This Year's Blonde

this tv-movie could be a modern first - run major release, even tho it's 21 years old. Connie Forslund is a veteran bit part player who portrays arguably the greatest "bit part" player of all time. What Cosmic irony there was in Monroe's last serious role, "the Misfits"! Her talents as an actress were well known before she married arthur miller; yet, the hollywood image of "blonde bimbo" for many a year stuck to almost any curvaceous woman to visit hollywood, regardless of talent or potential, especially one who was as audacious in posing & yet as empathic and eager to please as norma jean baker. Very interesting, even sensitive, how Forslund/Monroe gives her real name - she pronounces it like it were a resumé...

if you haven't yet grasped her inner bio, this is a good place to start. This sympathetic portrayal is sublime in showing the combination of intelligence, wit, honesty, & vulnerability in a young woman, who GAVE far more than she ever GOT. It cuts through the usual pinup mentality, of both the art of the woman, and anyone who would appreciate the Artist (Lloyd Bridges as her agent/protector is excellent at showing us how) - and the person she was. With the subsequent roles of Mr Bridges up against his earlier ones (i think he was in over 160 pictures, High Noon undoubtedly being his finest) & his recent passing, this revealing biopic is even more touching, if not also illuminating, regarding not only the players, but also the gritty business they must play at. One begging question... did Ms Forslund play herself out of any other roles? She is so good in this i believe, that i wonder if she hasn't also been touched by the "curse of the y-chromosome" (vis - á - vis the male stupor-inducing/casting couch syndrome), because this extremely talented actress, like MM, hasn't scored anymore major parts since this stage of her career - to the theater-going public's loss, and perhaps great sadness....

The third story from Garson Kanin's "Movieola" book to be made into a TV movie, "This Year's Blonde" takes as its subject the relationship between the young, ambitious Marilyn Monroe and the established and influential Hollywood agent Johnny Wade. It's 1948 and Marilyn hasn't long adopted her new stage name and indeed blonde look when she bumps into Wade by a hotel swimming pool. It seems Wade, a divorcee father of two at the time, wasn't above using his position to pick up young starlets but this time it's different for him as he genuinely falls for the stunning young blonde and believes in her potential to the extent that he moves her into his apartment and tirelessly tries to promote her to the main studio bosses including Sam Goldwyn and Harry Cohn.

Although she sleeps with him, Monroe won't accept Wade's regular marriage proposals even as his efforts on her behalf begin to bear fruit, especially when she adopts her "Betty Boop" voice to sing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" which finally gets her noticed and selected, after some hard lobbying for a small but important role in John Huston's gritty noir thriller. "The Asphalt Jungle". The rest, at least so far as Marilyn's career was concerned, is history. But whither Johnny? As has been made blindingly obvious from his first appearance, he has a heart condition so you can probably guess how it ends up, right at the moment of his protegé's breakthrough, natch!

Relative unknown Constance Forslund has the unenviable task of portraying the screen goddess which she does passably well while the naturally more recognisable Lloyd Bridges brings familiarity and experience to his part, although he looks nothing like the real life Wade and in addition is way too tall, if you look at contemporary pictures of the couple together.

Whilst on that subject, it has to be said that the producers don't appear to have tried too hard for similarities to their actual counterparts, especially when you're talking about well known figures like Goldwyn, Cohn and especially John Huston, where the actor chosen for the part almost looks more like Whitney Houston!

Still, this was an entertaining TV movie, hindered by a measure of indifferent casting, some rather stilted dialogue and I suspect more than a little licence taken with the timing of some of the key events depicted.