What was the reason for Marilyn Monroe's suicide? Was it at the end third party negligence? Klaus Traftord opens the file M.M. again.

The 5th August 1962 was a Sunday. It would have remained a quite normal Sunday, if not in the morning Marilyn Monroe had been found in her bedroom. Probably suicide with sleeping pills the coroner's inquest says. But that is contended until today; her life, her affairs and her relations to the Kennedys as well as the unpunctuality at the film set let quite different assumptions arise, which reached up to murder. After reporters, authors and film directors dealt with the myth MariIyn and her death, it was only a question of the time, until the whole case was taken over by a group of PC programmers to produce a piece oft software out of it. And behold - suddenly a Windows CD turns up in the mail with the title "Hard Evidence: The Marilyn Monroe Files", and sender was the company BMG lnteractive in Hamburg, Germany.

Four roles

you slip alternating into one of four roles - public prosecutor, forensic pathologist, reporter and policeman - and ask witnesses, gather information and study the files, which were made at that time. Each time visiting different places and buildings in different roles you experience more and record your results into a computer.

In which way you produre this information, is left to you. Sometimes however the right word to the correct person works wonders at the right time. And from time to time a flight into another city won't be bad; who knows whether sometimes one can get secret material there.

After a whole while you'll have done such a good job that you'll possess several theories about M. M.'s death. Which of them is the most reliable, and what will happen to the main actors if this assumption is correct, I will not betray here. Only as much: There are more than once unexpected turns during the story...

You'll need all your combination ability, in order to come to a halfway useful result. And that cannot be managed in the twinkling of an eye, make yourself ready for some longer sessions. Optically you are entertained by contemporary photographies, throughout very good graphics beside some few animations and old newsreel clips. You can get (in a cinema or in the archive) additional information about Marilyn's films, however unfortunately no clips - which was less BMG's fault than of the film distribution, that wanted apparently too much cash for the marketing rights. No miracle, Marilyn still has today, 34 years after her death, the purchasing power from that time - if not even higher.

That is already the only deficiency - otherwise a quite suspenseful and above all interesting story, where you almost would like to rewrite the story of M. M. finally. Oh, and the whole is - up to the (original?) files and documents from at that time - in German! And even those are still translated by a voice in the off.