Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death, each of Ebert and Siskel selected two of her most defining work. All naturally, the choices went to her last films, both in black- and-white, both perfectly capturing the actress' true potential in comedy: Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot", and drama: John Huston's "The Misfits". Watching these two films is almost enough to understand Marilyn Monroe.
The screenplay was written by then Monroe's husband Arthur Miller, so the similarities between Roslyn and Marilyn, two rhyming names, is no coincidence. Marilyn Monroe is not only the most iconic actress of Hollywood's Golden Age, but the most tragic, a woman who attracted men but never kept them, who inspired lust while longing for love. The confusion she lived through during her ten-year career forged her reputation as an actress difficult to work with, the relationship with Miller would also be affected by her antics and they would divorce shortly after the film.
So the Marilyn we see is in the same emotional state than the fresh divorcée Roslyn. And when "The Misifts" ends and Roslyn is left on her own again, she could as well die like Monroe one year after of a suicide or accidental overdose. No one could have predicted that this was Marilyn's swan song but she couldn't have a better one. I don't think she could have let her feelings be so fulsomely imploded as she did in "The Misfits". The performance of Monroe, like a delicate flower dancing over a volcano, is crucial to the film, because it is truthful.
There's a moment where Gay, the rugged and tough cowboy played by Clark Gable, gently gazes at her and says "you're the saddest girl I ever saw". She says, "I usually heard that I was happy" "That's because you make people happy" he says. There are two truths behind this exchange. First, you can ooze happiness without being happy, like a defensive mechanism, one that didn't fool Roslyn's friend played by Thelma Ritter, a woman who learned to be happy by proxy. The second truth is that it takes an unhappy person to spot another one. And as Gay, Clark Gable's performance is equally heartbreaking.
As the tall, dark and handsome leading man, Gable was never allowed to fully express his acting potentiality (except for "Gone With the Wind") but as Gay, the free-spirited gentle cowboy, Gable knew this was the role of a lifetime, to transition through actors, not stars' roles. Gay is a man of a dying breed, his catchphrase is "better than the wages", and with his friend Guido, played by Eli Wallash, he enjoys the idle freedom from which 9-to-5 schmucks are deprived of, in their castrating lives. They chase mustangs and women, watch rodeos, drink booze, but somewhat, they're as sour and unhappy as Roslyn. They're the misfits, pure 'Hustonian' losers trying to catch their dreams like lassoing a running stallion; you might get the animal, but not its spirit.
"The Misfits" might have disconcerted audiences and critics, because of their erratic behavior. One moment, life is worth being enjoyed, every second of it, and the moment after, it's pure purposelessness. But Huston's confident directing and Miller's screenplay allow a few outbursts of emotions to each character, so the anger can steam out, even a drunken Gay, desperately cries for his lost children, and this is perhaps the greatest acting moment of Gable's career, pathetic but certainly not pitiful. Monroe has a similar moment during the film's climactic hunting sequence. These scenes work because most of the time, they all talk about life, death, stars, wilderness, manhood or kindness but at any moment, the communication can derail and makes the whole emotional edifice fall apart.
There's a moment where Guido recalls his war experience and loss of his wife and how it left him immune to guilt and compassion, but he admires Roslyn's "gift for love" and is ready to change if she accepts him, but then why such a man would need a reason to show heart? There's also Perce, played by Montgomery Clift, a young rodeo man who seems to have taken so many rides he probably lost track. Roslyn can't stand the savage sight of rodeo nor his self-destructive impulses, but Perce is surprisingly the least tortured of the group. He's a man who doesn't know much about his future but knows the past he's trying to escape from, and he takes what comes to him. As they say "maybe all there really is, is the next thing".
It's Perce who cuts the horses loose as an act of mercy for a woman too empathetic for her own good, but look at Gay's reaction, he catches the stallion, lets himself being dragged on the ground and and in a pure Hustonian move, struggles but ultimately tames it, and lets it go. Why did he bother catching him? He doesn't want someone making decisions for him. He knew it was the right thing to do, that this horse shouldn't pay for the ugliness of this world, something he shouldn't be part of, but it's still up to him to decide. Gable would die of a stroke a few days after filming, in November 1960, the exhaustion from the film might have killed him, but like he says: "one who's afraid to die is afraid to live". He embraced his character as fully as Monroe.
Being the swan song of two acting legends and one of the last from Montgomery Clift, about which Monroe said he was the first person she met in a worse shape than her, this film might be appreciated less as film, but as a document, seeing actors you know they're in the twilight of their lives, in an almost voyeuristic way. Maybe. But that doesn't take anything from the film, paraphrasing Huston, "The Misfits" is the stuff legends are made on, even on a posthumous level.
The screenplay was written by then Monroe's husband Arthur Miller, so the similarities between Roslyn and Marilyn, two rhyming names, is no coincidence. Marilyn Monroe is not only the most iconic actress of Hollywood's Golden Age, but the most tragic, a woman who attracted men but never kept them, who inspired lust while longing for love. The confusion she lived through during her ten-year career forged her reputation as an actress difficult to work with, the relationship with Miller would also be affected by her antics and they would divorce shortly after the film.
So the Marilyn we see is in the same emotional state than the fresh divorcée Roslyn. And when "The Misifts" ends and Roslyn is left on her own again, she could as well die like Monroe one year after of a suicide or accidental overdose. No one could have predicted that this was Marilyn's swan song but she couldn't have a better one. I don't think she could have let her feelings be so fulsomely imploded as she did in "The Misfits". The performance of Monroe, like a delicate flower dancing over a volcano, is crucial to the film, because it is truthful.
There's a moment where Gay, the rugged and tough cowboy played by Clark Gable, gently gazes at her and says "you're the saddest girl I ever saw". She says, "I usually heard that I was happy" "That's because you make people happy" he says. There are two truths behind this exchange. First, you can ooze happiness without being happy, like a defensive mechanism, one that didn't fool Roslyn's friend played by Thelma Ritter, a woman who learned to be happy by proxy. The second truth is that it takes an unhappy person to spot another one. And as Gay, Clark Gable's performance is equally heartbreaking.
As the tall, dark and handsome leading man, Gable was never allowed to fully express his acting potentiality (except for "Gone With the Wind") but as Gay, the free-spirited gentle cowboy, Gable knew this was the role of a lifetime, to transition through actors, not stars' roles. Gay is a man of a dying breed, his catchphrase is "better than the wages", and with his friend Guido, played by Eli Wallash, he enjoys the idle freedom from which 9-to-5 schmucks are deprived of, in their castrating lives. They chase mustangs and women, watch rodeos, drink booze, but somewhat, they're as sour and unhappy as Roslyn. They're the misfits, pure 'Hustonian' losers trying to catch their dreams like lassoing a running stallion; you might get the animal, but not its spirit.
"The Misfits" might have disconcerted audiences and critics, because of their erratic behavior. One moment, life is worth being enjoyed, every second of it, and the moment after, it's pure purposelessness. But Huston's confident directing and Miller's screenplay allow a few outbursts of emotions to each character, so the anger can steam out, even a drunken Gay, desperately cries for his lost children, and this is perhaps the greatest acting moment of Gable's career, pathetic but certainly not pitiful. Monroe has a similar moment during the film's climactic hunting sequence. These scenes work because most of the time, they all talk about life, death, stars, wilderness, manhood or kindness but at any moment, the communication can derail and makes the whole emotional edifice fall apart.
There's a moment where Guido recalls his war experience and loss of his wife and how it left him immune to guilt and compassion, but he admires Roslyn's "gift for love" and is ready to change if she accepts him, but then why such a man would need a reason to show heart? There's also Perce, played by Montgomery Clift, a young rodeo man who seems to have taken so many rides he probably lost track. Roslyn can't stand the savage sight of rodeo nor his self-destructive impulses, but Perce is surprisingly the least tortured of the group. He's a man who doesn't know much about his future but knows the past he's trying to escape from, and he takes what comes to him. As they say "maybe all there really is, is the next thing".
It's Perce who cuts the horses loose as an act of mercy for a woman too empathetic for her own good, but look at Gay's reaction, he catches the stallion, lets himself being dragged on the ground and and in a pure Hustonian move, struggles but ultimately tames it, and lets it go. Why did he bother catching him? He doesn't want someone making decisions for him. He knew it was the right thing to do, that this horse shouldn't pay for the ugliness of this world, something he shouldn't be part of, but it's still up to him to decide. Gable would die of a stroke a few days after filming, in November 1960, the exhaustion from the film might have killed him, but like he says: "one who's afraid to die is afraid to live". He embraced his character as fully as Monroe.
Being the swan song of two acting legends and one of the last from Montgomery Clift, about which Monroe said he was the first person she met in a worse shape than her, this film might be appreciated less as film, but as a document, seeing actors you know they're in the twilight of their lives, in an almost voyeuristic way. Maybe. But that doesn't take anything from the film, paraphrasing Huston, "The Misfits" is the stuff legends are made on, even on a posthumous level.