The movie which most captured what Mariyn Monroe had to offer

John Huston's filming of Arthur Miller's THE MISFITS was dismissed at the time -- even by its doomed stars (well, "doomed" except for Eli Wallach, who is with us still at the grand old age of 137) but this poignant parable, set in the Nevada foothills, has aged as well as almost any film Marilyn ever did.

And, in many ways, reflects most vividly what made her so distinct.

Younger people sometimes ask about the nature of her appeal, what was so superlative about her?, was she overrated?, was she just another "it girl" for her day?, etc...

In addition to being genuinely very pretty (most Hollywood "beauties" really are not) with an absolutely perfect feminine body (despite the occasional weight bump) Marilyn really did perfect the tormented, seemingly helpless blonde sex kitten persona better than anyone else, before or since, blending both the "nice girl" and "bad girl" archetypes of the mid-twentieth century.

Also, she's one of the only ones who left behind a filmography of genuinely good pictures.

But the era is also key to her appeal; they're inseparable... The idealized, picture perfect self-image America had during the sleepily optimistic new consumerism of the post-war, primary color-saturated 1950's when her career occurred, and the haunted end-of-an-world mood at the peak of the Cold War during the JFK years in the early-'60s when she died, mysteriously, in that cozy little bungalow in Brentwood.

You either "get" that gauzy, wistful atmosphere or you don't. But it was immediately apparent even then, and it has everything to do with why Marilyn wasn't just one of the screen's greatest sex symbols (arguably, the greatest) but an ideal icon and metaphor for an immensely promising yet fascinatingly tragic period of American history that still intrigues and confounds.

She just "fits" it perfectly.

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