Review Something's Got to Give (1962)

[Doctor Omega]

Your thoughts on this unfinished movie.....

Unfinished remake of "My Favorite Wife," due to the firing of Marilyn Monroe from the film. She was eventually re-hired, but died in August, 1962. Film was never completed.

Documentary:

 

[Janine The Barefoot]

Something's Got to Give is an unfinished 1962 American feature film, directed by George Cukor for Twentieth Century-Fox and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, it was Monroe's last work; from the beginning its production was disrupted by her personal troubles, and after her death on August 5, 1962 the film was abandoned. Most of its completed footage remained unseen for many years.

Twentieth Century-Fox overhauled the entire production idea the following year with mostly new cast and crew and produced their My Favorite Wife remake, now entitled Move Over, Darling and starring Doris Day, James Garner, and Polly Bergen.

Nine hours of unedited footage and separate sound tracks from the unfinished film remained in the vaults at 20th Century Fox until 1989, when the material was discovered by producers of Fox Entertainment News (FEN) and assembled into the one-hour documentary, Marilyn: Something's Got to Give. Commissioned by Fox Chairman Barry Diller, the film first aired on Fox stations in 1990, written, produced and presented by Henry Schipper. The film sequences edited by FEN's post-production team were later repurposed by Prometheus Entertainment for documentary "Marilyn Monroe: The Final Days" (1999), which aired on AMC on June 1, 2001, Monroe's 75th birthday.


"Trailer":

Documentary:

Thank you especially for this one Doc. I remember seeing the clips/takes from this film on TV and being really moved and touched by them. But I'm also an eeeeenormous fan of Cukor whom I believe had limitless talent and a true genius in any age or era.

I know we poke fun back and forth about your film updates, you and I, but this post is both special and meaningful. Especially to someone from the tail-end of the "Boomers" who thinks the old studio days produced films the like of which we will never see again and that there are some losses that just seem to keep on happening and are worth remembering if only for that reason alone.

So seriously Doc.... thanks.

 

[Doctor Omega]

Thanks too Janine. I'm glad you like the post.

I was surprised to find that this was itself a remake - and that it mutated into "Let's Make Love" with Doris Day!

 

[Janine The Barefoot]

and that it mutated into "MOVE OVER DARLING" with Doris Day!

I pretend that never happened and it always works for me! I do it for other things too! It's just a thought, but one I think you'll appreciate as it comes in very handy with respect to certain films. I am such a bad girl!

 

[Doctor Omega]