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August 9, 2011

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Sale of 'Monroe sex film' flops

THERE were no buyers on Sunday at the Buenos Aires auction of a 1940s pornographic film that an events promoter claims shows a young Marilyn Monroe having sex before she became a movie star.

Nobody was willing to pay Mikel Barsa's starting price of 2 million Argentine pesos, about US$480,000.

Barsa said it did not help that a spokeswoman for Monroe's estate claims the film is a fraud. Referring to a spokeswoman for the Monroe estate, Barsa said: "The latest statements of Nancy Carlson did not do anything good for all this."

Barsa said he was still negotiating with an unidentified buyer from Denver who he said was offering much less than a fair price. But he also said his lawyers were reviewing the matter now that Monroe's estate has threatened to sue him if the sale goes through.

Barsa claims the scratchy, black-and-white, six-minute, 8mm film shows the young actress, known then as Norma Jeane Baker, when she was poor and desperate to break into show business around 1946 or 1947.

Experts on Monroe's life, however, said it is unlikely the blonde in the film is her.

Comparing the film with known Monroe images leaves ample room for doubt. And several documents Barsa said proved his argument - a letter from the American Film Institute and what looks like a declassified FBI file that mentions a 1965 attempt to sell an alleged Marilyn Monroe sex film - are inconclusive.

Carlson said a sale of the film would invite 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."

She added: "It does not even resemble her."

 

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