No one has seen the film yet, but the internet is already awash with opinions about Blonde, Netflix’s forthcoming fictionalised biopic of Marilyn Monroe: about everything from Cuban star Ana de Armas’s suitability in the lead to the potential offensiveness of the film’s reportedly explicit sexual content. Sixty years on from her death at 36, Monroe still inspires a kind of protective instinct in the public, even among generations who missed her lifetime by several decades. Yet such discussions tend to frame Monroe only as tragic icon, rather than a blithe, sly and continually underestimated actor. There could hardly be a better time to catch up on her abbreviated but frequently joyous filmography, nearly all of it available to view in the streaming realm.
Newcomers to her work can head straight for the hits, none more delicious – or, thanks to BBC iPlayer, more freely available – than Billy Wilder’s raucous cross-dressing comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the best of all showcases for Monroe’s guileless sex appeal and deceptively deft comic timing. Wilder had previously mined those assets for his spry, then-spicy romantic comedy The Seven Year Itch (Amazon Prime), with its subway-grate dress scene that eventually dwarfed the entire film’s pop-culture currency. Monroe remains a delight in it, though her quite literal male-fantasy character – not even given a name – isn’t as generously conceived as Some Like It Hot’s Sugar Kane.
