One of the problems with the overexposure of cultural icons like Marilyn Monroe and James Dean is that it's easy to form an impression of them without actually seeing any of their work. An actress like Eleanor Parker might not have the everlasting fame of Monroe or Dean, but the flip-side is that she's usually judged by her work in films like Caged and The Man with the Golden Arm, rather than people presuming to know something about her based solely on what they've heard. I'm willing to bet that a good number of people who feel like they understand Monroe and Dean haven't seen any of their films -- I know I hadn't until last year, and yet I felt confident I had a grasp of their work on screen.What I really understood, however, were their personae and reputations, which aren't always consistent with any given actor's work, especially actors as volatile as Monroe and Dean. In the case of Dean, the impression of him I had prior to watching East of Eden, Giant, and Rebel Without a Cause wasn't too terribly different than the impression I had after watching those films, but I also didn't find him nearly as moody as his reputation suggests, especially compared with his Method predecessor Montgomery Clift. The difference between Dean and Monroe, however, is that part of his reputation is that of a good actor, so it's not as surprising when you watch a film like East of Eden and realize that, yep, he is a good actor; with Monroe, the fact that she was also a good actor often gets buried under the image and the scandals and the cooing and shimmying that, admittedly, she sold just as much as the men who employed her. To watch one of her films can be an illuminating experience, because it turns out she wasn't just a winking caricature holding down her skirt over a subway vent. I watched four of her films last year -- Some Like It Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, and The Seven Year Itch -- and although there's not exactly a lot of diversity between the roles she plays in those films, she plays each of them differently and makes them all distinct characters, rather than just defaulting to being "Marilyn Monroe." This is especially important to realize because all of the roles are comedic, and I think a lot of times people think Monroe was cast in comedies simply because her image was kind of sexy-funny, but watching any of the aforementioned films quickly disproves that notion: she was cast in comedies because she understood how to play comedy -- and play it really, really well -- which is a skill not every actor has.
With the 1961 John Huston film The Misfits, Monroe received one of her few opportunities to play a completely dramatic role, and, as it turned out, the character of Roslyn in The Misfits also ended up being her last (she died in 1962). Playing a recently-divorced woman who falls in with an aging cowboy (Clark Gable) and an alcoholic rodeo rider (Montgomery Clift), none of Monroe's trademark sex-kitten mannerisms are present -- I don't know if I agree with certain people's assessment that she's "speaking in her real voice," because unless they knew her personally, I don't see how they know the voice she uses here is any more "real" than the voice she uses in The Seven Year Itch -- but she certainly speaks in a lower register in this film, without any of the breathiness that people usually associate with her, and although her sex appeal is still front and center, Huston and screenwriter Arthur Miller treat it more as a detriment than an asset here, focusing on the way it objectifies her and makes her helpless even among her supposed friends. Roslyn is the moral center of the film, clashing with the other characters as they head off to the mountains to wrangle wild horses meant to be killed for dog food, and Monroe completely embodies the skin of a woman who doesn't know what to do with herself without a man.
Even without Monroe, The Misfits is worth watching, though: Gable and Clift give excellent performances, and the entire final sequence in the dry lake bed with the wild horses is wonderfully shot and directed, capturing both the unbridled freedom of the animals and the listless thrill it gives the men to capture them. I also enjoyed the opening scene with Roslyn practicing for her divorce hearing with the woman from whom she's been renting a room (played by Thelma Ritter). In many ways, The Misfits is a nice companion piece to The Last Picture Show, in that they're both shot in black and white and follow aimless characters through stark southwestern landscapes; the scene in which Monroe's character comforts Clift's depressed drunk behind a bar is strikingly similar in appearance to the scene in The Last Picture Show when Sonny begins his affair with Ruth Popper. (I would also rate them as two of the best films I've watched for Summer Under the Stars).Interestingly enough, only Clark Gable -- who died two days after filming finished -- liked his performance in the movie; Monroe allegedly hated both the movie and herself in it, and Clift's last words before he died in 1966 were "Absolutely not" when asked if he wanted to watch the movie on TV. The film certainly has a depressing air about it, and considering the doomed nature of the principal cast (only Eli Wallach made it out of the sixties alive), the film seems even more depressing in retrospect, but it's worth watching not only for the skillful direction by John Huston but also the performances of Gable, Clift, and Monroe, which, regardless of their own perceptions of them, are some of the finest they ever gave.
Grade: A+
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