There's No Business Like Show Business
by Walter Lang
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Ethel Merman, Johnnie Ray, Marilyn MonroeDirector: Walter Lang
Brand: Fox
Cinematographer: Leon Shamroy
Editor: Robert L. Simpson
Producer: Sol C. Siegel
Writer: Henry Ephron
Writer: Lamar Trotti
Writer: Phoebe Ephron
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 117 minutes
Published: 2002-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-14
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of There's No Business Like Show Business
Movie Review: Marilyn Monroe - Our "Fabulous Yellow Candle"
Summary: 5 Stars
If you don't love this movie, if you don't *adore* this movie -- well then, by gosh by golly, you're un-American.
And if you're French, you're un-French.
And if you're Hungarian, you're un-Hungarian.
(Catch my drift?)
This movie next to "Singin' in the Rain" is like Babe Ruth next to Lou Gehrig in the Yankee lineup. It's just great.
Everybody in the movie shines. Even poor Johnnie Ray. I mean, what was the idea there? I suppose the producers figured that if every kid who bought a Johnnie Ray record came to the movie they'd make millions.
Johnnie Ray proves a theory of mine, that is: if the people who are making a film
are convinced they have a hit, they'll throw in a really bad, no-talent actor in the movie -- for example, Cybil Shepherd in "Taxi Driver" or Troy Donahue in "Godfather Two" or George Hamilton in "Godfather Three" -- as a way of saying to the audience: "See, this movie is so good that it can shine even with this lousy actor in it."
In other words, it makes everyone else, by comparison, look even better.
This movie also proves, at least for me, that Donald O'Connor is a much better, much more entertaining talent than either Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. Both those guys were way too studied, way too self-conscious in their performances. Not that they weren't great talents, but Donald O'Connor has an "approachability" that both of them lacked. The same is true of Mitzi Gaynor. They engage the camera in a very amiable, spontaneous way.
You look at Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and you say: "Gee, I could never do that." Whereas you look at Donald O'Connor or Mitzi Gaynor and you say to yourself: "Gee, it would be fun dancing with them. I bet they'd be willing to show me how. I bet they'd be interesting to talk to."
Personally, I never felt that about Kelly or Astaire: that they were approachable.
I think there's something about film acting whereby approachability is a key factor in an actor's popularity. I think it has to do with the fact that after you see someone in a movie you like you go to the Internet and you want to find out about them, professionally and personally.
Some actors are so talented -- for example, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire --that even though they may lack "approachability," their talent is so great that the audience can't deny them their attention. And then there are performers such as, say, Donald O'Connor or Dean Martin or Jimmy Durante who are immediately likeable. The audience adores them!
It was said that Donald O'Connor didn't get along with Gene Kelly on the set of "Singin' in the Rain" because Kelly, as co-director of the movie with Stanley Doneen, was such a tyrant -- and this comes across in Kelly's performances. Whereas it's impossible to believe that Donald O'Connor was, in real life, anything but what you see on the screen.
Also, come on now -- dancing is supposed to be fun! -- and Donald O'Connor compared to either Kelly or Astaire looks like he's having much more fun than those two over rehearsed, slick-haired smoothies.
As for Marilyn Monroe. ... Now we speak of a force of nature. ... If you want to understand what there was about Marilyn Monroe that's so special, consider the beginning of her number "After You Get What You Want." She begins by coming onto a nightclub stage and, going from table to table, she flirts with the various male customers in the audience. Now, when you're watching the pieces of business Marilyn does with the male customers, ask yourself: "What other female singer/dancer could do that like Marilyn does it?" Bette Grable? No. Rita Hayworth? No. Jane Russell? No.
Marilyn Monroe could instantaneously ingratiate herself to an audience. As in the comparison between Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, or Fred Astaire and, say, Jimmy Durante, she doesn't have the edge or the hardness of a Jane Russell or a Rita Hayworth. When she's flirting with the extras in the nightclub, she's flirting with all the guys who are watching the movie. While, at the same time, the women in the audience, not jealous or competitive (I suspect), open up their heart to her.
You immediately feel her presence. Even on a television screen! ... You can imagine what the reaction of an audience was seeing her towering above them on a movie screen.
Towards the end of the movie she comes onscreen in the middle -- in the *middle*! --of an extravagantly-staged finale, and she immediately revs up the already sky-high energy of the scene.
It's technically and metaphysically impossible for anyone in a movie to steal a scene from Marilyn Monroe. In her best films, she owns the camera. And "There's No Business Like Show Business" is, quite likely, the pinnacle of her professional and personal life. What happened afterwards is, quite simply, an American tragedy.
Presumably Marilyn Monroe was just as ambitious, just as single-minded, just as tenacious in her quest, in her struggle for fame and fortune as Bette Grable or Jane Russell or Rita Hayworth; but the difference between Marilyn Monroe and those also-rans is that Marilyn Monroe was all heart, all simpatico. You never saw her ambition. You never saw her lust for fame. You never saw her one-mindedness, her toughness, her "professionalism." All you saw was the woman-child. As Elton John put it: "The candle in the wind."
When she kisses Donald O'Connor in "There' No Business Like Show Business" and kissed Tommy Noonan in "Gentleman Prefer Blondes" and kissed "Tom Ewell in "Seven Year Itch," you see sex itself in a unique way! In most other actresses hands, "Seven Year Itch" would have been nothing more than a male chauvinist yuk, a locker room joke. Can you think of any modern-day actress who would dare try starring in a remake of "Seven Year Itch"? ... Angelina Jolie? Reese Witherspoon? ... Who? ... Nobody.
Stars are all around us, but comets are indeed rare.
I always felt that what defined Marilyn was the fact that she was not just an orphan but an orphan who before being sent to an orphanage lived with her mother, only to be given up by her mother at about the age of 9. It was that emotional trauma/vulnerability that was so close to the surface in everything she did. Put another way: no one else was like Marilyn Monroe because no one else was like Norma Jean Baker.
Marilyn Monroe always wanted to do "serious" work, and yet the joy and vitality she created onscreen in her musical roles was, in my opinion, a far greater contribution to the harmony and well-being of the human race than any success she might have had as a so-called serious actress.
"Tragedy is easy, comedy is hard and love is damn near impossible." ... I don't know who said that but when I see Marilyn Monroe and she brings joy to my heart, I take exception to the last part of that statement -- I think anything is possible.
For all the pain and all the suffering "The American Empire" has brought to the world (to the slaves, to the American Indians, to countless Third World countries), still, it shouldn't be forgotten that America also produced people like Marilyn Monroe, and Louis Armstrong, and Babe Ruth, and Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker. All life-forces that, while they may not redeem the rest of us, did still walk amongst us.
It's interesting that two of Marilyn Monroe's husbands, Joe Di Maggio and Arthur Miller, both lacked a sense of humor. They were *serious* men; both of whom felt themselves to be inherently superior to Marilyn.
By accepting that judgment, Marilyn only added to her woes. She was, in her work, not only their equal but in many ways far, far more sustaining a life-force. What, after all, did someone like Van Gogh try to do on a piece of canvas? Create a vitality, life-force, no? Excite the viewer. Engage the observer. Reveal something about the human condition -- love, longing, sadness. Perhaps, above all, vulnerability. ... And who did this onscreen better than Marilyn Monroe? ... Who turned her sense of humor into a sense of humanity better than Marilyn Monroe?
Sure, her talent was far greater than any of the vehicles Hollywood could come up with for her, but her sheer presence was enough. She didn't steal scenes from other actors, she blew them away. As talented as they were, she turned them into props, satellites.
And now, in retrospect, knowing her sad fate, she adds yet another dimension to her onscreen presence -- she reminds us of our mortality.
Because Marilyn Monroe was not just our Sun-Goddess, the Embodiment of Life. She was also the Dean of Death.
She was Van Gogh's "Sunflower" -- but she was also Jack Kerouac's Dean Moriarity, his "fabulous yellow candle ... mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time." Her first song in "There's No Business Like Show Business" is entitled "After You Get What You Want You Don't Want It" is not only an ironic comment on the tragedy of her life, it's also typically American, isn't it? Indeed one might say that Marilyn Monroe ushered into the America culture the notion of "rampant individualism" -- the all-consuming, demon-loving idea of being "desirous of everything at the same time." This was her undoing and, as it could quite possibly turn out, it may be America's undoing as well.
Say goodbye to what you left behind, Marilyn.
Summary of There's No Business Like Show Business
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