"The Misfits" is well-known for being the last completed film of two of the most iconic stars in film history, Clark Gable, the man who became known as the "King of Hollywood", and Marilyn Monroe, the woman who, at the height of her fame, had a good claim to be its Queen. Gable was to die of a heart attack a few days after finishing shooting; Monroe was to die less than two years later before "Something's Gotta Give", which would have been her next film, was finished. (It was eventually completed under the title "Move Over, Darling" with Doris Day in the leading role).
The film is a modern-day Western, an example of the genre which transfers classic Western situations to a contemporary setting or explores the relevance of the mythos of the Old West to modern America. (Other examples include "Bad Day at Black Rock", "Lonely Are the Brave" and "The Electric Cowboy"). Two of the three main male characters, Gay Langland and Perce Howland, are Nevada cowboys; the third is their friend Guido, a truck driver. The plot revolves around the romantic friendship which grows up between Gay and Roslyn Tabor, a much younger woman who has travelled to Reno to get a "quickie" divorce from her husband, and around the three men's scheme to round up wild mustangs to sell. The relationship between Gay and the animal-loving Roslyn is placed under stress when she learns that the captured mustangs are not simply going to be domesticated and used for riding, as she had originally assumed, but killed for dog food.
The title "The Misfits" refers to the men's description of the mustangs as "misfit horses", but there is a clear implication that it refers to the four main characters as well. All of them seem to have difficulty fitting in somewhere, whether into a steady job, into a relationship- like Roslyn, Gay is a divorcee- or into society as a whole.
The film was written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and, besides Gable and Monroe, starred actors of the quality of Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Despite this stellar line-up, however, the film was not very popular when first released. Even the death of a star as beloved as Gable did not arouse much interest in his last film. It was not quite the commercial disaster which some have claimed- it just about broke even at the box-office- but certainly was not the success its makers were hoping for.
Contemporary critical opinion was not entirely enthusiastic either, but today the film seems to be more highly regarded than it was in 1961. Having recently watched it for the first time in a number of years, however, I am not really convinced. Certainly, Gable is good in his last role as the grizzled, leathery old cowboy Gay, but I have always been in two minds about Monroe's performance. Yes, she was strikingly beautiful in her mid-thirties, more so, in fact, than she had been a decade earlier. Monroe's beauty, moreover, went deeper than mere good looks. She was able to radiate charisma, expressing more strongly than ever in this film that mixture of desirability and vulnerability which had always been her stock-in-trade. She was not, however, always a technically proficient actress and here her shortcomings in this direction are often apparent. She always spoke in a breathy, high-pitched voice, and here this feature becomes so exaggerated that her lines often become inaudible.
To be fair to Marilyn, this film was made at a difficult time in her life when she was feeling like a misfit herself. Miller, her third husband, had described his script as a "Valentine" to her, but their marriage broke down during the making of the film, putting Monroe into a similar position to that of her character. She had turned to drink and drugs to help her cope, and production was shut down for a time so she could attend a hospital for detox. Nor was she the only one who had problems of this nature. Director Huston was drinking and gambling heavily, and even turned up drunk on set. (Nevada, notorious for its liberal gambling laws, was perhaps not the ideal location for a man with a gambling problem).
In the circumstances, therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that Monroe's farewell performance is perhaps not the best of her career or that Huston's direction is not at its most fluent. The first half of the movie, in particular, is very slow and meandering and never seems to be going anywhere. The film comes to life more in the second half; the mustang-hunting scene is genuinely exciting and the romance between Roslyn and Gay becomes more interesting as it seems that she will have to choose between her love of animals and her love for a man whose whole way of life is cast around the assumption that animals are just another commodity. Given all the talents that went into making it, however, "The Misfits" could have been a much better film than it is. 5/10
The film is a modern-day Western, an example of the genre which transfers classic Western situations to a contemporary setting or explores the relevance of the mythos of the Old West to modern America. (Other examples include "Bad Day at Black Rock", "Lonely Are the Brave" and "The Electric Cowboy"). Two of the three main male characters, Gay Langland and Perce Howland, are Nevada cowboys; the third is their friend Guido, a truck driver. The plot revolves around the romantic friendship which grows up between Gay and Roslyn Tabor, a much younger woman who has travelled to Reno to get a "quickie" divorce from her husband, and around the three men's scheme to round up wild mustangs to sell. The relationship between Gay and the animal-loving Roslyn is placed under stress when she learns that the captured mustangs are not simply going to be domesticated and used for riding, as she had originally assumed, but killed for dog food.
The title "The Misfits" refers to the men's description of the mustangs as "misfit horses", but there is a clear implication that it refers to the four main characters as well. All of them seem to have difficulty fitting in somewhere, whether into a steady job, into a relationship- like Roslyn, Gay is a divorcee- or into society as a whole.
The film was written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and, besides Gable and Monroe, starred actors of the quality of Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. Despite this stellar line-up, however, the film was not very popular when first released. Even the death of a star as beloved as Gable did not arouse much interest in his last film. It was not quite the commercial disaster which some have claimed- it just about broke even at the box-office- but certainly was not the success its makers were hoping for.
Contemporary critical opinion was not entirely enthusiastic either, but today the film seems to be more highly regarded than it was in 1961. Having recently watched it for the first time in a number of years, however, I am not really convinced. Certainly, Gable is good in his last role as the grizzled, leathery old cowboy Gay, but I have always been in two minds about Monroe's performance. Yes, she was strikingly beautiful in her mid-thirties, more so, in fact, than she had been a decade earlier. Monroe's beauty, moreover, went deeper than mere good looks. She was able to radiate charisma, expressing more strongly than ever in this film that mixture of desirability and vulnerability which had always been her stock-in-trade. She was not, however, always a technically proficient actress and here her shortcomings in this direction are often apparent. She always spoke in a breathy, high-pitched voice, and here this feature becomes so exaggerated that her lines often become inaudible.
To be fair to Marilyn, this film was made at a difficult time in her life when she was feeling like a misfit herself. Miller, her third husband, had described his script as a "Valentine" to her, but their marriage broke down during the making of the film, putting Monroe into a similar position to that of her character. She had turned to drink and drugs to help her cope, and production was shut down for a time so she could attend a hospital for detox. Nor was she the only one who had problems of this nature. Director Huston was drinking and gambling heavily, and even turned up drunk on set. (Nevada, notorious for its liberal gambling laws, was perhaps not the ideal location for a man with a gambling problem).
In the circumstances, therefore, it is perhaps not surprising that Monroe's farewell performance is perhaps not the best of her career or that Huston's direction is not at its most fluent. The first half of the movie, in particular, is very slow and meandering and never seems to be going anywhere. The film comes to life more in the second half; the mustang-hunting scene is genuinely exciting and the romance between Roslyn and Gay becomes more interesting as it seems that she will have to choose between her love of animals and her love for a man whose whole way of life is cast around the assumption that animals are just another commodity. Given all the talents that went into making it, however, "The Misfits" could have been a much better film than it is. 5/10