Marilyn Monroe is quicksand. Once you step into the topic it soon controls and consumes you. Witness my mention of her house Monday–meant to be a one-off blog entry–and the weeds into which I wade as I focus on the last months of her life. While living at the Helena Drive house, which she bought at the beginning of 1962, Monroe was filming ‘Somethings Got To Give’ at 20th Century Fox. Or rather she was supposed to be filming that movie. Her erratic behavior and frequent absences from the set eventually caused Fox to shut the film down, leaving it to be one of the most tantalizing incomplete films ever not-made (the other example of this dubious genre that’s been covered in this much detail is the abandoned ‘I, Claudius’ from 1937, which is the subject of a famous documentary by Kevin Brownlow called ‘The Epic That Never Was’). Above is an excellent doc about the making and non-making of ‘Somethings Got To Give’ featuring a good deal of cut footage from the film which, although it clearly was something of a sex-comedy potboiler, featured a truly charismatic and charming turn from Monroe. Note the lovely and elaborate exterior set of the house. It’s a replica of director George Cukor’s Hollywood Hills home recreated on a Fox soundstage. Note also that Cukor, instead of yelling ‘action’, yells ‘camera!’ (I’ve never figured that one out). Finally note the extended section (at roughly 27 minutes in) featuring fabulous footage of the famous near-nude pool scene–clearly the most famous scene never shown in a movie that was never finished.