"Marilyn's heart belongs to Daddy!"

Let's Make Love is Marilyn Monroe's most provocative movie title. It is not her most provocative film. Although she is easily the bigger star, it is Yves Montand who unfortunately gets far more screen time.

Yves plays a rich, French playboy living in New York. He gets wind of an off Broadway show that is going to make fun of him and other celebrities. Elvis Presley is one of the other celebrities and this movie features one of the first ever Elvis impersonators. Montand secretly visits the show's auditions to find out how badly they intend to make him look. He gets distracted, however, by Marilyn Monroe singing 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy.' Not only does he not attempt to close the show, he ends up in it. Mistaken for an impersonator, the shows director casts him as himself. To be near Monroe, and prove to his assistant, Tony Randall, that he can get a girl without using his wealth, he stays with the show.

This movie is great on ideas. That set up alone is comically brilliant. Later in the movie, Yves wants to impress Monroe with his talent. In cameos, he has Gene Kelly teaching him to dance, Bing Crosby teaching him to sing, and Milton Berle trying to get him to be funny.

The problem with this film, is that there is too much of Montand and not enough of Monroe. Monroe doing a scene with Gene Kelly, Bing Crosby and Milton Berle would have been classic. Instead we have lots and lots of scenes of the horrifically dull Montand. Let me put it this way. His big scene which is supposed to genuinely funny is done in mime! This guy couldn't be any duller if he tried.

This is Monroe's second to last completed film. In this point in her career she is almost a caricature of herself. She has the look down to perfection. Her sexy wink and smile work well at the end of 'My Heart Belongs to Daddy'. However, she was over weight at this point. The movie producers realized this and include an insulting scene to justify Montand's attraction to her. The beginning of the movie has a sequence that explains Montand's family tree. It explains how they got their money and how they always had a passion for balloons. It then shows pictures of women with big ballooning skirts. When Monroe first meets Montand she says 'Your French!' then turns and reaches for something, revealing her large ass in tights. Montand leers at her and responds 'Very much so.'

This movie desperately needs to be remade. It is a genuinely great idea for a comedy. It is just too bad that Monroe couldn't have been teamed with a more charismatic leading man. Or better yet, Monroe should have played the Montand part. That would have been both original and unique. Of course this was 1960, and women in film rarely played the sexual aggressor. Too bad though.

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