8 Famous Movie Scenes You Didn't Know Were Stupidly Hard To Film

Despite her reputation as being more sex symbol than legitimate actress, there are many, many stories that actually contradict Marilyn Monroe's notorious "dumb blonde" persona. This, unfortunately, is not one of those stories.

After more than a decade as one of Hollywood's premier starlets, it would be reasonable to expect Monroe could competently deliver a simple, three-word line of dialogue. But the actress was deep in the throes of a personal meltdown by the time she started filming Some Like It Hot, and her mental instability had rendered her an even tougher directee than normal.

Director Billy Wilder probably became privy to his star's psychological frailty sometime around the 20th take of the line “It’s me, Sugar,” which Monroe didn’t deliver correctly until attempt #47. Sadly, this wasn’t the only 3-word piece of dialogue the actress repeatedly whiffed on. “Where’s that bourbon?” took an incredible 59 takes to come out right.

Monroe said everything but the correct words, tossing out "Where's that whiskey?", "Where's that bottle?", and "Where's that bonbon?" before Wilder decided to write the line on a piece of paper and tape it inside the drawer she was to be searching for said bourbon in. That still didn't work, because poor Marilyn couldn't remember which drawer she was supposed to open. So he taped it in every drawer.

And after all that, it’s possible Monroe still didn’t nail it, as evidenced by the fact the line is spoken with her back to the camera, and may have been overdubbed in the editing room.