Let's Make Love is a pretty dreadful movie, and shows what might have become of Marilyn had she lived - audiences rejected her in this generic-Marilyn role, and for all we know, her star might have faded as other iconic attractions took over in the '60s.

This time out, it's a poorly-conceived vehicle that takes the blame. Yves Montand is great dragging men out of pools of oil (Wages of Fear), or as a political idealist (La guerre est finie), but he just looks foolish doing light comedy or trying to sing and dance. In this picture, it's impossible to tell when he's playing a man with no talent, or just being himself. Worse yet, there's little or no chemistry between Montand and Monroe, not even the level Monroe and Olivier were able to muster in The Prince and the Showgirl. Whatever was supposedly happening between the two stars offscreen, it doesn't translate.

George Cukor's direction is polished and polite, and Marilyn's opening Cole Porter number plays great just by itself. Tony Randall does the same routine he perfected in several Doris Day movies, but comes off as kind of a Smithers to Montand's Mr. Burns. Frankie Vaughn's singing style is back in vogue again, but his is the thankless role and he just accounts for more unpleasant screen time. Of the guest stars, Milton Berle is lightly amusing, and Bing Crosby charming but impenetrable. Gene Kelly and Montand's scene goes exactly nowhere - because of the poor concept, and nothing more. Let's Make Love is late-career Marilyn, where both her best comedy and dramatic work were for United Artists.

Like the previous boxed-set Diamond Collection, each of these discs has been digitally remastered and cleaned up as if the lives of Fox executives were depending on it. Each comes with a short restoration demo that, if anything, is more detailed than necessary. The demos range from informative to puzzling. Comparing the new transfer to a flat old library copy doesn't seem very fair, and the split-screen comparison frames often show empty parts of the frame instead of the key actors. But the effort put into these DVDs is nothing to sniff at. Let's Make Love looks stunning, to its credit.

For Audio, Love is in Dolby 4.0 .

Savant's comprehensive review of all 5 Diamond Collection 2 releases can be read at This URL.