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Twin Peaks: From Norma Jeane, to Laura Palmer

If you’re a fan of cult TV series Twin Peaks, you’ll already know that director David Lynch and writer Mark Frost created it after shelving an earlier collaboration based on Anthony Summers’ Goddess.) There are striking parallels between the main female protagonist, Laura Palmer (played by Sheryl Lee), and Marilyn, which go beyond their mysterious deaths.

In last year’s Twin Peaks revival, Marilyn’s Bus Stop co-star Don Murray played a key role. Actors Russ Tamblyn and Miguel Ferrer also had real-life links to Marilyn. I was also reminded of her sensual performance in Niagara during a scene where beautiful FBI agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) is filmed walking away from the camera, while ditzy casino hostess Candie (Amy Shiels) resembled Lorelei in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, even wearing a pink tutu with matching gloves and diamonds, not unlike Marilyn’s costume in the ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ number….

But maybe that’s all just wishful thinking on my part. Going back to the original series, Zach Gayne explores the similarities between Marilyn and Laura in ‘Twin Peaks and the Point of No Return‘, an essay for Screen Anarchy.

“Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Marilyn Monroe and the abandoned project that first united David Lynch and Mark Frost – the two were apparently interested in co-adapting Anthony Summers’ expose, Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe. While this is absolute conjecture, I can’t help but wonder if the two minds, who’d bonded over their interest in detailing the story of a fallen goddess – adored by all, but understood by few, who’s shadow ultimately overcame her angel – felt that the exploring Monroe when she was still Norma Jeane wouldn’t be the more effective way to detail the all-too-common American tragedy of a bright young woman succumbing to purveyors of darkness.

Laura Palmer is nothing if not a high-school Marilyn Monroe – a magnetic soul who draws no shortage of desire from, not only the hottest boy in school, but many of the town’s adults, like the local psychedelic psychologist or the wealthy hotel tycoon. One might say she brought out the best or worst in people, depending on their innermost natures. Laura, a supreme beacon of light, in addition to attracting love of the purest kind also attracted fire, and for her sins of merely existing, from a young age she was met with dark temptations as old as the ghostwood forest, like so many generations of distressed damsels and lads before and after her.”

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‘Goddess’ Re-Reviewed

Having reviewed Marilyn’s Men by Jane Ellen Wayne recently, blogger xoxoxoe (aka Elizabeth Periale) takes an in-depth look at Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, the controversial biography by Anthony Summers, over at Cannonball Read IV. Read her review in full here. And to check out her other MM-related articles, click here.

“Marilyn’s life is usually presented as an inexorable, inevitable, and pathetic progression towards her death. Death is waiting for us all, but we wouldn’t be able to function if we didn’t have hopes and dreams for our present and future. For all of her talk about death, Marilyn did, too…Summers gets a little too sidetracked in Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe with the Kennedys and their amorous and political complications. Poor Marilyn gets lost in the middle of the book in the Kennedy glare. The last few chapters present a Rashomon-like account of her final hours. It’s well-researched, but full of so many conflicting statements by people who claimed to be ‘on the scene’ that it is depressing and dizzying to read.”

Meanwhile over at Videogum, we learn that Goddess was once mooted to be adapted for the big screen with David Lynch as director…

“David Lynch, who had experienced previous success with the acclaimed The Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986), was hired by a Warner Bros. executive to direct a film about the life of Marilyn Monroe, based on the best-selling book Goddess. Lynch recalls being ‘sort of interested. I loved the idea of this woman in trouble, but I didn’t know if I liked it being a real story.’ Lynch’s agent, Tony Krantz suggested the director work with his friend and writer Mark Frost. He worked on the Goddess screenplay with Lynch. Even though this project was dropped by Warner Brothers, Lynch and Frost became good friends…”

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‘Under the Spell of a Bombshell’

The New York Times has reviewed Nobody Else But You, the new French movie about the death of a Monroe wannabe, opening today in New York and Seattle.

“Of all the American cultural symbols that haunt the film, which borrows from the Coen brothers’ Fargo and from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, the most indelible by far is Marilyn Monroe, or rather, the dream of Monroe…

As David doggedly continues and eventually finds his own life in danger, Candice’s troubled history is reconstructed through the flashbacks, beyond-the-grave voice-overs and excerpts from her scandalously revealing diaries. Candice’s story eerily mirrors Monroe’s biography in her choices of an athlete, a writer and a politician as husbands and lovers. The movie blithely exploits popular conspiracy theories about Monroe’s death.

If Nobody Else But You is smart and entertaining, it is a little too clever for its own good. As much as I appreciated Mr. Rouve’s dry deadpan detective writer and Ms. Quinton’s seductive, occasionally poignant pinup, I felt continually nudged by the movie’s winking self-awareness.”

And another review from NPR:

“The kinship between the two blondes is the plotline that will polarize Nobody Else But You‘s viewers. Some will be amused by writer-director Gerald Hustache-Mathieu’s elaborate links between Candice and Marilyn. But others will find them too goofy, especially in a film that presents a fairly grim view of how female stars are constructed and then demolished.”

And from Slant magazine:

“The film’s most interesting angle is its focus on female objectification … But such smart moves are negated by the increasingly ill-conceived plot … films trying to glean some shine from Monroe’s legacy have never fared well, and hitting the bullet points of her story overwhelms Nobody Else But You.”