River of No Return

In person: writer Kim Morgan

The Donahue clan, led by husband and wife Molly and Terry (Ethel Merman and Dan Dailey), navigate the ups and downs of show biz, from their beginnings in Vaudeville to the Great Depression, in this musical comedy with songs by Irving Berlin. The family’s close bond is further tested with the arrival of the talented and driven Vicky Parker (Marilyn Monroe). Costume designer Travilla played an integral role in shaping Marilyn Monroe’s public image on- and off-screen. Together they famously produced looks that evaded censorship while still courting controversy. His designs for her showgirl characters are of particular note.

The Prince and the Showgirl in 35mm

In this sole collaboration between Warner Bros. and Marilyn Monroe Productions, Monroe plays Elsie Marina, a witty American showgirl who gets noticed by the eccentric Prince Regent Charles (Laurence Olivier). Set in Edwardian London and directed by Olivier, the film was a famously troubled production, with tension between co-stars and cinematographer Jack Cardiff. The film was shot at Pinewood Studios outside London; Monroe’s difficulties on and off set were adapted into Simon Curtis’s fictional My Week with Marilyn (2011), with Michelle Williams starring as Monroe.

Director George Cukor’s musical comedy was Monroe’s second-to-last completed film. She plays a bohemian off-Broadway actor who is in a show satirizing a French billionaire, Jean-Marc Clément (Yves Montand). While scoping out the production, Clément is cast in the play and the two fall in love, though deception threatens to ruin everything. Monroe worked closely with costume designer Dorothy Jeakins to draw inspiration from her personal style for the film’s looks.

In person: Pickle the Drag Queen

Penned by Arthur Miller, this contemporary Western centers on the recently divorced Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) and her relationship with an aging former cowboy, Gay (Clark Gable), who now survives by rounding up wild mustangs to sell them to a slaughterhouse. Considered a commercial failure at the time of its original release, the film has since been regarded as a classic by critics and audiences, perhaps notably because it was the final completed film of both Gable and Monroe, and a fitting bookend to Monroe’s career—she credited Huston for her first big break in his The Asphalt Jungle (1950).