Capturing the Charm of Monroe, Dietrich as Singers

Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich were two of Hollywood’s most famous sex goddesses, actresses whose alluring qualities on the screen were made all the more seductive because of the way they could sometimes have fun with their larger-than-life images.

In a pair of CD retrospectives, we get to sample the character and charm of Monroe and Dietrich as vocalists. The offerings range from “The Boys in the Backroom,” Dietrich’s lively dance hall number from the lighthearted western “Destry Rides Again,” to “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” Monroe’s delightfully good-natured vamp from the musical comedy “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

*** Marilyn Monroe, “The Essential Recordings,” Music Club. Monroe was probably the most celebrated female star of her generation, someone who conveyed in her best film roles the kind of individuality and command that puts you under her spell virtually every moment she’s on the screen.

Much of that appeal is evident in the best of the 18 selections on this album, which is built around vocals from her films. Besides “Diamonds,” the collection includes “I Wanna Be Loved by You” and “Running Wild,” both from “Some Like It Hot,” and “I’m Gonna File My Claim” and the title track from “River of No Return.”

The album includes some non-film efforts, most notably a Jack Benny radio show duet with actress Jane Russell on “Bye Bye Baby” and the famous “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” that she sang to President Kennedy in 1962 in New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Her vocal limitations and her inexperience cause problems in places, especially on a series of songs from 1954 recording sessions. But there was something uniquely endearing about Monroe that you feel in the collection’s key moments.

*** Marlene Dietrich, “Falling in Love Again,” MCA. Like Monroe, Dietrich is best known as an actress, but Dietrich was also a successful singer and concert performer. Before taking up acting in her native Germany, in fact, she was a child prodigy who studied for a career as a concert violinist.

She was singing in a Berlin theatrical revue when director Josef von Sternberg spotted her in 1929 and cast her as the nightclub vixen in “The Blue Angel,” a film about an entertainer who seduces and then destroys a middle-aged schoolteacher. In the film, Dietrich sang “Falling in Love Again” in a marvelously taunting, world-weary manner. The tune includes the line, “Men cluster to me, like moths around a flame. . . . “

This disc contains a version of that song and five others, including Cole Porter’s “You Do Something to Me,” that Dietrich recorded in 1939 with the Victor Young Orchestra for a Decca album titled “Marlene Dietrich Souvenir Album.”

Besides other Decca tracks, the album contains four songs that Dietrich recorded with musical director Burt Bacharach in 1957 for Dot Records.

The most interesting of the Dot tracks is “Near You,” a pop ballad that was dressed up with a semi-rock beat. The most entertaining of the Dot tracks, however, is “I May Never Go Home Anymore,” which gives Dietrich room to play with her sexy image. Less successful is an awkward, big-band attempt at the folk song “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine.”

Though uneven, “Falling in Love Again” is an inviting glimpse of the attitude and style that made Dietrich a star for almost half a century.

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