Bideo.com is hosting an online auction for a never before published amateur video of Marilyn Monroe on the set of the film Some Like It Hot.
View the auction here: http://www.bideo.com/auction/8098
Auction Lot Description:
Rare never before published amateur video of Marilyn Monroe on the set of the film Some Like It Hot. Listed on the 50th anniversary of Monroe’s Golden Globe victory on March 8, 1960, for her highly acclaimed performance in this comedic masterpiece from Hollywood’s Golden Age. The auction will run concurrently from March 8th, ending on the 51st anniversary of the film’s premiere on March 28th, 1959.
The home video was taken on the site of the famous beaches of the Hotel Del Coronado Resort in San Diego, California, where the so-called ‘Miami beach scenes’ were filmed, based thematically in the movie when Joe and Jerry (played by Curtis and Lemon respectively) decide to run to Miami to hide-out and lay low from the film’s gangster ‘Spats Colombo’ and his various henchmen after witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The onset footage of Monroe was shot during one of the film’s most memorable scenes in which the title of the film is first explained and revealed, in an exchange between Curtis and Monroe as a reference to the type of Jazz the wild and young set, like Monroe’s character ‘Sugar’ and her girlfriends prefer, i.e. ‘Hot’ Jazz! It is at this point in the scene, after tripping while trying to retrieve a beach ball she and her friends are playing with, that ‘Sugar’ meets aptly named ‘Junior’, played by Tony Curtis’ character ‘Joe’, in disguise, as the millionaire Shell Oil tycoon and playboy inspired by Cary Grant’s Americanized English accent and debonaire onscreen persona.
Shot between takes by a sailor who had been personally invited to visit the set of the film by Monroe, the two-minute and thirty second clip, offers a revealing view of the actress, displaying a casual, candid, and care-free side of the legendary actress seldom known, or seen by her worldwide adoring fan-base. In the home video, Monroe is seen dressed in her costume from the scene, a bathing suit and short terrycloth robe, flirting and playfully frolicking with a beach ball–as she continues to interact with cast, crew, and fans alike, including several other sailors present for the filming, emanating that timeless radiance which fascinated the camera then and which continues to captivate audiences throughout the world nearly fifty years following her tragic still unexplained death in 1962. Also visible in the home movie are co-star Tony Curtis, variously sitting in the most recognizable prop of the scene–the covered wicker sun chair, and dressed in his yachting habit complete with ascot and Captain’s hat. Celebrated director Billy Wilder, whose famously turbulent onset relationship with star Monroe was and is well-documented to date, can also be seen, in the figure of a short rotund man angrily brooding back-and-forth, while walking in-and-out of the shot with an apparently frustrated demeanor in shades and a baseball cap. It seems evident from this amateur video, that Monroe’s infinite breaks, and her frequent and overall distraction with working, were truly constant sources of stress and annoyance, taking their toll on Wilder’s overall directorial control of the picture. Biographically the footage of Monroe on the set of the Some Like it Hot, dates to a very difficult and important period in the actresses’ life, as she was pregnant and showed considerable weight gain. Also Monroe’s highly publicized marriage to writer Arthur Miller was in trouble, causing her to be ‘sequestered’ by Wilder’s orders, living mostly onset at the Coronado resort, to prevent her from running off and leaving the picture prematurely.
Presumed lost for decades, the original Kodak color 8 Millimeter reel recently resurfaced in Australia when the daughter of the sailor who first filmed it, discovered film among her late father’s possessions. In 2008 the reel was sold to an anonymous collector in Melbourne, who is now looking to sell the full copy right and the original reel.
Winning bidder will receive the non-watermarked digital file, a DVD transfer copy, the original 8-Millimeter color Kodak reel (still in original box; pictured at bottom left), and the exclusive full commercial rights for the footage. All other copies and reproductions of the film, used for the purposes of promotion and publicity, including the watermarked proof will be automatically deleted.
