Nothing on television ever rivalled ABC's Tuesday Night at the Movies, a anthology of made-for-TV films which pushed the envelope on what could be shown on TV. Movies like "Duel," "Tribes," "Crowhaven Farm," "Satan's School for Girls," and "The Sex Symbol" were cutting edge stories that still hold up by today's standards. I guess that's why they call them classics. "The Sex Symbol" was a thinly veiled telling of the Marilyn Monroe story (in this case "The Kelly Williams Story"). Connie Stevens gave an acclaimed performance which seemed to have inspired Halle Berry in another excellent biopic "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge" with some of the scenes being frightfully similar. I wish "The Sex Symbol" were available somewhere (especially the European version. Connie allowed some rare nude scenes to be shot for inclusion in prints that would among other places, be shown to military troops overseas) but for now I must depend only on my memory of the original broadcast, and Halle Berry in "IDD."
7 Reviews
Connie Stevens as Marilyn Monroe
wes-connors30 May 2009
Cute and promiscuous "Kelly Williams" (Connie Stevens as Marilyn Monroe) sleeps her way to stardom. Along the way, she is hounded by bitchy press (Shelley Winters as "Agatha Murphy"). Not satisfied with her status as "The Sex Symbol", Ms. Stevens wants to be an Actress. Stevens has unhappy love affairs and marriages with "Grant O'Neal" (Don Murray as John F. Kennedy), "Calvin Bernard" (James Olson as Arthur Miller), "Buck Wischnewski" (William Smith as Joe DiMaggio), and others. She feeds her pain with barbiturates and alcohol. You know the rest.
This movie begins with an outrageous lie: "The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional." Stevens is a beautiful woman, but quite unlike Monroe. An explicit nude scene occurs near the end - Stevens spills a drink, and removes her slip; it could not have been shown on US television in 1974. Whatever its intentions, "The Sex Symbol" is insulting and unflattering. And, some of those involved knew, and worked with, Monroe.
*** The Sex Symbol (9/17/74) David Lowell Rich ~ Connie Stevens, Shelley Winters, Don Murray
This movie begins with an outrageous lie: "The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional." Stevens is a beautiful woman, but quite unlike Monroe. An explicit nude scene occurs near the end - Stevens spills a drink, and removes her slip; it could not have been shown on US television in 1974. Whatever its intentions, "The Sex Symbol" is insulting and unflattering. And, some of those involved knew, and worked with, Monroe.
*** The Sex Symbol (9/17/74) David Lowell Rich ~ Connie Stevens, Shelley Winters, Don Murray
"I'm going to be a star...and I'm going to do it standing up!"
moonspinner5515 July 2016
TV-movie casts Connie Stevens as a boozing, unreliable, faded Hollywood star in the 1950s, fired from her last picture, who recounts her life and love affairs to a psychiatrist over the telephone. Tacky roman à clef, adapted by Alvah Bessie from his novel "The Symbol", was clearly inspired by the life of Marilyn Monroe, but takes no care to present Monroe's triumphs and tragedies with any class. Also absent is an accurate recreation of Hollywood from this era, with gossip columnist Shelley Winters (doing a Hedda Hopper) actually reporting the show business news on her own color television show! Stevens, with her hair frosted blonde and her eyelids frosted blue, isn't of the period, either--she's more Las Vegas than '50s Hollywood--although she does do well in her dramatic scenes with William Smith, surprisingly low-keyed as a former football star. 74-minute movie-of-the-week was expanded to an astounding 107 minutes for European release. Both versions are interminable, with blurry-romantic music, gloppy color photography, wooden staging and abrasive sound.
Any Resemblance Between
Dweezilaz17 April 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Connie Stevens and Marilyn Monroe are purely coincidental.
Truly awful even for a 70s TV movie.
Thinly disguised bio of Marilyn Monroe.
I first saw this when it aired and recently discovered the uncut European version on YouTube. I remember all the hype and the feature in TV Guide.
Sorry, Hollywood. Just like the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, the gratuitous nudity added to get butts in seats doesn't improve your product. No one missed anything.
Set in 1957, this movie is loaded with usual Hollywood period laziness, as if the producers think the audience is too stupid to notice all the anachronisms in hair, make-up, clothing, cars, and fashion that are straight out of 1974.
As bad as Harlow. As thin and poorly written. Either version, Baker's or Lynley's.
Check out the mirror scene toward the end. The same thing was done in Harlow as well. Is it the obligatory scene in every Hollywood star on the way down script?.
Tacky, cheap, lurid clap-trap.
Connie Stevens is all in and over the top but is given no direction to dial it back and by the middle of the movie sounds like a yapping lapdog rather than a troubled soul crying out for help. Still, I can't hate on Connie Stevens. This was the director's call and the director muffed it.
Her Kelly Williams comes off as a tedious shrew. Full of fire and music and perky energy, but a shrew nonetheless.
Shelley Winters is so bad she stumbles over her lines. Perhaps that was a stab at some Hedda Hopper or Louella Parsons type character development. Whatever it was, it looks like a lack of budget for retakes and flubs that were kept in for no good reason.
It is a terrible movie. But it does have one major thing going for it. As with Connie Stevens, every member in the cast is fully engaged, and sincere, and says their lines with the most earnest professionalism. Well, minus Shelly Winters who seems to have just wandered on to the set for the paycheck.
It's funny, Winters was made for that role and could really have chewed the scenery with it. The opportunity was right there.
For the rest, they actually believe the garbage that was written for them to say and treat it as if it was the finest dialog ever written.
That makes it fun, as the story, not Monroe's life, but the screenplay is composed of such cliches the performer's sincerity makes it enjoyable enough.
The gratuitous nude scene toward the end? An excuse to show some mams. No one takes off their clothes, puts on earrings and high heels and climbs into bed yaknowwhatI'msayin?
Maybe it was the producer's attempt at softening the brittle main character a bit.
More likely a play to get publicity by flashing some flesh.
Garbage. Not sure it's even fun garbage, but it's a 70s curio that's rarely seen and I do wish there had been a better print than the one I saw.
Connie Stevens is nice to look at. Respectable work by the cast except for the previously mentioned Winters.
Cynical telling of the Monroe Legend. A drive in movie that somehow made it to the small screen.
Definitely, this is a terrible movie. But here I am writing a review about it, so it can't have been such a waste of time.
Truly awful even for a 70s TV movie.
Thinly disguised bio of Marilyn Monroe.
I first saw this when it aired and recently discovered the uncut European version on YouTube. I remember all the hype and the feature in TV Guide.
Sorry, Hollywood. Just like the remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, the gratuitous nudity added to get butts in seats doesn't improve your product. No one missed anything.
Set in 1957, this movie is loaded with usual Hollywood period laziness, as if the producers think the audience is too stupid to notice all the anachronisms in hair, make-up, clothing, cars, and fashion that are straight out of 1974.
As bad as Harlow. As thin and poorly written. Either version, Baker's or Lynley's.
Check out the mirror scene toward the end. The same thing was done in Harlow as well. Is it the obligatory scene in every Hollywood star on the way down script?.
Tacky, cheap, lurid clap-trap.
Connie Stevens is all in and over the top but is given no direction to dial it back and by the middle of the movie sounds like a yapping lapdog rather than a troubled soul crying out for help. Still, I can't hate on Connie Stevens. This was the director's call and the director muffed it.
Her Kelly Williams comes off as a tedious shrew. Full of fire and music and perky energy, but a shrew nonetheless.
Shelley Winters is so bad she stumbles over her lines. Perhaps that was a stab at some Hedda Hopper or Louella Parsons type character development. Whatever it was, it looks like a lack of budget for retakes and flubs that were kept in for no good reason.
It is a terrible movie. But it does have one major thing going for it. As with Connie Stevens, every member in the cast is fully engaged, and sincere, and says their lines with the most earnest professionalism. Well, minus Shelly Winters who seems to have just wandered on to the set for the paycheck.
It's funny, Winters was made for that role and could really have chewed the scenery with it. The opportunity was right there.
For the rest, they actually believe the garbage that was written for them to say and treat it as if it was the finest dialog ever written.
That makes it fun, as the story, not Monroe's life, but the screenplay is composed of such cliches the performer's sincerity makes it enjoyable enough.
The gratuitous nude scene toward the end? An excuse to show some mams. No one takes off their clothes, puts on earrings and high heels and climbs into bed yaknowwhatI'msayin?
Maybe it was the producer's attempt at softening the brittle main character a bit.
More likely a play to get publicity by flashing some flesh.
Garbage. Not sure it's even fun garbage, but it's a 70s curio that's rarely seen and I do wish there had been a better print than the one I saw.
Connie Stevens is nice to look at. Respectable work by the cast except for the previously mentioned Winters.
Cynical telling of the Monroe Legend. A drive in movie that somehow made it to the small screen.
Definitely, this is a terrible movie. But here I am writing a review about it, so it can't have been such a waste of time.
All ten stars for camp value
mls41828 May 2023
This was bad. I mean bad writing, bad clothes, bad hair, bad bras and bad acting.
The script is so bad it could have been written in an afternoon. It is so lazy. It is half exposition.
The acting is equally horrid. I understand Connie Stevens has a certain appeal to some people, but as an American sweetheart, not a dramatic actress. In this she tries way too hard. It is all over acting in between baby talk.
The film takes place in 1957 and is supposed to mirror Monroe's life. The clothes and hair are pure 1974. I had no idea bras were so bad back then or am I just too accustomed to fake bewbs?
The one bright spot is Shelly Winters as a vicious gossip columnist. Even though she phones it in, she's fun.
This flick comes and goes on YouTube.
The script is so bad it could have been written in an afternoon. It is so lazy. It is half exposition.
The acting is equally horrid. I understand Connie Stevens has a certain appeal to some people, but as an American sweetheart, not a dramatic actress. In this she tries way too hard. It is all over acting in between baby talk.
The film takes place in 1957 and is supposed to mirror Monroe's life. The clothes and hair are pure 1974. I had no idea bras were so bad back then or am I just too accustomed to fake bewbs?
The one bright spot is Shelly Winters as a vicious gossip columnist. Even though she phones it in, she's fun.
This flick comes and goes on YouTube.
Cheap sets, overacting by all !!! But Connie looks stunning!
Hoohawnaynay29 January 2009
I saw this when it first aired as a 13 year old, and I just viewed it again on a bootleg DVD. I loved most TV Movie's of the week as this was. Most were great little well produced dramas however this one sadly was not one of them. Thinly based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, Connie Stevens spends most of the time screeching out her dialogue to the point you almost want her to commit suicide so you don't have to hear her whining. Shelly Winters who I ALWAYS find fascinating to watch even in bad movies is just dreadful here. Her performance is just so bland and not even bad enough to be funny. SHe plays a Hedda Hopper type who is so jealous of Connie she continually insults her not just to her face but on her TV Gosspi show as well. You want to put a bullet in her head she is such a bitch. William Smith is gorgeous as always but has little to do here playing a "Joe Dimaggio" type character. I couldn't believe how bad the sets and costumes were. The sets looked like they recycled them a year later for Happy Days and the 70's clothes were odd for a movie set in the 50's. Of course Happy Days did that too, had 70's hair on a show set in the 50's. was hoping this movie would get bad enough to be funny but it didn't even go there. A major disappointment, but if you love Connie then watch it in orgasmic delight because she does look beautiful here.
Coarse TV "drama" based on Marilyn Monroe
pmullinsj29 March 2004
'The Sex Symbol' is mainly about Connie Stevens on a pink telephone calling for help after hours, while drinking large amounts of gin or vodka, and being told not to take any pills (too.)
She goes around screaming "I'm a STAR!" in a plastic-desperate way in almost every scene in the movie.
This may be worth watching for William Smith, as Buck Wischnewski (his resume says "Butch" but Stevens calls him "Buck" in the film), the DiMaggio stand-in, and for Don Murray, if only because he played the lead opposite Marilyn Monroe's own in one of her best films, 'Bus Stop'.
Ms. Stevens was made for light material, like Cricket Blake in 'Hawaiian Eye', because she was breezy and chic, very much a part of the period of the early 60's. She was also convincing as Lucy in 'Parrish' with Troy Donahue and Claudette Colbert. But since she has no real dramatic technique, she doesn't even vaguely suggest Marilyn, and neither does the film: that's why the thoroughly mediocre script hits you over the heads with !THE SENATOR! and makes sure you know Buck is a football player(!!!), obviously not too big a stretch from baseball...
I had to watch it while working on a survey of Smith's work, which has always got something remarkably original in it(he's unusually quiet here, though), otherwise I would never have been able to get through this one. He's got another one with Stevens called 'Scorchy' (1976)which I rather dread but can't avoid--who knows? maybe it will work at least some better than this garish mess.
Anyone would be better off to take a look at 'The Goddess'with Kim Stanley,which was already in 1958, in Paddy Chayefsky's script, capable of capturing the essence of Monroe when she was still alive--she hadn't even made 'Some Like It Hot' yet, much less 'The Misfits' and the Kennedys.
She goes around screaming "I'm a STAR!" in a plastic-desperate way in almost every scene in the movie.
This may be worth watching for William Smith, as Buck Wischnewski (his resume says "Butch" but Stevens calls him "Buck" in the film), the DiMaggio stand-in, and for Don Murray, if only because he played the lead opposite Marilyn Monroe's own in one of her best films, 'Bus Stop'.
Ms. Stevens was made for light material, like Cricket Blake in 'Hawaiian Eye', because she was breezy and chic, very much a part of the period of the early 60's. She was also convincing as Lucy in 'Parrish' with Troy Donahue and Claudette Colbert. But since she has no real dramatic technique, she doesn't even vaguely suggest Marilyn, and neither does the film: that's why the thoroughly mediocre script hits you over the heads with !THE SENATOR! and makes sure you know Buck is a football player(!!!), obviously not too big a stretch from baseball...
I had to watch it while working on a survey of Smith's work, which has always got something remarkably original in it(he's unusually quiet here, though), otherwise I would never have been able to get through this one. He's got another one with Stevens called 'Scorchy' (1976)which I rather dread but can't avoid--who knows? maybe it will work at least some better than this garish mess.
Anyone would be better off to take a look at 'The Goddess'with Kim Stanley,which was already in 1958, in Paddy Chayefsky's script, capable of capturing the essence of Monroe when she was still alive--she hadn't even made 'Some Like It Hot' yet, much less 'The Misfits' and the Kennedys.
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