Metamorphose

Metamorphose.org
A Catalog of Transformations, Plus Reviews and Alerts

MSG Board
191		Indian Show Help (3)
139		Share a list of movi
3		Looking for Possessi
2240		List of some female
800		tail scenes in movie
1571		female body swap and
5		New F2f comic

Marilyn Monroe, star of Goodbye Charlie???

From: guest (The searcher) , 136 months, post #1

Thats right, MM could have been Charlie Sorel in the role Debbie Reynolds played.

"The studio people want me to do "Good-bye Charlie" for the movies, 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."

On turning down a role, eventually played by Debbie Reynolds, as quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 41

(to go along with that quote, here is a great fact filled review that got me thinking...)
http://www.emanuellevy.com/review/goodbye-charlie/

I wonder what that Monroe film would have been like and would it be as well known as Marilyn's other films, now out in blue ray with bonus tracks and deleted scenes, and seen by FAR more people than the film was in the version this reality got to see...

Would there have been a tv series (starring Debbie Reynolds perhaps), and a remake of the film in the past few years... (they remade the Poseiden Adventure a couple of times, why not GBC???

And if there was a remake of the film, which actress would you like to see in the role?

From: guest (RMP42661) , 136 months, post #2

There actually was a tv series in the late seventies with Suzanne Somers as Charlie -- think it lasted about 2 weeks

From: Tuggy24g , 136 months, post #3

it only has one episode and I have it. If anyone wants it let me know.

From: guest (The searcher) , 136 months, post #4

tuggy is right. they ran off the pilot after deciding against using it for the next season.

RMP, you might be thinking of Turnabout the series which ran for about 6-7 weeks

They might have put a little more effort into GBC as a tv series if it had been based on an academy award winning Marilyn Monroe film instead of the Debbie Reynolds box office failure.

From: guest (RMP42661) , 136 months, post #5

Turnabout stared Sharon Gless I think -- another short lived series -- Memory is a little foggy whne you get to my age, but I think the Goodbye Charlie pilot also had John Davidson in it

From: guest (RMP42661) , 136 months, post #6

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Suzanne-Somers-Goodbye-Charlie-Vintage-35mm-Slide-/360442104819

A vintage cell from the pilot is on ebay

From: guest (JK) , 136 months, post #7

"And if there was a remake of the film, which actress would you like to see in the role?"

In the original play, Charlene was not a "petite" woman.

If true to the play and if it had been done when they were younger I would have picked, Wendie Malick or Kristen Johnston

From: guest , 136 months, post #8

I would definetly be interested in viewing that episode

From: guest , 136 months, post #9

^tuggy

From: Tuggy24g , 136 months, post #10

Try this
http://efshare.com/?s=VNRE49

From: dis_guise , 136 months, post #11

I was thinking Johnston the last time the topic came up...

From: guest (jessayaknow) , 70 months, post #12

Does anyone still have this pilot that they could share with me? I used to have it and lost it when my hard drive fried

From: guest (Lassitude) , 70 months, post #13

The movie version of Goodbye Charlie (1964) was a big deal for me, when I first caught it on TV, in the early 1980s. It pressed some, but not all, of my particular buttons (almost before I even knew I had them!) back then; for instance, you never really get much of a good look at the male Charlie to any great extent, nor his interaction with others, since he's shot and falls overboard from the yacht at the very beginning of the movie... so all the contrast is from comments about what pre-transformation Charlie used to be like. Still, gender-swapping films were pretty rare then, even more so than today, so you took what you could get. My favorite from those times was (and still is) Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), mainly because it best achieves what it sets out to do, as a movie. But, really, apart from a few TV episodes (or bits from episodes), filmed MtF TG shown in the USA basically consisted of Turnabout (1940), Goodbye Charlie, Frankenstein Created Woman (1966), Myra Breckinridge (1970), The Christine Jorgensen Story (1970), Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and I Want What I Want (1972)... and half of those weren't normally shown on TV.

Goodbye Charlie is professionally-made, I aesthetically like the era in which it was made, and Debbie Reynolds gives it her all, though I find her to be a bit too hyper and shrill, at times. Tony Curtis is okay, but comes across as a bit stiff and false to me. Though the film is a comic farce, like many early-1960s comedies, it isn't really all that clever or laugh-out-loud funny... and Walter Matthau's character seems to have walked in from a different, cartoonishly-broader comedy. Amazingly, I liked Pat Boone's "playboy" character, who had some potential, but was underutilized (he kind of gets crowded out by Curtis and Matthau). But the film does have its moments, mostly when Charlie emerges from his/her temporary amnesia and realizes what's happened, and a bit later, when some feminine thinking and behavior (stereotypical or not) start seeping into his/her mind. The ending (which I won't spoil) is pretty dopey, however. Still, it's overall better than Switch (1991). The low-budget, softcore unofficial remake, Cleo/Leo (1989), actually does the story better than both of its more-prestigeous rivals, despite its own deep flaws.

Let's take a moment to look into a bit of film history and see what potentially might have been...

I did a little detective work (starting at Wikipedia, then verifying sources) on the production of Goodbye Charlie. If it had been filmed a few years earlier (in 1961), as originally intended, it might well have starred Marilyn Monroe as "Charlie" and James Garner in what became Tony Curtis' part, as both actors were offered the roles.

There's no information on who would've directed this version with Marilyn and Garner, though her last film at Fox, Let's Make Love (1960), as well as the Fox film in early production at the time of her death (though she had just been fired from it, due to personal problems), Something's Got to Give (intended for a 1962-1963 release), were both directed by George Cukor (The Women, Gaslight, Adam's Rib, My Fair Lady). As an interesting sidelight, the uncompleted Something's Got to Give was overhauled, retitled Move Over, Darling, and the male lead was played by James Garner (to have been played by Dean Martin in the Marilyn version). The stage play was apparently a somewhat different animal from the film version, though sharing the same overall plot, with a more androgynous Charlie, played on-stage by Lauren Bacall.

Goodbye Charlie was also offered, a bit later, to Billy Wilder to write/direct, but he turned it down, mainly because it was a 20th Century-Fox production (which had bought the rights to the play back in 1959, as a film vehicle for Monroe, before its Broadway debut)... a place where Wilder now refused to work. Wilder had previously made The Seven Year Itch (1955) at Fox, but by this time was writing/directing hits (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, One, Two, Three) for United Artists (which offered much creative freedom), and didn't like the fact that Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was forcing director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, to cut down his troubled epic, Cleopatra (1963), and feared he'd be working under similar restrictive conditions. The Seven Year Itch was an adaptation of a play by George Axelrod, later the author of Goodbye Charlie. One would assume that, had Wilder accepted the assignment to direct Goodbye Charlie, his likely co-writers on the film would be both Axelrod (who was then riding high from scipting Breakfast at Tiffany's) and Wilder's main collaborator during this period, screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, One, Two, Three, Irma la Douce, Kiss Me, Stupid, The Fortune Cookie).

By this time, however, Marilyn Monroe was already dead, so it's anybody's guess as to who would've been "Charlie" in this alternative universe... Wilder could've chosen to re-team Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon from two of his previous hits (The Apartment, Irma la Douce), or perhaps he, too, would've cast Debbie Reynolds, or maybe he'd use Kim Novak, ahead of (or in place of) his film, Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). Interestingly, Kiss, Me Stupid, which was a flop, was notorious in its day for pushing the envelope on what was considered tasteless and vulgar for a Hollywood film. One can speculate that Goodbye Charlie, as co-written and directed by Wilder, would certainly be sharper, wittier and more sophisticated in its humor than what we ended up getting from director Vincent Minnelli and screenwriter Harry Kurnitz (though Kurnitz did previously collaborate with Wilder on the courtroom classic, Witness for the Prosecution), and possibly more daring.

Though the various constellations ultimately wouldn't align, for a number of reasons, outlined above, just imagine what a Billy Wilder production of Goodbye Charlie, starring Marilyn and Garner, would've been like... especially just a couple of years after Some Like It Hot! I'd love to see that version!

From: guest (KJN) , 70 months, post #14

Too bad the movie could not have stuck with how the play ended.

Judy Carne played Charlie in one stage run. Not the non-petite “girl Charlie” of the original play, but love to think of a man becoming her.

From: guest (raaj) , 70 months, post #15

Not much to add, though I did see the play in Wichita, Ks in 79 at the local dinner theater.

From: guest (Deetoo) , 70 months, post #16

The scene in which Charlie realizes that she is actually in a woman’s body and emerges from the shower to peer at her bustline — “Imagine, I don’t have to go see Bridgett Bardot movies anymore. I just have to stay home and ... pull down the shades.” Is still the best such scene in any film I’ve run into.

From: guest , 70 months, post #17

Reynolds was fine in the role, and she looked great. The problem was with the script.

From: guest (Dagwood 2018) , 70 months, post #18

As far as I know, Goodbye Charlie was released in VCR, but the release must have been so minuscule that I didn't hear that it existed until it was long out of print. With Hollywood so interested in trans material, one would suppose that there would be a stronger interest in movies like Goodbye Charlie. That hasn't happened, and the few tg mainstream movies have been plotted with lame and obvious ideas, like the SEX TRIP. Too bad.

It would have taken Marilyn Monroe herself appearing to have made the movie industry remember and value Goodbye Charlie. Everything she did, even her bit parts in her early days, is prized my her fans. Reynolds didn't have that iconic clout that surrounded Monroe. Even so, I would have loved to see Kim Novak in the role. She probably wouldn't have fared better in recognition than Debbie Reynolds, but for me she has the same charisma that Monroe has. I want a copy of everything that Kim Novak did. Isn't is strange that Novak's version of MOLL FLANDERS was sneaked by in a very minor VCR release, and it has never come out in DVD? All other versions are dull compared to it. Yes, it was played for an adventure comedy, but Novak was at least fun, and her beauty surpassed other actresses in the role.

From: guest (the searcher) , 69 months, post #19

this may be a better quality DVD than the current MOD version.

https://www.bonanza.com/listings/Goodbye-Charlie-1964-Rare-Movie-Dvd-Full-Colour-Case-Artwork/462746775?goog_pla=1&gpid=319078017749&keyword=&goog_pla=1&pos=1o3&ad_type=pla&gclid=Cj0KCQjwnNvaBRCmARIsAOfZq-1Md1E_7JRQTKpC59VCl5S-xr9AJ9vJOSztQkOXc7Atomixj0CCXx4aAtxhEALw_wcB

Add a New Message to This Thread

Posting Guidelines

Primary

ANY POST(s) MAY BE REMOVED at the discretion of moderators for violation of this website's guidelines/rules or any law applicable to this website.
All discussions must be transformation related OR of interest to the transformation community.
Please try to keep posts appropriate for younger teenage eyes to view (Things you'd be comfortable sharing with a 13 year-old).
Do not 'attack' other posters. You may attack an individual's comments but not the individual.
Be polite, courteous, and respectful. Please keep the conversations civil.
While use of an online alias is ok. Do NOT pretend to be another (or registered) user.

Intellectual Property

Do not post direct links to complete copyrighted works. Links provided by (or approved by) the copyright holder may be exempt.
Links to content hosted on websites that have a clear, and easy to find, process for dealing with infringement(s); and a known reputation for following through with said process, may be allowed.
Please read this site's views on copyrighted content on the FAQ page.
Do not plagiarize. Credit your sources.

Helpful

For posts and material that are not safe for viewing in a workplace or with younger eyes, please mark the thread or post as either, "MATURE CONTENT", "ADULT CONTENT", or "NSFW".
Please post clear SPOILER warnings if you intend to give away details that would spoil the story for those who have not yet seen the material, preferably by using the spoiler tags (don't forget to close the spoiler text with the end tag), like so: <spoiler>Text to be "hidden" </spoiler> -- For additional help, please see: HOW TO: Use Spoiler tags message thread.
When starting a New Message Thread, please include details about your topic of discussion or request in the Subject field to help draw in readers who are interested and avoid wasting the time of those who are not. Also helpful in searching for the topic/thread later.
If you post a link, please provide some detail as to what it is. Identify the material if possible.
Please post in English, or include an English translation, when possible.
If seeking material / information, include the results of your own efforts so that others can offer better help (and avoid wasting time and effort on redundant searches).
When starting a new thread to request material or information, please begin the subject with "REQ:" or "REQUEST".

Etiquette

Do not post messages in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
Do not attack a user for improper spelling and/or grammar. Not all of our community uses English as their native language.
Please do not stray (far) from the topic of the original post.
If a poster provides their contact information for any reason, do NOT clutter the Message Board by asking them to contact you. They gave out their contact information for a reason.
No begging. Ask nicely.
Do not feed the trolls and spammers. Please ignore them.
Do not keep asking for clips after others have already posted information on where to obtain the material.
Please have some patience. Not everyone visits the board daily. Your post may not be seen (by someone with the correct information or idea) for several days or weeks.
No bumping. Bumping will be treated as intentional spamming.

Advertising

Do not post advertisements.
One exception is for products or services that relate to entries on this site. And even then, only post an announcement once. You should add links or content to the appropriate database entries. Do not repeat this information to the message board. Doing so will be considered spamming.

Miscellaneous

This list is neither all-inclusive or all-exclusive in nature, and is meant to guide everyone on appropriate content for and conduct on this Message Board.
The purpose of this Message Board is to share information about transformation-related content, news, ideas, etc. Also acceptable, are conversations that are of interest to the transformation community.
Moderation of posts for reasons not listed above are at the discretion of the Trusted Users who moderate this website, for the purpose of keeping things within the "spirit" of the owner's wishes and the website's purpose.
If you disagree with a moderation decision, please make an argument as to why it should be reinstated. Use the posting guidelines to justify your point. Do not attack the moderator.

[Edit this Page]