The 1950s witnessed a decline in quality roles for women. The greatest stars of the 30s and 40s-Barbara Stanwyck, Myrna Loyd, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis-all fell victim to age discrimination. In their place Hollywood foisted a number of less than stunning actresses that were, nevertheless, embraced by movie audiences. Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner, Kim Novak, Sophia Loren and the others all may have a legitimate claim to sex symbol status, but for the most part even their best performances are rather forgettable. It may come as a surprise to most people, but I actually believe that in retrospect the best actress of the 1950s really was Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe has never really gotten the credit she deserves as a talented comedienne. Nor has she fully been recognized for her dramatic abilities put on display in such films as Bus Stop and Niagara. Will I try to make the argument that Marilyn Monroe gave the greatest performance of the 1950s? No. But I will make the argument that those great actresses of the 30s and 40s didn’t make it through the decade intact, and that the other glamour girls who got Oscars and recognition gave, for the most part, rather mundane and uninteresting performances in most of their films.
One cannot say that Marilyn Monroe was ever uninteresting or boring. Even in movies that aren’t terribly memorable-The Prince and the Showgirl or River of No Return-you remember Marilyn. And you know what? On second thought, I will make an argument that Marilyn Monroe gave if not the best performance of the 50s then certainly one of the best. Let’s face facts, the 1950s was no Hollywood’s finest hour. (Though, in comparison to this decade it looks like a nonstop decade of masterpieces.) Hollywood was trying vainly to compete with television by offering deadhead epics and overblown musicals. As a result, the meaty roles that had been written for women in those earlier decades were either watered down into roles suitable for Susan Hayward melodramas or else jettisoned entirely. That is just one reason why Marilyn Monroe’s truly tantalizing comedic masterpiece in Some Like it Hot sears itself into one’s memory. Filmed in glorious silvery black and white, Marilyn’s voluptuous body was never used to greater effect; her obvious womanliness is a counterpoint to the infinitely more realistic flapper female body types of her male co-stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Marilyn’s whispery voice swings back and forth between vulnerability and fearlessness to create what may very stand as the single most memorable female movie character of the entire decade.
The Seven Year Itch is another showcase of Monroe’s talents. It is beyond easy to see why Tom Ewell engages in such insane behavior and gives over to wild fantasies about his upstairs neighbor. One may well question why a performance in which an actress appear to be doing nothing other than playing herself warrants her elevation to the top spot of all actresses of the decade. Well, it’s a toughie, all right. Oddly enough, it was far more difficult for me to pick a single best actress of the 50s than it was for me to pick the best of the 30s and 40s. The reason is that the actresses of the earlier decades who made the final cut all gave solid performances throughout the decades. The 50s is a conundrum. Whereas actresses like Deborah Kerr, Eleanor Parker, Joanne Woodward and Kim Hunter all rose to spectacular heights at various points, overall their canons leave something to be desired. And while Marilyn Monroe only turned in one performance that can stand by the best of the others, she regularly made whatever movie she was in significantly better as a result of her presence.
