Marilyn Monroe: Something's got to give (1962)

«Something's Got to Give is one of the most notorious unfinished films in Hollywood history.It was produced in 1962 by a then-floundering 20th Century Fox. The film paired the studio's most bankable star of the 1950s — Marilyn Monroe — with Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. With a troubled star and belligerent director, George Cukor, causing delays on a daily basis the film quickly descended into a costly debacle.

On the first day of production, April 23, 1962, Monroe telephoned Weinstein to tell him that she had a severe sinus infection, and would not be on the set that morning. Apparently, she had caught the infection after a trip to New York City during which she had visited her acting coach, Lee Strasberg of The Actors Studio, to go over her role. The studio sent staff doctor Lee Siegel to examine the star at her home. His diagnosis would have postponed the movie for a month, but George Cukor refused to wait.

Instead, Cukor reorganized his shooting schedule to film scenes around his leading lady. At 7:30am, Cyd Charisse was telephoned at her residence with a request that she come to the Fox lot as soon as possible. Later that morning, the very first scene captured on film involved Martin's character and Charisse, in an encounter with children building a tree house.

Over the next month production continued mostly without Monroe, who showed up only occasionally. The production began to fall behind schedule. As Kennedy's birthday approached, no one on the production thought Monroe would keep her commitment to the White House and miss almost a week of shooting, but she did. Studio documents released after Monroe's death confirmed that her appearance at the political fundraising event was approved by Fox executives.

On Monday morning (after her birthday that weekend),producer Henry Weinstein got the call he dreaded. Monroe was on the other line telling him she wouldn't be there again that day.

They fired Marilyn, and started planning on replacing her with actress Lee Remick, but when Dean Martin heard about it,he got very upset and stated "No Marilyn, no picture." and the project on replacing her seemingly ended there, so she was re-hired, and got a raise but had to agree to make two more films for Fox. She accepted the offer.

But plans to resume filming in October were abandoned when Monroe died on August 5th.

The death of Marilyn Monroe resulted in the film's cancellation.

Nine hours of footage from the film sat in the vaults at 20th Century Fox until 1999, when it was digitally restored by Prometheus Entertainment and reconstructed into a semi-coherent, 32-minute segment for the two-hour documentary, Marilyn: The Final Days. It first aired on American Movie Classics on June 1, 2001, which would have been Monroe's 75th birthday.»

Source: YouTube - Marilyn Monroe in Something's Got To Give