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The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes: Review Amelia Murphy

The new Netflix release of the mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes brings to light decades-old questions and mystery around Monroe's life and ultimately, her death. Monroe rose to fame in Hollywood after starring in movies such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and what was described as her ever charming and kind spirit lifted her into the limelight permanently. Monroe aspired to make something of herself, and this documentary does an amazing job at capturing her ambitions, even from others perspectives. We are given an inside look into Monroe's life, her long time friends, husbands, hairdressers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and so on, to paint the picture leading up to her ending. And, the aspect that sets this documentary apart from the rest, in my opinion, is that all of this information obtained is from never heard before tapes, hundreds of them, compiling the life, love, and tragedy Monroe experienced.

“Why is Monroe's story still being told”, some ask when new media is created around her. Because of women like her, millions of women have gained confidence in themselves, that they can be hard-working and be the breakthroughs without succumbing to the many regards of society saying women are “perfect” if they just sit still. Her image, while always tinted by the male gaze, is of someone with so much charismatic personality and her goals that “put her apart from everybody else”, according to Joan Greenson, the daughter of Monroe's personal therapist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, who had often conversed with and spent time with Monroe at Greenson's house. The truth behind her mysterious passing has and always will raise questions, and with a woman like Monroe, her life will live on years after she has left. If not for women like Monroe to pave the way for future generations, then not only Hollywood, but as a society, would be much less progressed.

The documentary started by introducing audio clippings of Monroe, while also introducing the man telling the story of how he got assigned to reopen Monroe's death, Anthony Summers. This is followed by a rather long stint of more audio recordings of Monroe with old Hollywood in the background, which made me focus more on what Monroe was saying and how it related to what I was viewing. Eventually, the film gets into the backstory of how Monroe grew up, where, how, with who and had numerous tapes from sources that had experienced younger Monroe themselves, such as restaurant owners of places she frequented. Monroe's rise to fame was larger due, in the beginning, to her romantic relationship with Johnny Hyde, an agent who introduced him to the life of Hollywood and connections that would benefit Monroe, which was information I had never heard until I watched this film. Monroe had numerous relationships through the years, many infamous, but she and Hyde seemed to bring Monroe up the most, in my opinion.

A huge role emphasized in the documentary was the role of her therapist, Mr. Greenson, as he learned about her past, and was able to provide not only support but a support system around Monroe, it seemed. I had never known before watching this that Monroe had gone through 10 different foster homes and that her mother was in an insane asylum while her father was not present. The backstory given provides just enough details for you to feel you understand her while contrasting her childhood with her adulthood, which she struggled in as well, but in different ways that Greenson was helping her cope with. We also are informed of her second marriage, to Joe DiMaggio, a baseball player, but in all honestly, this relationship did not benefit anyone. Monroe said that their "marriage wasn't a happy one" and this relationship did not badly affect the plot, but it was one of those parts that did slow down the story a bit.

The plot does circle back to Monroe's inner family issues and her traumatic issues, which connects back to how she acted, and how her friends and acquaintances saw her behalf. The mix of these tape recordings provides extreme detail on Monroe's emotions at some points, from direct quotes she said, to how she was acting on set and behind the scenes. You get a sense of feeling pitiful for Monroe from the start, but around this mark is when you start to hear the real, raw emotions Monroe held close.

Summer's describes Monroes life and legacy during the film

You are also informed about the third marriage, to Arthur Miller, a famous playwright of the time. While this marriage lasted longer, it also took even greater emotional tolls on Monroe as she struggled to bear children, and had found out her husband thought of her as a disappointment and called her a "whore." From the tapes of close friends to Monroe, it seems this damage from his words only furthered Monroe's unusual behavior following.

One of the central ideas hit in this documentary is how Monroe was involved in the Kennedy brothers, as this then incorporated the national government, and organizations like the Federal Bureau of Investigation watching Monroe and keeping tabs on her. She was constantly under surveillance, whether it was political or by local reporters, and this caused many sources to find out information about Monroe never heard. I was, frankly, shocked, when the film revealed she had far-left ideas and that the FBI had her tagged as a communist, as she had also visited her friends who were exiled from America for communist beliefs. The documentary did an excellent job of rounding this information back to the Kennedy's and their relationships with Monroe because the connections were there, but much harder to understand if not properly navigated.

Before Monroe's death, many tapes reveal everyone knew something about her was off, such as her taking sleeping pills with mixes of other drugs. She was seen as struggling, but apparently, Greenson worked through some of it with her, and she attended emotionally a rehabilitation center as well. Many close friends thought she was doing much better, and Greenson left for a work trip out of town.

Monroe smiles in candid photo in a city

The strangest thing I heard about the particulars of Monroe's death was that there were multiple stories, and all placed different people at Monroe's, or previously before her death. The housekeeper, the paramedics, the doctors, and the therapist, all had somewhat completely different stories of the last hours of Monroe, and the early hours following her death. Some claimed she was lying face down in her bed, or the more interesting story was that she was essentially comatose, but picked up in an ambulance just to be driven back to her house eventually. Many others around Monroe's still claim different versions, but all the different perspectives I had never heard came to light in this section of the film and also connected previous people in with her suspicious death.

Many people, who once asked about the circumstances regarding Monroe's death seemed to shut down fairly quickly in many of the interviews, and the tapes let you hear the full cutoffs of why people can no longer speak on it. This part after her death is very sensitive, but I do feel the film still moves rather fast, with the aftermath facts being run through as the film finally comes full circle as the re-opened investigation ends with the same results from the original, as Summers, the man who re-investigated, is fully convinced there is no foul play that resulted in Monroe's death. After hearing and watching the close friends of Marilyn and her colleagues, along with the investigators, I would also fully say I believe she was not killed, at least by anyone else but herself.

These tapes showed the world that Monroe lived in from angles and perspectives never heard before, and I thought the setup of how you heard all the clippings worked very well with the images and videos aligned with them. If there were no photos or videos of the actual person, then they had an actor simply sit on the phone, while Summers recording from the other end, and just have what seemed to be a regular conversation. I enjoyed how the film did not try to overcomplicate how many of these proceedings occurred, but let the recordings speak for themselves solely.

Hearing all the tapes separately rather than all conjoined I felt was the right directorial choice so that you could hear and assess all the different stories, yet you could make the connection to some of them if you choose to. I was surprised by the number of recordings as many were not extremely long, but rather a sentence or two for the majority, yet the questions from Summers made them open up in ways that needed no more than a couple of words each.

A photo of one of the unheard tapes

I admit I have never done much research on Monroe in the first place, I would see the occasional story about her and read it, but mostly it was out of my way to fully research without purpose. Therefore, when I saw this documentary come out, I knew this could be the chance to finally learn more about an interesting case. The length of the movie is roughly an hour and a half, and the sheer amount of information that is weaved into every second is probably the most impressive aspect of the film, in my opinion. It does not feel like you are feeling bombarded, but you are given ample information. If I were to be asked if I would recommend this piece, I would not hesitate to share Monroe's story in the light of this documentary at all, as it is one of the best I have seen. The complexity of Monroe's life mixed with the complexity of humans made for an interesting, unique, and fun watch I would recommend to anyone.