The rising sun, in full bloom

I may have seen only six of Marilyn Monroe's more than 30 films, but I feel like 20% of her filmography is enough to give me a good idea of her strengths ... but more especially, her limitations.

Oh, she struck me as a capable actress, and certainly a beautiful woman, and certainly a terrific flirt. But I didn't know she had any real skill until I saw her last film, John Huston's 1961 The Misfits.

As I was watching this film -- which was also Clark Gable's last -- I couldn't help but be reminded of Brandon Lee in his last film, The Crow. He was just starting to come into bloom, just starting to shows us the depths of his charisma and pathos. I feel the same about Marilyn Monroe here.

I don't know if it's a common critical opinion that this quirky black-and-white modern-day western represented Monroe's best work, though I do know she hated her own work in it. We may not be wise to trust her at this self-destructive phase of her life, which ended the following year, after she was fired from the film she had been working on. Again, not a Monroe scholar, but she strikes me as someone who would be harder on herself than anyone would dream of being on her.

But I was just floored by how much work she seems to put into this performance, and by that I don't mean that it looks like work. I mean that she obviously showed an interest in improving her craft and becoming a more serious actress. And though there may be other great examples that I haven't seen, I don't know that they could exceed what I saw on screen this time.

Monroe's recent divorcee is not perhaps exceptional as part of her whole career, as she played a naive innocent on a number of occasions. But I don't know that I've ever seen her play a naive innocent so thoroughly convincing about her utter lack of guile.

She's so charming in this movie that the men have to resort to amateur poetry to describe her. One tells her she has "the gift of life," the only way he can think of to sum up her intoxicating mixture of delightful pep and an earnest belief in the goodness of others. Another says "When you smile, it's like the sun coming up." And indeed, it is.

But what I find most fetching about Monroe here -- in terms of her craft, I mean -- is not the coy smiles and the genuine moments of pure joy. It's the way her eyes react to all the new information she receives in this film, how her blind optimism is buffeted by a thousand small shocks. Even when she drifts to the side in a particular shot, no longer its focal point, she's still reacting. Those eyes also express an awkwardness about her own place in this mixed-up world, her discomfort at being a distracting beauty when she feels and judges at a level not nearly so superficial.

Oh, and then there's that great scene where she joyfully hits a paddleball over and over again to win a bet.

Maybe it was the mixture of traits Monroe shows us here that made her more than just another pretty face, more than just a wispy voice that always sounded a bit like self-parody. Maybe by missing 24 of her films I've missed the boat. But I'm glad I saw her last one, because now I want to go back and find the real actress that may be hiding in those two dozen others, behind the facade of her persona.