VARIOUS: A 1947 porn film purported to feature Marilyn Monroe goes up for sale in Argentina despite doubts over its authenticity

Record ID: 726409

  • Title: VARIOUS: A 1947 porn film purported to feature Marilyn Monroe goes up for sale in Argentina despite doubts over its authenticity
  • Date: 2nd August 2011
  • Summary: BARSA PROJECTING FILM
  • Embargoed: 17th August 2011 13:00
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  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVABQI7PHTAL7KDMKDI0SKIP4YUR
  • Story Text: An Argentine film festival is planning to auction on August 7th a pornographic film they say shows a young Marilyn Monroe engaging in explicit sex acts.
    But doubts have been raised over whether the blonde girl who appears in the movie is actually Monroe.
    The short is an 8mm copy of the same sex video that surfaced at Spain's First Record and Film Collectors Festival in 1997, showing a bare-breasted blonde lying nude on a couch and engaging in games with what appears to be a sex device. A young man then enters the room and a long scene of clumsy sexual intercourse ensues.
    Mikel Barsa, promoter of the film, which he claims to be from 1946 or 1947, defended its authenticity and said it is an original copy that had been purchased in Paris back when pornographic films were still illegal in many countries.
    "This is Marilyn. Obviously it is Marilyn before everyone in the world knew who she was and Hollywood turned her into probably the biggest film star of all time. It is a Marilyn that is under age, it is certain that she wasn't even 21 years old. So the film was a dangerous possession to have for two reasons, and so you can understand that the person who had it - who was an U.S. armed forces official who sold it in Paris when he was leaving - didn't want to take it with him," Barsa said.
    A key part of Barsa's theory is that the woman in the film is Monroe before she had broken into Hollywood, but Marilyn Monroe expert and memorabilia collector Scott Fortner, who does not believe the porn actress to be Monroe, claims this is not so -- Baker/Monroe had already started appearing in magazines as an up-and-coming young model as early as April 1946.
    "Number one, she had already been discovered, so to say that this was Marilyn before she was discovered is, in my opinion, inaccurate, because she already had started modeling, and she had already signed a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1946," says Scott Fortner.
    "Because of her modeling career, she's widely photographed, so you can see, clearly from 1945 all the way up through 1949, and of course beyond, exactly what Marilyn looked like, as Norma Jean, and then also as Marilyn Monroe, after she changed her name. And because of all these photographs that were taken, because she was such a sought after model, we have lots of images to use to compare Norma Jean with the woman in the film, and in doing so, there are some very distinct differences," says Fortner.
    Chief among the differences in the women, according to Fortner, are their hairlines.
    "Norma Jean / Marilyn Monroe had a widows peak her entire life, when she was a young girl, when she was a teenager, when she was a young woman, and up until the time that she died, she had very distinctive widow's peak, and hairline on her forehead, and the woman in the film has no widow's peak," says Fortner.
    The woman depicted in the film bears a resemblance to Monroe, however, there is a noticeable difference in size between the two -- Barsa says this is because Monroe was asked to lose weight by Hollywood studios before breaking into show business, but Fortner maintains that Monroe was a very petite young woman throughout the 1940s and most of the 1950s, and that only in the late 1950s did she gain weight.
    "The woman in the film has broader shoulders, wider hips, and she's a little heavier, and a little overweight. Marilyn is very slim and trim at this time, she was about 5'5 and a half, and she weighed about 115 to 120 pounds, she was a very small, petite woman, contrary to what a lot of people believe," says Fortner.
    What is the motivation for selling the film now? With Monroe memorabilia selling at record-breaking prices on the auction block -- the famous dress she wore during one scene in "The Seven Year Itch" sold in June for $4.6 million dollars (USD) -- Fortner believes money may be the main motivator behind Barsa's decision to sell the porn film.
    "I think there are probably a number of reasons why this film is coming up for auction right now, this has been a pretty important year for memorabilia related to Marilyn, her clothing has sold for record amounts, her film costumes have sold for record amounts, most recently, hammer price of 5.6 million dollars for one of her costumes from 1955, so there's clearly some money that's still tied to Marilyn today, and I would assume that's probably the motivator for selling this film," says Scott Fortner.
    At a news conference in Buenos Aires, Barsa showed reporters photos he says were captured from the porn film and compared them to photos taken from one of the first Hollywood films Marilyn Monroe starred in, "Love Happy."
    Barsa said the American Film Institute has authenticated the film and Monroe later underwent plastic surgery that altered her appearance. But the AFI - in an email to Reuters - said nobody with authority at the AFI had sent any letter confirming the film's authenticity.
    "[The film] has been studied in a laboratory and the photogram is from the 1940s, without any doubt. As for the discussion as to whether it is Marilyn or not - it is a debate that will never end. Today the issue is a lot clearer. In the 1990s we contacted the American Film Institute to avoid any problems but we still had complaints from Marilyn's estate and I was reported by her estate holders and some other organizations. But afterwards they realized that it was better to drop the complaints because the studies were clear," Barsa said.
    Monroe's estate has also previously said they believe the film is a hoax and an attempt to degrade the 1950s sex symbol posthumously.
    The film goes under the hammer on August 7 at the Buenos Aires International Cinematographic Collectors Fair.
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