Marilyn Monroe Stag Film?

Don’t get too excited, you Burlesque-era raincoaters and grizzled Arthur Miller wannabes out there.

Don’t get excited, ’cause I’m excited enough for all of us. There’s a Marilyn Monroe sex tape out there.

Unfortunately, it appears to be a fraud. The promised Marilyn Monroe Sex Tape, according to a story on Moneywatch, is not the Holy Grail of the vintage-vixen admirer; it’s almost certainly bop-era buh-buh-buh-Bullshit.

The purveyor of said tape is Spain’s Mikel Barsa, an events promoter. He says he’s got a scratchy six-minute 8mm 1946 or 1947 stag film of a blonde having sex. The blonde, he claims, is Marilyn Monroe, then known as Norma Jean Baker. His asking price? Half a million. He claims the 8mm film was made at the same time as a 16mm version of the same event, which he says he sold in 1997 for $1.2 million. Interesting enough, since in 2008 the Telegraph reported the sale of a Marilyn sex film for $1.5 million, by a person who’s most distinctly not Barsa. It was bought by a New York businessman who said he would keep it locked up.

The Marilyn Monroe estate has already threatened to sue, accusing Barsa of fraud. In legal terms, even the claim that the film is of Marilyn would be a violation of her personality rights, despite the fact that Ms. Monroe (yes, it still makes me sad) shuffled off this mortal coil some years ago. Says Moneywatch:

Experts on Monroe’s life, however, say it’s highly unlikely that the smiling young blonde in the film is her. Comparing the film with known Monroe images leaves ample room for doubt. Also, while Barsa shows off various documents he says support his theory, they self-evidently fall short of proof.

Whoever the woman in the film may have been, even alleging that it shows Monroe violates her intellectual property rights and will cost Barsa dearly if he goes ahead with the sale, said Nancy Carlson, a spokeswoman for the brand development and licensing company Authentic Brands Group.

Barsa is inviting legal action for “perpetrating a fraud on the public, violating the Monroe estate’s exclusive rights to her image and other claims of intellectual property infringement,” Carlson said in an interview.

Barsa said he’ll broker the sale on Sunday evening anyway and collect his 10 percent from the film’s owners, whom he refused to identify.

“It always is the same story when it comes to Marilyn — to deny, deny, deny and to threaten,” Barsa said.

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Barsa’s supporting documentation, according to Moneywatch, sounds like shit.

First there’s a 1996 letter “he says confirms the woman is Monroe,” but Moneywatch says the letter doesn’t say that at all. Barsa’s “proof” says it’s either Monroe or a lookalike.

Then there’s a Hoover-era FBI document that has third-hand information about Joe DiMaggio (Marilyn’s ex-husband) trying to buy such a film. Does this guy know anything about the Hoover era FBI? Just ’cause it’s in an FBI file doesn’t mean jack, and that’s third-hand information. It’s not even the rumor of a rumor. It’s the odor of farts from the next county over.

Barsa’s “proof” is nothing. What’s more, experts on Marilyn say it is unlikely she was in porn or stag films. She had quite a colorful sex life, but that’s not one of the things she got groovy with.

What’s more, during the period of time she was supposed to have made this film, she was poor — but not poor enough to motivate her to be in a stag film, given the stigma of the time. She had at least one patron helping support her, so the chances are slim she would have agreed to go blue.

There have been so many claims of a Marilyn sex film over the years that if I had $1.2 million for every time I heard about one…well, let’s just say I’d probably be smoking Cohibas and eating PB&J’s with Jack Kennedy and Elvis over at Bigfoot’s place in the Cuban highlands.

Image: Marilyn in bed. Check out more of Marilyn from the same photo set, although not including this image, in these scans of the September, 1952 issue of Pageant.