Marilyn Monroe History: Backstory - The Making Of The Seven Year Itch

Source:Marilyn Monroe History- Tom Ewell & Marilyn Monroe.

Source:The Daily Review

The Seven Year Itch is not one of my favorite movies. It’s a very good funny movie that is at least ten-years ahead of its time, but it’s not one of my favorites. But what I think I like most about it is that it’s a 1950s movie that takes on the 1950s. Here is this country called the United States of America that’s supposed to be this great land of freedom and everything and yet Americans back then weren’t free to be Americans. They couldn’t be themselves and didn’t have the freedom to be who they were and talk about what they were interested in and live their own lives for fear of censorship. And perhaps not being able to find jobs if they were who they actually were and moved away from the 1950s culturally conservative box where all Americans were supposed to be the same way.

Sex and adultery and of course humor about those things, of course they went on back then. They just weren’t done in public at least on TV and in films. The Seven Year Itch changed that by bringing out adultery and sex in the public. To show how men act and what they think about when their wife is out-of-town and they’re home alone and there’s a hot sexy women nearby whose very friendly. And who would essentially let the guy do whatever he wants with her, because she’s open to practically anything. The Seven Year Itch didn’t end the culturally conservative bubble of the 1950s. But it did show Americans that these things happen even though everyone knew that and that there wasn’t anything wrong with talking about it. The political correctness movement back then was basically dominated by what would be called the Christian-Right today and The Seven Year Itch took them on.

You could have a man with the most beautiful wife possible, who loves her and loves his kids and doesn’t want to lose them, or his wife. But we all think about other women especially hot sexy women like Marilyn Monroe, or anyone else and when our girlfriend, or wife is not there for whatever reason like perhaps visiting family out-of-town and another hot sexy women comes into the picture and she’s very friendly and shows an interest in him, or course the guy is going to think about her. And throw out ideas like, “I’ll have her over for one drink, who’ll be hurt by it? I’ll invite her out for dinner. It will be very neighborly. Besides my wife will never know anyway.” And that is what the Tom Ewell character does in this movie. He essentially fantasizes about what would life be like with another beautiful women.

A&E: Investigative Reports - JFK's Sexual Appetite

SourceA&E- two of JFK's women?

Source:The New Democrat

1960 might have been the last time that John F. Kennedy could have even ran for president. Even if he lived a normal life in years, because by 1968 or so the media was no longer afraid to investigate and report on the personal lives of politicians. Jack Kennedy doesn’t get elected president if his affairs had got out, but not just the affairs, but where the affairs took place like under his wife’s nose and in the same house where Jackie was then, but also because of the connections that his affairs had. Judith Campbell, for example being a girlfriend of Sam Giancana. The Kennedy Family including Jack, was already linked with the Italian Mafia in America and not just because of the efforts of the Kennedy Administration to crack down on organized crime, but they were friendly as well.

Senator Kennedy doesn’t win Illinois during the 1960 presidential election without Chicago and he doesn’t win Chicago without the Italian Mafia there. The early 1960s was really the last time that national politicians could get away with lets side affairs and shady deals before someone not just knew about it, but then reported it as well. President Kennedy probably gets reelected in 1964, but unless his lifestyle changed his second administration would have been hell for him. Because these affairs would have gotten out and you have heard rumblings at least even in a Democratic Congress that it might be time to remove the President, because of the dangerous lifestyle that he lived and the potential blackmail that came with these irresponsible affairs.

Smoked Video: JFK's Sexual Appetite

David Von Pein: The Life and Times of John F. Kennedy (1964)

Source:David Von Pein- President John F. Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts) I believe at Rice University in 1963.

Source:The New Democrat

Another film about the life of John F. Kennedy our 35th President of the United States. This came out in 1964 less than a year after President Kennedy was assassinated. And he was already pretty popular as president in 1963 when he was killed and if anything he became more popular after he died. Perhaps because of all the questions rising about who killed him and did the assassin, or assassins have help is assassinating him in Dallas, Texas. I believe a lot of Jack Kennedy’s support comes from Hollywood. He was really our first hip president and had he been elected in the 1980s, or even in 1976, he would have been seen as a cool president. President Kennedy, did have same major accomplishments in his short time as president, but most of them had to do with foreign policy.

Jack Kennedy today I believe is both very popular personally, but his policies and politics and what he advocated are very popular in the country. He was a true Social Liberal who believed in both economic and personal freedom, as well as a safety net for people who truly need it. And because of this you even have Republicans who say they support Social Security and Medicare, as well as a public safety net for people who truly need it. JFK believed in a strong defense, but didn’t believe that America should, or could police the world by themselves. And again this is where Americans tend to be. We’re not dovish as a country, or neoconservative when it comes to foreign policy. We want to be able to defend ourselves and help people around the world, but not have to do everything ourselves.

So back in the early 1960s I believe a lot of the reasons for JFK’s popularity had to do with the fact that he was hip and cool. That Hollywood liked him and saw them as one of them, that he had friends in Hollywood. And that he was very different culturally from a lot of the president’s that had come before who were very traditional culturally. JFK also had a beautiful young hip wife in Jackie that the country including Hollywood loved and saw her as royalty. They were ahead of their time culturally in an era that was finally moving away from the 1940s and 1950s and into the 1960s which looked almost completely different as a decade as far as the role of women, how people lived and talked, the types of entertainment that was coming out. And these are I believe big reasons for the popularity of John Kennedy.

David Von Pein: The Life and Times of John F. Kennedy, 1964

Double Cross: Sam Giancana & Marilyn Monroe (February 17th, 1992)

Source:Daily Mail - Hollywood Babydoll Marilyn Monroe & The Chairman of The Board Frank Sinatra. 

Source:The Daily Review

The whole point about Marilyn Monroe’s housekeeper being asleep at Marilyn Monroe’s house the night that she died and that she was next door, or down the hall, tells you how bogus (to be nice) the claim that Sam Giancana had anything to do with the death of Marilyn. The housekeeper would have heard a break in, or at least of heard a struggle between Marilyn and the supposed assassin, or assassins. Keep in mind this younger Sam Giancana, is the nephew of the Italian mobster Sam Giancana. So I guess you could say why would young Sam be accusing his own uncle of murdering one of the top Hollywood Goddess’s of all-time? The answer being why not. It wouldn’t be the first time that some has used their famous name to make a lot of money legitimately.

Marilyn Monroe had she been alive today and let's say in her mid, or late thirties with the same personality and physical futures and talents, would be the OMG awesome pop princess, or whatever. She has a lot of fans from this era who look at the world that way. And they have a hard time believing how could anyone that fabulous lets say could take their own life. Which is very hard to believe and I understand that. But if you knew Marilyn and how irresponsible she was and how unhappy she was and the fact that she did have real mental issues and was even committed even at one point, you know she was a mental train wreck waiting to explode. She drank too much and took way too many pills because of how unhappy she was.

I don’t believe Marilyn killed herself intentionally. I’m not implying suicide here, but when you’re drunk as she was that night and you’re unhappy to begin with and you’re taking all sorts of medication at night to try to get you through the day and you take all of those drugs including the alcohol at the same time, very bad things are going to happen to you. Since you’re not completely aware of what you’re doing you end up finally taking too much. She died from an overdose and no one helped her do that. Other than maybe giving her some motivation and reason to feel unhappy. But we’re still not talking about a murder here. One way to look at the death of Marilyn Monroe is to look at what happens to drunk drivers and they get in accidents and kill themselves by accident as a result.
The Literary Group: Entertainment Tonight- Double Cross and Marilyn Monroe

Michaels Backporch: Hardcopy (Feb. 4, 1991) Charles Manson Pirate Prison Tapes

Source:Hard Copy Special Report on Charles Manson & his crime family.

Source:The New Democrat

The Manson murders twenty years later. Actually twenty years after The Manson Family murderers were convicted of those evil murders. I mean when I think of evil serial murderers Charlie Manson and Ted Bundy are at the top of my list at least when you're talking about individuals. The KKK as a group are probably just as bad though. Manson ordering murders of people because they were literally part of the successful establishment. Imagine that as your defense in court. But not only that, but ordering the murders of the wrong people. He wanted Dennis Wilson murdered and wasn't aware that Wilson had moved out and other people moved in. Roman Polanski and his girlfriend Sharon Tate.

Charlie Manson wasn't a dumb person. Certainly uneducated and not educated in the traditional sense. But we're talking about someone who didn't functioned properly mentally. Who lacked moral character, actually didn't really have any. Who believed he was above the law and that somehow these murders was benefiting society or something. Even though again he ordered the murders of the wrong people in the sense that it was Dennis Wilson that he wanted murdered. And his crew didn't realize that Wilson no longer lived there and that new group of people are now using that home. The Manson Family soldiers I guess who were made up of high school and college dropouts and people who were kicked out by their parents, didn't understand that.

Charlie Manson created a cult of evil an even culture of evil. I guess he was pissed off at society after leaving prison for the last time in his life and was looking for a way to get back at the people that he believed wronged him. We're talking about a man who grew up in prison and at 32 in 1967 had spent more than half his life in prison. And even though prison was always the best and most comfortable place for him in life he now believed he was going to punish the people for sending him there. And he finds his societal dropouts in the Manson soldiers with the young women, Tex Watson and others and now had the crew to commit the evil acts that he didn't have the balls to do himself. Charlie Manson is the perfect example of why we have life in prison and life without parole in prison. Because you don't want people like that living freely ever again.

AMC: 'Myra Breckinridge Backstory (2001) 'The Making of a Legendary Comedy'

Source:Classics At Dusk- left to right: the absolutely hilarious & off the wall Mae West & and her great comedic sidekick, the absolutely hilarious and off the wall Raquel Welch. Even if I'm just one of 5 people who like this movie, these two women alone by themselves make it worth loving the movie the movie for me.

Source:The Daily Review

"MYRA BRECKINRIDGE Backstory with Raquel Welch, Gore Vidal, Rex Reed, David Brown and Michael Sarne" 

From Classics At Dusk

"This making of special aired in 2001.

This making of special aired in 2001. Don't watch this if you haven't seen the movie. It gives the whole storyline away.

This special on model Gia Carangi [1960-1986] aired in 2001. The audio and video is very bad on this one. I'm sorry about that. This copy is all that I have.

Myron Breckinridge flies to Europe to get a sex-change operation and is transformed into the beautiful Myra. She travels to Hollywood, meets up with.

This interview aired in 1990 about an etiquette manual Ms. Barrows had written called Mayflower Manners."

Source:AMC- part of the cast from Myra Breckinridge (1970)

From AMC 

Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch in the very first scene of Myra Breckinridge. This movie really was a sort of a sexual fantasy of what life would be like if radical feminists were running the world and you that in the very first scene of the film. 

Source:AMC- Hollywood Goddess Raquel Welch as Myra Breckinridge.

"It's too awful for that dubious distinction. But American Movie Classics featured the film and advertised it as such in its half-hour AMC "Backstory" series recently. 

Doubtless, worse movies have been made, but they're so inconsequential they've been forgotten, or they have become kitsch, that is to say so pretentiously dreadful they're beyond consideration.

In terms of money spent, importance of cast, publicity, major studio participation and chutzpah, "Myra Breckinridge" (1970) is in a class by itself as cinematic refuse.

The film is and always has been a terrible, miserable, obscene, unsanitary waste of celluloid by people who should know better.

Producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown thought it would be a sexy, daring comedy from which 20th Century-Fox would earn millions to refill studio coffers emptied seven years earlier by the "Cleopatra" disaster.

Instead, "Myra" plunged the studio into worse debt, nearly destroying Fox and ruining the careers of almost everyone involved.

Zanuck and Brown went on to make subsequent hits of "The Sting," "Jaws" and "Driving Miss Daisy."

"Myra," however, was the nadir of their careers and the definitive loser in Hollywood history." 

From UPI 

Just to respond to the story from UPI: Myra Breckinrdige was way ahead of it's time, maybe even 10 years. Even in the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I just don't think there were enough Americans, even enough hippie Baby Boomers and Beatnik Silent Generation babies to even understand the movie, let alone enjoy it. And if was made today, it would probably be killed by radical feminist political correctness and be called sexist and homophobic. 

Myra Breckinridge is one of those movies that looks better as it ages, because it was so ahead of its time. I think the makers of the film calculated wrong thinking that this is a 1970 movie probably made in 1969 and that this movie would be perfect for its time in the 1960s and the cultural and sexual revolutions. With young Americans experimenting and trying all sorts of different things even when it came to their sexuality.

But very few people were talking about transgender sexuality and sex changes back then. It was very new and then you throw in all the pornography in the movie (which I personally don’t have a problem with) and it was a tough movie for a lot of people to see which is why it was a financial flop when it came out.

If this movie came out 25-30 years later perhaps even 20 years I think this movie would have been very successful. (Especially on Cinemax) I’ve seen this movie like ten times now and have blogged about it multiple times and it was one of my favorite comedies. I’m laughing through most of this movie with Raquel Welch being at her hottest, sexiest and cutest, all in the same movie.

Raquel was so funny in this movie and this is where you really get to see her sense of humor and great comedic timing. John Huston playing Buck Naked, I mean Buck Loner in this movie a sex starved, or sex addict head of an acting school. (Of all things) Getting blow jobs and sexual massages on the job and trying to run his school at the same time.

And of course you can’t talk about Myra Breckinridge without talking about Mae West. Where she also plays a sex starved star in the movie a man-loving woman who can’t spend more than five seconds with a young stud (Tom Selleck) without making a pass at him. And of course you get to see Mae sing Hard to Handle which was perfect for her and her character in this movie.

And of course Gore Vidal with without his book with the same title this movie isn’t made. (Which might not have been a bad thing) But his great comedic ability and willingness to take big risks is how he writes the book that he did and how this movie gets made. I believe movies are judged by how they look as the years go by and later in history. And Myra Breckinridge to me looks like a great comedy.

A&E: Biography- Raquel Welch: 'Beyond The Fantasy'

Source:A&E Biography Raquel Welch.

Source:The Daily Review

The photo shots and video footage of Raquel Welch are absolutely incredible. Rarely will you ever see a women that is this hot and adorable at the same time with incredible sex appeal as well. She’s truly a goddess and then you throw in the voice, the way she moves, the singer and that she’s a hell of an actress as well and we really are talking about not only one of the best looking entertainers of all-time, (arguably the best looking) but one of the best entertainers of all-time as well. A many ways both Raquel and Sophia Loren represent what Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield could have been if they just bothered to grow up personally and took care of themselves. Two incredibly attractive women who both had a lot of talents.

Hollywood at least at first probably just saw Raquel as a sex goddess. The 1960s and 1970s version of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield and just wanted to use her for her looks and sell her that way. As far as her movies and the rest of her appearances. So they overplayed her sex appeal, but in the same time period she was given very good roles that also brought out her other talents. Her comedic side and the great voice as well. With the work she did for Vietnam servicemen and servicewomen. Movies like Fathom, Lady in Cement with Frank Sinatra, 100 Rifles with Burt Reynolds and Jim Brown and of course Myra Breckinridge, which I at least believe is one of the funniest movies of all-time. Where you got to see her great comedic timing in it.

I believe since Raquel has always had that hot baby-faced adorable face, the incredibly sweet sexy voice and high energy personality and that she’s known these things and again unlike Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield she’s lived very well and has taken care of herself and has been very responsible with her life by in large, (except for the marriages) she has aged so slowly and still remains a red-hot baby-faced adorable goddess in her mid-70s today. Who is still active in Hollywood and has other careers going for her in writing and in fashion. To me she’s a goddess in the best sense of the word. Both physically and professionally as far as her talent, intelligence and professionalism. And is one of the most impressive women I’ve ever known of.