It is not known whether Marilyn Monroe ever met and spoke with Albert Einstein (and since the mysterious disappearance of her diary after her equally mysterious death, we may never know), but in their lifetime the opportunity was there.
Scripted by Terry Johnson from his own play, Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance imagines an encounter in a New York hotel room one night in 1953 between the two icons plus Joe DiMaggio (Busey), and Senator Joseph McCarthy (Curtis) - but only on one level. On another level, it elevates - or reduces - these 'personalities' (and what a lousy phrase that is) to mere avatars (the characters are deliberately unnamed), at once greater and lesser in status.
The title Insignificance is both apposite and deeply ironic; here, DiMaggio's net worth has been reduced to little more than a picture on a bubblegum card. Monroe too is reduced to her constituent parts of dress, hair, lipstick, wiggle and voice. By uncovering their insecurities and reversing their roles, the film brings into sharp focus received notions of celebrity, exploding the cult of personality.
Furthering the theme, there will be another explosion at the film's climax: Hiroshima in a hotel suite, in which 'The Actress' is burned to a cinder in seconds; a literal deconstruction of fame. Goodbye, Norma Jean. History informs the script, which in turn, shakes history upside down. As Roeg mused after watching Johnson's play for the first time, "These characters were mythic, not invented by any single person, not the public or the press, probably not even by the characters themselves." As played by Theresa Russell, Marilyn (a closet intellectual in real life), lectures a childlike Einstein ('The Professor', played by Emil) on the theory of relativity using balloons and a flashlight, while getting The Professor to show off his legs, in conscious parody of her own role in The Seven-Year Itch, the movie The Actress is seen to be working on in the film's opening.
History records that Monroe's then-husband, fading baseball star DiMaggio (played by Busey as a tenderly psychotic simpleton), was unhappy about her iconic dress-splaying scene in the film, precipitating their break-up. Right on cue, we discover the jealous 'Ballplayer' in a bar, bemoaning the fact that if, "I want to see her underwear, I just walk down to the corner like all the other guys".
In contrast to The Professor, The Ballplayer believes the universe is round - a contention shared by Native Americans. But the Big Chief (Sampson, of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest fame) who operates the Roosevelt Hotel's elevator has been all but disenfranchised from his own culture: "I no longer Cherokee - I watch TV." Meanwhile, 'The Senator' is investigating The Professor, who is on the eve of delivering a pacifist speech to the United Nations, but whom The Senator suspects is a Red. In fact, as he divulges to Monroe, Einstein is wracked with guilt over Hiroshima, and what the white heat future holds. Yet in a seemingly godless universe, all such worries and aspirations are rendered insignificant in the light of a higher (atomic) power.
Roeg really is the perfect director to bring Johnson's stage play to the screen. Throughout, tortured childhood flashbacks and pessimistic flash-forwards (ka-boom!) draw unexpected connections between time, place and circumstance, with the repeated visual motif of a wristwatch employed to mark time's passing - but perhaps also to suggest all time is one time; each moment co-existing. As evinced by his back catalogue, it's something of a hobbyhorse for a director enchanted with the notion of synchronicity - see Don't Look Now in particular. Here, 1920 bleeds into 1945 and drip-feeds into the 1980s, a period in which another 'Actor' has taken on his greatest role as the President of the United States.
If all this sounds rather heavy going (quantum physics is surely involved), the execution is anything but, owing to Johnson's witty, zippy screenplay, Roeg's playful direction, opening out an essentially stagey set-up - and the cast themselves, who are on stellar form. Tony Curtis especially leaves denture marks in the wood panelling as the paranoid, impotent Senator, who is seen attempting congress with a Monroe impersonator (a real one, as opposed to Russell's), before being let down by his dwindling member.
Of course, Curtis once co-starred with the real Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot, and whose embrace he memorably described as like "kissing Hitler". As Roeg commented, "Everything suddenly seemed connected... when the film began to take shape even the actors themselves seemed part of this endless linking." It all goes into the pot, to be boiled down and served up in new and fascinating ways.

The comment by "eliz7212-1" hits the proverbial "nail on the head" for this turkey of a program. But it is a hoot to watch William Shatner "cavort" and "dance" (yes, the " " marks on the word dance are necessary for what Bill does). This show would be a great skit on SNL or MAD TV - and it does rate a few stars for one viewing, or so, to see Shatner, who seems to have taken "camp" to new heights - whether in a role or as himself. But the guy is funny.
The girls who are in the cubicle areas with the game data scrolls, will be pretty much out-of-luck when this turkey is canceled - unless there is a revival of the whiskey-a-go-go genre, with a resurrected demand for shapely young women to dance in elevated cages once more.
I watched the first contestant, who was annoying, and literally "dumber than a :post," yet through sheer luck, walked away with a quarter mil or so. The second contestant, somewhat more intelligent, but who'd be lucky to gain $1,000 on Jeopardy!, got zonked by the card which requires answering a special question - which he didn't know, and thereby left with zilch.
This plethora of game shows, which dangle, and sometimes award, large sums to everyday individuals, are admittedly a cheap effort, overall, to attempt to woo viewers. Even if the host is well-compensated, and they give away six figures in an average episode, I suppose that the revenue versus costs can be favorable - since you don't have a sitcom cast where several stars are getting six or seven figures, per episode, with some big residual deals as well.
But I suspect even the better ones will wear thin before long. This one has already pretty much reached this point. I think his offerings, especially with James Spader, and the others on "Boston Legal" should give us a satisfying quantity of Bill Shatner's offerings.
Again, the above rating is simply appropriate to view Bill hoot and prance, perhaps one time; that should be sufficient.