturbed individual — but seldom has it been as honest.

'The Elephant Man' Was Blunt and Uncompromising

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"People are frightened by what they don't understand."

John Merrick (John Hurt)

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"The Elephant Man," which premiered on this date in 1980, was an extremely difficult movie to watch at times.

That does not mean it was a bad movie. Quite the contrary. Nearly everything about it was great. The acting was great. The directing was great. All the technical aspects of the movie were great.

The makeup was so impressive, in fact, that the Oscars were shamed into creating a new category for makeup and hairstyling the next year after Christopher Tucker's makeup work in "The Elephant Man" wasn't honored. Tucker wasn't overlooked deliberately by the Academy. There simply wasn't a category to recognize makeup artists.

Prior to that, two Special Achievement Oscars were awarded — to William Tuttle (in 1964 for "7 Faces of Dr. Lao") and John Chambers (in 1968 for "Planet of the Apes") — but there was no standing category for makeup artists (or, in Tucker's case, prosthetic work), and that was a mistake, considering the many great things that were done with makeup in the decades before "The Elephant Man."

The first recipient of the new Oscar — and, thus, the first beneficiary of the fallout from Tucker's snub — was Rick Baker for "An American Werewolf in London."

Tucker was recognized with an Oscar for Best Makeup a few years later.

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In all, "The Elephant Man" received eight Oscar nominations, tying it with "Raging Bull" for the most nominations that year, but it took none home. That may have been the greatest shock of that year's Oscars.

John Hurt was brilliant in the role of John Merrick (in reality, Merrick's first name was Joseph; I have no idea why it was changed for the movie), the grossly disfigured hero of the story, and he was recognized for his work with an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. (He lost to Robert De Niro in "Raging Bull.")

None of the other performers — Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller — were nominated, but the movie was nominated for Best Picture and David Lynch was nominated for Best Director. Both awards went to "Ordinary People."

It was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. How on earth did it fail to win a single Oscar?

It couldn't be because the subject matter was regarded as too rough. The winner of Best Picture that year was "Ordinary People," a story about a family coming apart at the seams, and it could be every bit as difficult to watch as "The Elephant Man."

I suppose more people could relate to "Ordinary People" than "The Elephant Man," though. You never have to look very far to find a dysfunctional family, but Merrick suffered from a rare disease, one that hasn't touched a fraction of the people that dysfunction has. Still, even if far fewer people could relate to his circumstances, his character was every bit as sympathetic.

He endured all kinds of abuse in Victorian England as a result of his affliction — and abuse, unfortunately, is not uncommon, even in today's politically correct climate. Hurt's performance deserved all the praise that film critics were eager to heap on the movie.

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There were those in the movie who recognized what was happening. Merrick was a friendly and intelligent person, but he was hideous to behold, and that was what drove his treatment from others — and drove away those who might have been his friends.

"Can you imagine the kind of life he must have had?" pondered John Gielgud at one point.

"Yes, I think I can," replied Hopkins.

"I don't think so," Gielgud countered. "No one could possibly imagine it. I don't believe any of us can."

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Merrick was regarded as a freak by many; in fact, the movie opened with him in a carnival, advertised as the "Elephant Man."

It was early in the movie that the viewers began to get a real taste for the grim reality of Merrick's existence. By the time Hurt was introduced to Hannah Gordon, who played Hopkins' wife, most viewers must surely have perceived the irony of their conversation.

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Mr. Merrick," she said.

"I'm very pleased ..." Merrick began but couldn't finish. He was overcome with emotion.

"What is it, John?" Hopkins asked, concern creeping into his voice. "What's the matter?"

"It's just that I'm not used to being treated so well by a beautiful woman," Merrick replied.

The fact that being told "I'm very pleased to meet you" upon being introduced to someone could be regarded as being treated well speaks volumes and is heartbreaking testimony to the life he led.

"The Elephant Man" was blunt and uncompromising. Hurt's performance may have been the most sensitive I have ever seen.

I still can't believe the American Film Institute did not include "The Elephant Man" in its Top 100 movies of all time list.

'Agnes of God' Came Up Short

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"Smoking is an obsession with me. Maybe someday I'll become obsessed with something else and give up smoking."

Martha (Jane Fonda)

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Norman Jewison's "Agnes of God," which premiered on this date in 1985, was a difficult movie to watch — especially in the last 30 minutes. In fact, I have only seen it once. I've never been able to watch it a second time.

It was painful to watch Meg Tilly's tortured performance as a simple young woman manipulated and abused by the people in her life, much as it was painful five years earlier to watch "The Elephant Man" — yet both were ultimately rewarding. The only problem was you had to experience all that misery for the payoff to really ... pay off.

And "Agnes of God" never really paid off as handsomely as it should have. There were, I suppose, many reasons for that.

"Agnes of God" began as a stage play, and the film adaptation made little allowance for the shift to the big screen. "But that's just the beginning of this film's problems," observed Roger Ebert. "It considers, or pretends to consider, some of the most basic questions of human morality and treats them on the level of 'Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Convent.'"

Meg Tilly played Sister Agnes, a young nun who gives birth and allegedly kills the child, then faces manslaughter charges, which draws Jane Fonda, as a court–appointed psychiatrist, to the convent to examine Sister Agnes and her surroundings. Sister Agnes, you see, had no idea who the father might have been. She even had doubts that there had ever been a baby.

"It is never made quite clear what specific problem Sister Agnes suffers from," Ebert wrote, "but she clearly has parts on order."

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Still, it was Tilly's riveting performance enabled "Agnes of God" to rise above the mediocre in its pursuit of its objective — establishing that miracles do happen. The material may have produced, in Ebert's words, "a very badly confused movie. ..."

However, "(g)iven dialogue that sounds as if it were written to be read, given characters who consistently avoid asking the obvious questions, given a story that refuses to declare what it is about, [Anne] Bancroft, Fonda and Tilly use their craft to give the illusion that they know where they stand. It is service in a lost cause."

The acting really deserved to be recognized, and it was. It received three Oscar nominations. Two were for acting; the third was for Best Original Score.

Bancroft was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Geraldine Page. I thought Tilly really should have been nominated for Best Actress — not necessarily at the expense of Bancroft, who was great, as always — but she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress — and lost to Anjelica Huston.

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Fonda turned in her usual workmanlike performance and received no nomination. She had already won two Oscars, anyway.

The Next Level

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Mid–December has been a good period for Dustin Hoffman.

As I observed earlier this week, mid–December is when some of his best movies were released — "Tootsie" and "Wag the Dog" observed milestone anniversaries a few days ago.

Hoffman had been appearing on stage and screen for several years, but "The Graduate," which was released on this day in 1967, was his first major role.

It was a truly remarkable performance — especially since Hoffman was 30 when it premiered. If you're too young to remember the 1960s, that was the time when the admonition "Don't trust anyone over 30" was popular with young Americans, and Hoffman's character, from all appearances, was well under 30.

He gave every indication of being a traditional college student — i.e., one who entered and completed college after finishing high school rather than one who entered the work force out of high school and returned to school several years later. He came from an affluent family, the kind of family in which it would be expected that children would go on to college after completing high school.

It seemed to me, when I saw the movie for the first time, that "The Graduate" was all about expectations, what was expected of someone and what was not expected. And 1967, with the emerging "generation gap" and the growing rebellion of the young of that time, provided the perfect backdrop for such a story. The music of Simon and Garfunkel was the icing on the cake.

Now, just because one is a traditional college student does not mean one follows the same path as his/her classmates. And Benjamin Braddock's post–college path was almost certainly not like the one many of his classmates followed.

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"Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"

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Benjamin was drifting, both in fact (in his parents' pool) and metaphorically, and he drifted into an affair with the wife of a family friend (Anne Bancroft), a situation that became even more complicated after he was introduced to her daughter (Katharine Ross) and fell in love with her.

It was already pretty comical. Clearly not very experienced in that sort of thing, Hoffman's clumsy meandering through the minefield of extramarital relationships was amusing in its way.

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"It's like I was playing some kind of game, but the rules don't make any sense to me. They're being made up by all the wrong people. I mean no one makes them up. They seem to make themselves up."

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In hindsight, I guess, it was an unbeatable combination — Mike Nichols, not too far removed from his directorial triumph with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in the director's chair producing a film on a topic that was the hottest around.