Something's Got to Give is an unfinished American feature film shot in 1962, directed by George Cukor for 20th Century Fox and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), a screwball comedy starring Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, it was Monroe's last work.
Principal photography began on April 23, 1962, without Monroe present on set, who had said she suffered from bouts of illness. Monroe did arrive on set to film several scenes on select days in May 1962 before she left to sing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to U.S. President John F. Kennedy at his birthday celebration in Madison Square Garden. She returned to Hollywood to film her naked swimming sequence, where she donned a flesh-colored bikini to appear nude. Monroe suggested being photographed in the nude, in which several photographers were invited to take pictures of her. Monroe's last full day of filming was on Friday, June 1, her 36th birthday. Afterwards, Monroe was unavailable on Monday, June 4, due to severe illness.
Frustrated by the frequent delays, and with production weeks behind schedule, 20th Century Fox fired Monroe on June 8, and sued her and her production company for US$750,000. She was replaced by Lee Remick; however, Dean Martin, Monroe's co-star, refused to return without Monroe, and the film was indefinitely suspended. Monroe's representatives entered negotiations with Fox to withdraw the lawsuit and have production resume with Monroe, but this was not possible after Monroe was found dead at her Brentwood residence on August 5, 1962. Most completed footage remained unseen for several decades.
A year later, 20th Century Fox overhauled the entire production, which was retitled Move Over, Darling (1963) and starred Doris Day, James Garner, and Polly Bergen.
Plot Ellen Arden, a photographer and mother of two small children, has been declared legally dead, having been lost at sea in the Pacific. Her husband Nick has remarried; he and his new wife, Bianca, are on their honeymoon when Ellen, rescued from an island where she has been stranded for five years, returns home. The family dog remembers her, but the children do not. However, they take a liking to her, and invite her to stay. Ellen assumes a foreign accent and pretends to be a woman named Ingrid Tic.
Nick, flustered by the revelation that he is now married to two women, makes great effort to keep the truth from his new wife all the while trying to quash her amorous advances. Upon learning that Ellen was marooned on the island with a man, Stephen Burkett, whom she knew as "Adam" to her "Eve"—he becomes jealous and suspicious of her fidelity. To calm his fears, Ellen enlists a meek shoe salesman to impersonate her island companion.
Cast
Marilyn Monroe as Ellen Wagstaff Arden Dean Martin as Nicholas Arden Cyd Charisse as Bianca Russell Arden Tom Tryon as Stephen Burkett Wally Cox as shoe salesman Phil Silvers as insurance salesman Steve Allen as psychiatrist John McGiver as judge Robert Christopher Morley as Timmy Arden Alexandria Heilweil as Lita Arden
Pre-production Monroe health problems By the middle of 1962, Marilyn Monroe had not appeared in a film project since The Misfits, released in February 1961, and instead focused on her health. She had surgery for her endometriosis and gallbladder problems, and underwent four weeks of hospital treatment for depression. She first admitted herself to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, but was erroneously placed on a ward meant for people with psychosis, where she was locked in a padded cell and not allowed to move to a more suitable ward or leave the hospital. After three days, Monroe was moved into the Columbia University Medical Center with the help of her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, with whom she rekindled a friendship.
Goodbye Charlie By January 1961, Monroe had one film left on her four-picture contract with Twentieth Century-Fox. Monroe was offered the title role in Goodbye Charlie (1964) based on the 1959 play by George Axelrod. In the play, the male character Charlie Sorrel is shot by a jealous husband, falls out of the ship's porthole, becomes lost at sea, and is reincarnated as a blonde woman. Monroe was unimpressed with the offer, stating: "The studio people want me to do Goodbye Charlie. But I'm not going to do it. I don't like the idea of playing a man in a woman's body, you know? It just doesn't seem feminine."
That same month, James Garner was offered the leading role opposite of Monroe. Monroe's choice of director was George Cukor, who had previously directed her in Let's Make Love (1960). However, Cukor was unavailable as he had intended to direct Lady L (1965) at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). According to The New York Times, the production was plagued by internal problems including cost overruns, with nearly $2.7 million spent, and Cukor's dissatisfaction with Robert Anderson's script. Tony Curtis and Gina Lollobrigida were set to star, while the script was rewritten by S. N. Behrman and later Noel Langley. However, in April 1961, Cukor delivered an interoffice memo to MGM production head Sol C. Siegel, stating he had vehemently disliked the latest draft due to "its lack of style and wit". Rather than proceed with filming Lady L the next week, Cukor asked to be relieved from the project.
Meanwhile, Monroe had been notified to arrive on set for Goodbye Charlie on April 14, 1961. However, Monroe informed Twentieth Century-Fox that she would not appear in the film. When Cukor was unavailable as well, the studio filed a breach of contract lawsuit, with MGM and Twentieth Century-Fox entangled in a legal battle over Cukor's availability. Fox filed an injunction for Cukor to have him complete their film first, while MGM argued their contract with Cukor gave them the right of pre-emption. Cukor's attorneys settled with MGM for an undisclosed settlement. Evidently, Lady L was cancelled and was revamped into a 1965 film directed by Peter Ustinov. To settle his lawsuit with Fox, Cukor accepted the assignment to direct The Chapman Report (1962). However, Spyros Skouras, then-president of Twentieth Century-Fox, refused to move The Chapman Report into production. Instead, the film was moved to Warner Bros. with Richard and Darryl F. Zanuck as the producers. A share of the box office profits were transferred to Twentieth Century-Fox.
By May 1961, Goodbye Charlie had been placed indefinitely on hold after nearly a year in development and two months after filming was meant to commence. Skouras consulted with Monroe's attorneys and decided not to sue the actress. He released her from her obligation to film Goodbye, Charlie and permitted her to appear in a NBC teleplay titled Rain, with the stipulation she finish by October 30. Her attorneys upheld that Monroe owed Fox one more film, with a new production start date set on November 15.; After a five-month pause, Fox studio executives began drafting letters to Monroe's independent company, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP) reminding her of her contractual obligation and suggesting she star in a project titled Something's Got to Give. On September 26, MMP finally responded to Fox's proposal, and within three weeks, on October 16, Monroe accepted the project and a new contract was signed. A start date set on November 15, 1961 was approved.
Something's Got to Give pre-production Something's Got to Give was intended as a remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), directed by Leo McCarey and starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, which itself was adapted from the 1864 poem "Enoch Arden" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. David Brown, who had previously worked as a story editor and executive vice president for Fox, was set to produce. Frank Tashlin was hired to direct a screenplay written by Edmund Hartmann. Tashlin made his own script revisions although it was not written with Monroe in mind (instead, it was intended for Jayne Mansfield). In October 1961, Twentieth Century-Fox announced that Monroe would instead be directed by George Cukor in Something's Got to Give. At Cukor's suggestion, Arnold Schulman was hired to rewrite the script for Monroe. The studio promised to send Monroe a copy of the script as soon it was approved, but reminded Monroe's attorney Mickey Rudin that she did not have script approval. Later on, Schulman quit the film in protest when he learned of the studio's mistreatment of Monroe.
In November 1961, Variety reported that filming for Something's Got to Give had been pushed back to January 5, 1962. The reasons were that Cukor was still filming The Chapman Report and was expected to finish on December 18, 1961. By this point, several screenwriters had worked on the script, but their drafts were turned down at Monroe's insistence.; In January 1962, Nunnally Johnson, the sixth employed screenwriter, was contacted to write the final shooting script. Johnson had previously written for Monroe with How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Johnson recalled, "The job came out of the blue. I happened to be in New York in January, and they [Fox] were getting desperate. They asked me to try my hand on a rush job." Johnson delivered his draft of the script on March 29, 1962 with a new production date set for April 16. The production budget was approved at $3.25 million with a 47-day filming schedule.
However, Cukor disliked Johnson's script as it was too different from My Favorite Wife. On the other hand, Monroe had liked the updated, modernized script as it was written exclusively for her. Regardless, Cukor hired Walter Bernstein to make extensive rewrites of Johnson's script. Before he rewrote the script, Bernstein rewatched My Favorite Wife and wondered why Johnson had worked so hard to change a "perfect film." Cukor agreed and was in favor of restoring as much as the old movie [script] as possible, on the theory that no one had yet managed to improve on it, and in any case, there was no time to try." During filming, as Bernstein rewrote the script, Monroe was given different-colored pages of the script revisions during the evening to memorize for the next day.;
Meanwhile, Cukor's longtime collaborators, production designer Gene Allen and photographer George Hoyningen-Huene, designed an exact replica of the exterior of Cukor's house and swimming pool area, which was built on the Twentieth Century-Fox backlot.;
Casting As the co-star opposite to Marilyn Monroe, James Garner had been the original choice but he turned down the role. At the time, Garner had agreed to appear in The Great Escape (1963), which was to begin filming in Munich in June 1962. The Mirisch Company had feared Monroe's reputation for tardiness would prolong production and would make Garner unavailable for The Great Escape. In December 1961, Rock Hudson had been offered the part but he too was unavailable. Steve Forrest was approached, but Monroe did not agree on his casting. Stuart Whitman was also mentioned and Robert Goulet was unavailable as he was performing in the Broadway musical Camelot. Jack Lemmon and John Gavin were floated as potential candidates, but Monroe would not agree. By late March 1962, Dean Martin was cast opposite in the role. Martin stipulated he had final approval of his leading lady, and should Monroe be replaced, he would either approve the replacement or else not complete the film.
In mid-January 1962, Gardner McKay, the lead actor of the TV series Adventures in Paradise, was approached for the role of Stephen Burkett, having been mentioned by Monroe. The actor received a phone call from Cukor, offering him the role, but McKay turned it down. Monroe personally phoned McKay, suggesting he change his mind. Decades later, McKay told Vanity Fair: "She was so delightful on the phone, so winning, so seductive in a way," but he turned her down. He added: "I didn't belong in acting."