O'Henry's Full House

7 August 1952

Marilyn Portrays A Street Walker

Fox presents O’Henry’s Full House as a Marilyn Monroe movie, packages it and sells it that way. In my opinion, doing so borders on false advertising and fraud. Even so, Marilyn appears in “The Cop and the Anthem” vignette along with David Wayne and the venerable Charles Laughton. She is on screen for a grand total of 88 seconds. I’m not suggesting that you should avoid O’Henry’s Full House. Just the opposite. All the vignettes are well made and well acted, including “The Cop and the Anthem”, which lead-offs. And, after all, they are based on five of O’Henry’s wonderful short stories, all of which I read when I was a boy. But if you are expecting Marilyn to appear in all of the stories, like I was, you’re going to be disappointed, like I was. OOO well. Life is absolutely crammed with disappointments, is it not?

Here’s the lineup:

1)  The Cop and the Anthem;
2)  The Clarion Call;
3)  The Last Leaf;
4)  The Ransom of the Red Chief; and
5)  The Gift of the Magi.