Yesterday, an Argentinian memorabilia dealer named Mikel Barsa attempted to auction what he says is an 8mm porn reel starring Hollywood legend Marilyn Monroe. According to Barsa, who represents anonymous sellers that priced the film at $480,000 but got nothing when no bidders emerged, Monroe was broke at the time and had no choice but to parlay sex for money. This would have been presumably 1946 or 1947, when Monroe was indeed known to be broke and had indeed posed nude. Spokespeople for Monroe’s estate have come forward and pronounced the porno a fraud. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?
So we got hold of a low-rez copy of the flick in order to assess it ourselves. In it the alleged Monroe strips, plays with a dildo, and engages in a little sixty-nine with a male partner before moving on to the main event. Afterward the pair have a smoke and a laugh. It doesn’t take a photographic expert to see that the woman involved doesn’t resemble Monroe very closely. The hairline is wrong, the facial proportions are way out in left field, the breasts are not the ones that so thrilled Playboy readers when she appeared as the magazine’s first centerfold, and there’s what looks like a hysterectomy scar we’re pretty sure Monroe didn’t have.
We’ve posted some screen captures below so you can see for yourself how obvious this scam is. But don’t be too hard on Mr. Barsa and his associates. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again—in a culture that values money above all things, you can’t be surprised what people will do to get it.
