Something's Got to Give Reviews

While recreated from over nine hours of footage and the definition of “best guess,” the thirty-seven minutes that have been assembled of Something’s Got to Give are enough to make you curse history. Cruel fate took Marilyn Monroe away from us way too soon. While there’s only forty minutes worth of an actual film to judge and review, what’s there is light, breezy, sexy and funny. An effortless, charming comedy of bedroom antics and sexual politics that could have become a very enjoyable film if fate had been kind. Monroe’s nude midnight swim in the pool is sexy, but her giggly and effervescent demeanor show that her sexual magic was in being almost naïve in her carnal magnetism. She’s just an all-American girl taking a nude swim in the middle of the night and having a grand ol’ time. What could possibly be erotic about that? She’s long been my favorite actress for her ability to ring laughs by acting like she came upon her lines by chance, for being able to manipulate her beauty and sexuality to be both inviting and destructive (her work in Niagara is wonderful), and for her aching vulnerability and intelligence and hint of sadness behind her big blue eyes. Cyd Charisse is her typically hopeless self, lovely to look at but can't carry a scene that doesn't involve dancing to save her life. Most surprising is seeing Dean Martin play against type as a neurotic type. I've long thought of him as an undervalued comedic player (and his dramatic chops aren't anything to scoff at, see Some Came Running), and he gets plenty of chances to play a character totally different from his persona. Oh, what could have been!