Marilyn Monroe: Volume 1

Seven films featuring screen legend Marilyn Monroe.

In 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' (1953), Lorelei Lee (Monroe) and her showgirl partner Dorothy (Jane Russell) are a pair of gold diggers who go to Paris in search of rich husbands, and set their sights on the wealthy male passengers on their transatlantic liner crossing.

In the meantime they must fend off unsuitable beaux - including the US Olympic team.

The film is best known for its musical numbers, including 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend'.

In 'Bus Stop' (1956), Cherie (Monroe), a tawdry saloon singer, finds herself hotly pursued by naive cowhand Beau (Don Murray).

When she refuses to marry him, he kidnaps her. Stuck on the bus back to his home, she is surprised to find herself falling for him.

This was Monroe's first film role after returning to Hollywood from the Actor's Studio in New York.

In 'Don't Bother to Knock' (1952), an unstable young woman (Monroe) attempts to commit suicide whilst working as a babysitter in a hotel.

She is saved by a handsome airline pilot (Richard Widmark) who has just split up from the hotel's resident singer (Anne Bancroft in her film debut).

From this unlikely beginning, a relationship develops which helps them both come to terms with their personal problems.

In 'Niagara' (1953), Monroe and Joseph Cotten co-star as an ill-suited couple staying in the cottage next to happy newlyweds Casey Adams and Jean Peters near Niagara Falls.

While sightseeing, the newlyweds see Monroe kissing her young lover (Richard Allen) and hear them plot to kill her husband, making it look like suicide.

When the latter goes missing, Monroe is asked to identify a body and discovers it's her lover.

Her husband's vengeance threatens them all... In 'River of No Return' (1954), a widower (Robert Mitchum), his son and a nightclub singer (Monroe) who has been abandoned by her husband travel downstream for various reasons.

En route they begin to form their own surrogate family, which acts as a replacement for the broken homes they have left behind. 'We're Not Married' (1952) is a romantic comedy telling the story of five couples who are informed by their bumbling Justice of the Peace Melvin Bush (Victor Moore) that their marriage licences are invalid owing to a mistake on his part.

As well as Monroe, the all-star cast also includes Louis Calhern, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ginger Rogers, Paul Douglas, Eve Arden and Eddie Bracken.

Finally, 'Love Nest' (1951) stars William Lundigan as Jim, an aspiring writer who moves with his wife Connie (June Haver) into the basement of an apartment building the couple has recently acquired.

Jim's dreams of being a writer - and of being financially stable - are continually thwarted by the many and varied needs of his tenants and maintenance of the building.

Tenants in the apartments, on whose various entanglements the episodic plotline focuses, include ex-WAC bombshell Roberta (Marilyn Monroe), charming con artist Charley (Frank Fay) and vacuous heiress Eadie (Leatrice Joy).