Let's Make Love (1960)

LET'S MAKE LOVE is the worst movie that MARILYN MONROE made. In this film, millionaire Jean-Marc Clement (YVES MONTAND) goes to the off Broadway theater that has been doing a parody of him in its featured play, sees Amanda Dell (MONROE) and lets the producers think that he is an actor who's trying out for the part of Clement. He spends the remainder of this dreadful flick trying to woo Amanda under the guise that he is an actor and not the real Clement because the real McCoy has the reputation for being an obnoxious womanizer...... MARILYN MONROE never looked worse in a movie. Maybe her personal life was in its usual shambles. The song & dance numbers are embarrassing to watch. MONROE looks desperate trying to appear sexy in her numbers. She is pale, overweight, and ordinary. YVES MONTAND, maybe because he's in an American film here, has no charm whatsoever. In fact, he has counter-charm ! Probably the homeliest man that MONROE ever played opposite. Did RONDO HATTAN have previous commitments ? The storyline itself is insipid & stupid ! Even the supporting cast, and there is some big names in this one, have nothing to work with. The only appeal here is for big MONROE fans, and believe me, those fans will only get small glimpses of her usual magic !!!

Fmovies: Without what we know about her now, this movie wouldn't be worth the time it took to watch it. However, now we know about what was going on while the movie was being shot, you can see the attraction between her and Msieu Montand, whose wife took him back afterwards. It's funny, since I've seen him in a French movie, where HIS wife was unfaithful and how he copes with that. What goes around comes around, I suppose.

Montand has to act silly, which must have been as painful for him as it was for his character, a multi-billionaire trying to win Miss Musical Star, Marilyn. Watching the male singer in this movie was funny, as it reminds you of the 40s and the Dean Martin style crooners. Watching Bing Crosby and Milton Berl teach Yves how to sing and be funny was a hoot!!! "Don't 'bubba-boo-boo', or you'll get arrested," Bing suggests. Watching Milton berl walk on his ankles wasn't all that funny, but this was the 60s after all.

I liked the musical numbers, and watching Yves' face do all its rubbery wrinkling numbers. He may have been a great actor because he could put on so many different expressions, but his best movie was the one where he's trying to run for office in a crooked Banana Republic (sorta like our present government), a Cost-Grava film.

See this one just to remind you of how beautiful, how vulnerable, Marilyn was: 2 years from her suicide????!!!! She really had some nice moves, and a great figure when a tummy wasn't considered obscene (in our day of anorexic sexy?? stars).

There is a singular Marilyn moment which defines her timeless relevance and popularity in American history. Before experiencing Marilyn on screen, I often encountered her photos/ references about her in magazines, encyclopedia, compilation and archives. I also read a Life in Pictures biography about her. How I visualized her gait, her voice and her gestures were quite contrary to her actual performance in cinemas. I expected this woman to possess extraordinary acting capabilities along with natural stage charm and sex-appeal and a deeper, mellower voice that showed class and refinement. Never did I think Marilyn to be so bubbly, fluffy, and erratic with a chirpy, girlish timbre- the typical coquette whom men would swoon over to in an instant. She wasn't like Greta Garbo; the magic couldn't be discovered immediately in Monroe (Garbo could make everyone around her, the actors, the cameras and the audience, fall in love with her in an instant). The disappointment in me after enduring Prince and the Showgirl and Bus Stop cast a negative perception about Monroe. I found her syrupy and panicky, as though she is constantly thinking of ways to keep her audiences (her male fans) happy while not giving up the unpredictable method acting. I preferred 7 year itch – Marilyn didn't experiment but only let her naive face, clueless eyes, admirable figure and the witty dialogs do the work. Sometimes, I felt the method acting ruined her performances, though she has a few shiny moments on her last released film 'The Misfits'. After four films, the true reason for her massive success still eluded me, but in Let's Make Love (a lackluster film overall) I realized why she was adored.

It was the scene where her character Amanda Dell, a small-time actress and a stage performer, began jogging on the footpath and encouraged Jean-Marc Clement (played somewhat sullenly by Yves Montand) to join her. An embarrassed Clement looks around as men seem to ogle Amanda; she isn't dressed inappropriately, but she smiles and her face is beaming. Marilyn seemed to draw everyone's attention not by acting stupendously or exposing her body here- she was carefree and spirited, probably aware that men were eying her but not minding. She knew she was a siren, but she also made it clear that she wasn't a bimbo. She has this coy charm about her, a sense of self-awareness that makes her so amicable with men and women. It is similar to what Meryl Streep said in a speech 'Â… to be appealing to boys and being accepted by girlsÂ… a tricky situation (which she mastered). Marilyn doesn't explicitly try to draw attention; she does it cleverly, discreetly.

Unfortunately, she was stuck with a patchy script that was deficient in several aspects. A Paul Thomas Anderson start (Magnolia style) which montages the fate of six/seven Jean Marc Clement is middlingly amusing but unnecessary because there isn't any reference to it later. I did get what it was supposed to mean but there need not be narrations of so many Clements. Then the camera lingers on a group of elite gentlemen smoking cigars as a debonair Jean Marc of Modern Times tells them a joke. These men may have heard it several times, but they flatteringly laugh at his inane joke – he is a billionaire, keep in mind. Some scenes later, when he pretends to be a nascent actor and impersonator, Jean Marc reiterates the same joke to a bunch of actors and is given a damp response. The billionaire, with a keen esthetic interest and a notorious womanizing reputation, is informed t

Let's Make Love fmovies. I was pretty unimpressed with this movie, to be frank. There was something about every aspect of it that didn't quite add up and you're left with an essentially dull film, which you're not really too concerned about by the end. I am a huge fan of Marilyn but I don't feel she was at all her best in this picture, and I don't think that's entirely her fault - the film around her is incredibly flimsy. The dialogue is often wooden and unconvincing, and Montand's character and his storyline are just totally unbelievable - nothing of what he says or what he does was convincing to me and this really brought the film down very hard and very quickly. The musical numbers are pretty standard fair and were nothing Marilyn hadn't done before. The film didn't make me laugh and I didn't care what happened to the characters. If anything I was only sad the talented Marilyn Monroe was a part of the film - as her portfolio shows she was deserving of far higher quality films than this. I can't recommend the film as it's not really worth your time and you probably won't enjoy it - if you just want to see all of Monroe's film's than see it, but otherwise don't bother.

This is by no means a great film, but I was pleasantly surprised in the end. Montand and Monroe both do good jobs. Tony Randall is always enjoyable, and Milton Berle has a great time teaching Montand how to be funny, the best comic moment of the film. Having just seen Montand in The Wages of Fear, one of the most intense movies ever made, it was interesting to see him goofing off and having a good time. This role takes him back to some of the songs he sang early in his career, not long after Edith Piaf discovered him. I only wish he had been able to sing more in the movie. I'm not a big fan of Monroe - her dumb-blonde routine generally irritates me - but she seems more vulnerable in this film, more pleasant to watch. She particularly impressed me in the musical numbers. Unfortunately, the costume designer did a lousy job - everything seems too big on her, or just tacky. Compare these costumes to those of Bardot in Une Parisenne, made around the same time period. There are ways and then there are ways to show off a body like that of Bardot or Monroe. All in all, this is a light piece of fluff, with some humorous moments, some sappy moments, some good musical numbers, some bad writing, some good cameos by Berle, Bing, and Gene Kelly, a silly storyline, Yves Montand, Monroe, and a good dose of fun.

Released in 1960 after Marilyn's super turn in the fantastic 'Some Like It Hot', LML has often been cited as Monroe's worst movie.

There is plenty to work against the film: Cukor's almost non-existent direction, the rather dreadful musical numbers, Yves Montand's irritating performance and the wasted opportunities of the star cameos.

However, Let's Make Love is a reasonably inoffensive way to waste an afternoon. The plot is slight and therefore doesn't require too much brain power to follow and Monroe is, as usual, cinema gold. Despite the fact that she is slightly overweight here and nothing much has been done with her in terms of make-up, hair or wardrobe she is eminently watchable. She gives a convincing, assured performance in her role turning the simple character of Amanda into a sweet, likable woman.

As I have mentioned before in Monroe reviews, I always find it interesting to see Monroe in films in the 1960s, being very much an icon of the 1950s.

So, is LML really that bad? Well, to be honest no, it isn't. It's lightweight fluff that doesn't really mean anything but is watchable non the less. It is unfortunately placed between the sublime 'Some Like It Hot' and Monroe's bravura performance in the following year's 'The Misfits' but don't hold that against it. Make up your own minds!