Let’s Make Love

Marilyn Monroe shimmies legs-first into Cukor’s 1960 musical, just before launching into a wildly uninhibited performance of Cole Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.” Little does she know that she’s being watched mid-rehearsal by the billionaire (Yves Montand) whose life her current show is satirizing—nor, for that matter, that he’s about to join the cast (as himself!) to get closer to her. Let’s Make Love found Monroe at the peak of her powers: vital, eager, playful, sometimes transparent, sometimes opaque, in some moments strikingly naïve, in others profoundly aware of her influence on the men in her orbit. Her chemistry with Montand is undeniable (and, sure enough, the two stars did spark up an off-set affair during filming), but their tender onscreen rapport is much more than the stuff of movie-star gossip. With cameos by Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, and Milton Berle.