Cheap Let's Make Love (DVD) (Marilyn Monroe, Yves Montand) (George Cukor) Price

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Customer Reviews of Let's Make Love

STRICTLY FOR MM FANS.....
I am a great admirer of Marilyn, and while I did buy this movie, and I watch it a few times a year, it still isn't one of my favorites. I gave the film the 3 stars for MM! Marilyn is fine her performance, but it's no Cheree' from Bus Stop. This film reverts back to her older films, cutesy musical movies with cheesy plots. I thought that Gentlemen prefer Blondes was a much better musical and a better movie. Let's make Love is lacking..I found Yves Montand to be so boring and a bad actor!!! He just didn't go well with Marilyn at all. It amazes me that she had an affair with him; I think maybe the fact that he bares a slight resemblence to Joe Dimaggio may have something to do with that. And the fact that she was very depressed and estranged from her husband at the time, Arthur Miller probably didn't help either. The movie does offer some entertaining musical numbers, but the first half hour of it is SO BORING!!!!! I fast forward through it now. The scenes with Marilyn are the best. Also the cameos of Gene Kelley, Milton Berle, and Bing Crosby help to make this film a little more watchable. The script is awful! Aside from Yves' wooden performance, the rest of the acting is fine. I always find Tony Randall so amusing in his earlier films. I'd have to say the first scene with Marilyn, when she performs "My heart belongs to Daddy" makes the film worth purchasing for one's Marilyn collection. I think you can only truly appreciate this film if you are a big admirer of her's. The movie itself is a big flop, and from what I've read Marilyn thought so, too. She seems very distant and has very low self esteem through out the movie.(well, except in her first scene). If you want a great movie musical, this is going to sorely disappoint.

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My heart belongs to Marilyn
Let's face it, Marilyn is not known for 'deep' movies, unfortunately. 'Let's Make Love' is a light musical comedy with a familiar plot. A multi-billionaire can have buy whatever he wants, but when he sees Marilyn and finds his money useless............

The two and a half years that Marilyn lived in the 1960's were not espescially good for her. In this movie she is 'plump', moreso than she was in 'Some like it Hot'. But she's still the most beautiful woman that ever lived. The songs are good, 'Specialization' and 'Let's make Love' are memorable. But the movie's jewel is 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy'. Your first sight of marilyn in this flick are her black stocking legs as she slides down a brass pole. I get light headed everytime she turns intentionally toward the camera and blows the viewer a kiss. Marilyn will live in her fan's hearts forever.

Yves Montand did an excellent job as a stiff, upper crust rich man who hires Milton Berle, Gene Kelly, and Bing Crosby to help him get a small bit in Marilyn's off-broadway show.

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MM's penultimate film is a cockle doodle-doo
When billionaire Jean-Marc Clement hears a theatre company is going to be roasting him in a satire on celebrities, he goes down to the theatre to see what the hullabaloo is about. There, he sees Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" number, sung by a blonde actress, Amanda Dell with male dancers. He is smitten and because this is a comedy, he is mistaken for a Clement impersonator and hired by Oliver Burton, head of the production. Also, because this is a comedy and an eye-rolling one at that, he takes the name Alexander Dumas. Both Dumas pere and fils were probably churning in their graves at that one.

He learns that Amanda doesn't like Clement one bit. "I heard they're going to make a real idiot out of him" she says, also saying of him he's a rich louse. Insulted, he tells her off, but she, clueless of his real identity, praises him by saying it's a perfect impression of Clement, which mollifies him. He tries to get closer to Amanda by trying to get her help on acting technique and asking her out. She on her part is friendly and encouraging, but she's taking night classes to get what would today be a GED. Worse for him, she's the girlfriend of song and dance man Tony Danton, played by Frankie Vaughan, whom he is definitely jealous of.

Clement lacks show business talent and through his PR man Alexander Coffman, gets a joke from Lamont, played by ex-Three Stooge Joe Besser, which backfires. Hiring Milton Berle, Bing Crosby, and Gene Kelly (who play themselves in guest cameos) for comedy, singing, and dancing.

The rehearsal for the "Specialization" number is humiliating for Clement. After all, Clement is known as a notorious womanizer, and to his chagrin, he is forced to accompany the line "crow from the barnyard roost" by cockle-doodle-dooing like a real rooster. Others roasted in this number are Maria Callas, Elvis Presley, and pianist Van Cliburn, which is a snapshot of who was big in 1960.

The best observation on human nature comes from Coffman, who learning that the theatre has been demanded a year's rent in advance and that the theatre's real estate firm belongs to Clement, asks the bartender for three double bourbons, then goes into this bitter spiel. "Somebody once said that rich people are only poor people with money. Well, he was lying. Rich people aren't people, my friend. Oh, they can be charming, democratic, polite. You can hardly tell them from a human being sometimes. Just be good and sure you don't cross them."

Another good insight is a conversation between Coffman and Clement. When people talk to Clement, they don't talk to him, they talk to his money, hence Coffman's calling him "sir." The importance of distinguishing people from their money is noted here.

Apart from the Cole Porter number, the other numbers are forgettable. This is far from MM or Yves Montand's most memorable performances. Montand is miscast in this part, and it's understandable why celebrities ranging from Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Yul Brynner, and James Stewart turned it down. All in all, a waste of talent given the cast involved, including Tony Randall, Wilfrid Hyde-White, and director George Cukor.

Critics panned this and wrote off Monroe's career, even saying she was putting on some pounds. However, the script, idea, dialogue, lack of likeable characters (except Amanda and Coffman) and lack of oomph are more to blame. MM was trying to breathe life into a movie doomed from the start and did her best. Unfortunately, it didn't save this cockle-doodle-doo of a picture. And Holly from Cool World was inspired enough to sing the title song? Please!