‘Movies’ Category

  1. New Monroe pictures

    May 6, 2012 by Neuschwanstein

    If you thought the supply line of previously unseen Marilyn Monroe pictures had been exhausted, think again.

    Because hot on the heels of the busty photographs of the late starlet playfully posing for her make-up artist, come more shots taken by Allan ‘Whitey’ Snyder.

    Monroe asked her trusted friend to help her relax before filming and the natural joy she exuded in those moments can be seen again in these new snaps.

    They show the dreamy star laughing unrestrainedly and larking around on set before the cameras roll on the set of The River Of No Return in 1954.

    The 28-year-old actress is wearing a flowery shirt – and she appears not to have an inkling that international stardom is just round the corner.

    They follow pictures of Monroe featured earlier this week on MailOnline of Marilyn in a red top on the set of Niagara the previous year.

    Marilyn Monroe

    Marilyn Monroe

    Snyder died in 1994 and the pictures were released after his archive of photos emerged for sale at auction in Beverly Hills this weekend.

    There are dozens of pictures from the sets of other films including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Prince and the Showgirl, Niagara and Something’s Got to Give.


    The archive will be sold in Beverley Hills, California, during a two-day sale starting on March 31.

    The archive includes letters and other ephemera and is expected to fetch thousands of pounds when it all goes under the hammer at auction.

    Marilyn Monroe

    Marilyn Monroe

    Darren Julien, of Julien’s auctioneers, said: ‘Whitey Snyder died in the 1990s and these items have come from his estate, so they have never been seen before.

    ‘Whitey was Marilyn’s make-up artist for 16 years and had unlimited access to her.

    ‘They met when Monroe had her first screen test at 20th Century Fox in 1946.

    Marilyn Monroe

    Marilyn Monroe

    ‘Sometimes, especially in the early days of her movie career, she would get nervous on set and Whitey would photograph her and she would come to life.

    ‘It would take her mind off all her problems and this would happen during down time on film sets.

    ‘Some of them even show her in costume and they were never intended to be released to the public.

    ‘There are many other items in the archive as well as photographs and collectors and institutions will be keen to own them.’

    The sale also includes a rare calendar with a picture of a naked Monroe on it.

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  2. Into the wild – National geographic review – Part 7

    April 29, 2012 by Neuschwanstein

    Penn and his producers originally planned to shoot the film in the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah. That choice was partly dictated by budgetary concerns, but, as Penn says, “I’d been to Utah, I’d been in the mountains there, but the one place I’d not yet been as I tracked the story was Alaska. So I called up Jon. ‘Jon, is there any way you could shoot it in Utah?’ ” Penn imitates Krakauer’s response—a kind of prolonged intake of his breath. I can see Jon’s eyebrows rise, hear his unspoken curse: You gotta be kidding!

    “I got it,” Penn continues. “So we went to Alaska. I’d never seen anything like it. It was nature on steroids.”

    Shooting in Alaska meant more than budgetary headaches, however. It injected an urgency into the filming based on the seasons of the far north, as Penn tried to match the changing landscape with the arc of the true story. Recalls Penn, “Either we go now, or we go a year from now. We couldn’t go four months from now. The juices were flowing, which is not something to take lightly.”

    Krakauer was right about Alaska. The panoramas and vistas of the foothills north of Mount McKinley, many shot from the air (Penn: “The imagery just called out for it”) lend the film a gravity and magnificence that mirror the quixotic heroism of McCandless’s quest.

    Into the wild & Chris Mccandless

    Into the wild & Chris Mccandless

    Penn himself visited the derelict school bus in which McCandless had spent his last days—both during filming and again with Krakauer to make a documentary for the Sundance Channel’s Iconoclasts series. For the film, Penn’s technicians and designers were able to craft two replica buses and plant them near the Alaska village of Cantwell, where much of the footage was shot. The replicas were perfect, says Penn, “down to the rust spots.”


    Which is altogether fitting, for not long after Into the Wild was published, the bus became a shrine, to Krakauer’s disbelief. It remains so 11 years later, as hundreds of pilgrims—including some who scorn McCandless as a screwup—annually make their way by snow machine, ATV, mountain bike, or on foot to the bus. There, they camp out, take pictures, muse upon Chris and his fate, and record their thoughts in makeshift registers that now stretch to multiple volumes. “His monument and tomb are a living truth whose flame will light the ‘way of dreams’ in other’s lives,” writes one. “Alex [Supertramp], you have inspired me and changed my life forever. If only more were like you,” comments another.

    The magic bus

    The magic bus

    More than a year after McCandless’s death, Krakauer choppered in to the bus with McCandless’s parents. There Walt and Billie left an emergency first aid kit, with a note imploring visitors to “call your parents as soon as possible,” and mounted a brass plaque inside the door that memorializes their son and quotes McCandless’s own last message, scrawled on a page torn out of a Louis L’Amour book: I have had a good life and thank the Lord. Goodbye and may God bless all!

    Over the 15 years that have passed since McCandless died inside the bus, some of his belongings have been pilfered. But others rest in place—a furry toothbrush laid on a makeshift table, a pair of jeans draped beside the rusting woodstove—like the relics of a medieval saint.

    Last June, exhausted by the frenetic pace at which he wrote and filmed Into the Wild, tinkering with the last sound mixes and editorial nuances, Penn reflected on the decade during which he thought the project was dead for good. “It really stuck in my head,” he said. “I just thought about it for all those years. I found myself talking about it a lot—talking it through and thinking it through. And whenever anybody brought up Into the Wild in conversation, I always said, ‘That’s the one I wanted to do more than any other.’”

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