Marilyn was the subject of a TCM Summer Under the Stars blogathon on Saturday. One of the outstanding pieces was ‘Birth of an Actress’, a look at Marilyn’s role in Don’t Bother to Knock, from Kitty Packard Pictorial.
“Her walk down the corridor is a death march. She leans against the wall for support. Her beautiful eyes wide and full of numbed confusion. Her perfect face cracked with the deep stain of lost, desperate tears. This is not Nell Forbes. This is not Marilyn Monroe. This is Norma Jeane Mortenson. For the final 10 minutes of the film, she is exposed: for all her cosmetic perfection, she is raw and imperfect, alone and afraid, desperate to feel the warmth of love and kindness and respect but all-too aware that she never will.”
And yesterday at Sunset Gun, blogger Kim Morgan looked at the same movie, in a post entitled, ‘The Noncomformist: Norma Jeane Nell.’
“And yet there’s a wonderful strength to Monroe (the woman endured so much in her own life that she was, as Elton knows, more than a candle in the wind) — she was such a strong, singular performer (there will never, ever be another Marilyn) that her vulnerability gives her a special power, even as we want to hide her from every skulking Uncle Elisha Cook, ready to pounce. So bless her for revealing such powerful sadness. And bless her for holding on as long as she did. And bless her for never, ever being normal.”