THE MISFITS A
USA (124 mi) 1961 d: John Huston The Misfits original trailer
I don't know. Maybe all there really is is just the next thing. The next thing that happens. Maybe you're not supposed to remember anybody's promises.
—Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe)
It’s sad how sad sadness is, as this is easily one of the saddest films ever made, but profoundly downbeat rather than sentimentalized, where just catching your breath afterwards may feel like it comes at some cost, where the dirt and sweat of the Nevada heat never looked and felt so wearyingly bleak. Many find that Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) most brilliantly defines the end of an era in Westerns, a portrait of the last of a dying breed, men who live outside the laws of civilization and literally make their own rules, living and dying as outcasts. For others, it’s THE MISFITS which similarly defines a more interior portrait of men who refuse to accept boundaries in their lives, who live on their own, refuse to work for wages, and embrace a lifestyle of independence and freedom, where the open frontier remains as far as the eye can see. Despite the extolled freewheeling cowboy spirit, what’s most devastating in this picture is the inherent cruelty within man, the hurt and pain they bring to the world, and the utter indifference it seems to make to them. So much that was taken for granted in “the old days” suddenly comes into question when a woman is introduced into their world, where the lives of men are literally turned upside down. This film is about the fall from that utopian vision, from the cowboy era of yesteryears, and offers us a timeless walk into the modern era. It’s not a pretty sight, there’s nothing sugar coated, as there’s nothing familiar about the present except that in time, it leads to the future, a place of endless possibilities, but also broken hearts and dreams, and the eternal suffering of people having to live with so much disappointment. It’s a damn shame people can’t be happier, that life can’t be easier, but no one’s learned a better way, where the struggle of hard knocks and rotten luck comprises the core of our fragile existence, where surviving life’s tribulations is the only road to understanding ourselves, where going it alone might seem easier sometimes, free from disagreement or unwanted interruptions, but feeling alone is mercilessly treacherous and an unending heartache, where nearly every minute you feel unworthy of love. Making the choice to allow yourself to need others is a road not taken by men in Westerns, it’s an aberration, an anti-cowboy attitude filled with compromises and unwanted boundaries and seemingly predictable outcomes, but it is also the essence of joining the community of mankind, of coming in out of the cold and barren wasteland that also defines the heart of a cowboy’s eternally wounded soul.
A distinguishing aspect of this film is the romanticized allure of bringing together such iconic screen representatives, where Marilyn Monroe was the sex symbol and archetypal female of the 50’s while Clark Gable’s star persona was based on his sexy, masculine appeal ever since his role in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939). Pitting them together, then adding Montgomery Clift, in a script written by Monroe’s husband, the brilliant playwright Arthur Miller, has a uniquely curious appeal, especially since the film itself has so much dramatic heft. The tragedy associated with the film is equally legendary, where Gable suffered a heart attack 2 days after the shooting ended and died 10 days later, where theories suggest he lost 40 pounds for the role, but he also performed all his own physically demanding stunts in the film, which included being dragged about 400 feet across a dry lake bed at more than 30 miles per hour in 108 degree heat, and he had to deal with the frustratingly unprofessional antics of dealing with Marilyn Monroe, who was almost always late or never showed up at all on the movie set. Both Clift and Monroe were heavily abusing alcohol and prescription drugs at the time, where Monroe never made another film and died a year and a half later under mysterious circumstances that included an apparent drug overdose, while Clift’s career faltered and died from a heart attack six years after the filming, where ironically THE MISFITS was playing on television the night he died, where his secretary asked if he wanted to watch it, but his final spoken words were “Absolutely not.” Adding to the personal anguish was the deteriorating marriage between Monroe and Miller taking place on the set, with Miller constantly making script rewrites as the shooting progressed, while director John Huston actually shut down production in the middle of the shoot to send Monroe to a detox facility for a few weeks, while he notoriously gambled and drank, often falling asleep on the set, where the production company was forced to cover some of his gambling losses.
It’s an unruly romance, and a poetic farewell gesture to the things in our lives we’ve left behind, but the superior level acting and naturalistic rhythm add an emotional force that is unparalleled, especially in a Western. Almost forgotten about the film is Monroe’s opening divorce, which in the more conservative era of the 50’s placed an unwarranted social stigma on women, effectively ostracizing them from proper society, placing them in dubious distinction, almost as if they were morally unclean, which in her case only made her more desirable by men. But this explains why she has come to Reno in the first place, where the lenient laws of Nevada open the gates to quickie marriages and divorces, leading to a stream of brokenhearts seeking relief from their pain. This is an appropriate introduction following an opening credit sequence featuring jigsaw puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, where Monroe is downcast, despite obtaining her so-called freedom, lamenting “when you win you lose…in your heart.” While the title of the film refers to wild horses that remain free to roam the unreachable back regions of the mountains, as they don’t fit anywhere else, this same description describes the characters of the film, all of whom have trouble fitting in. While the central romance is Gable and Monroe, the film literally revolves around her, where she provides the emotional center through which an interchangeable group of characters continually talk to her, saying things they wouldn’t confess to anyone else, where the intensely personal nature of the dialog runs throughout, effectively integrating an intelligent and dramatically powerful expression of honesty with an unflagging sense of realism, where one begins to suspect that what’s shown onscreen is a mirror reflection of their real lives offscreen. As Westerns go, you’d be hard pressed to find a more fully realized script, as this sprawling work is really an intimate chamber drama exposing the burning anguish locked inside marginal lives that exist on the outskirts of society, where Miller’s stream-of-conscious theatrical flair for exposing the raw edge of humanity can feel like hell and fury at times, but few works challenge the audience’s intelligence and sensibilities like this one, which still feels highly experimental and light years ahead of its times.
“Cowboys are the last real men left in the world, and they’re about as reliable as jackrabbits,” is the unflappable Thelma Ritter’s advice as the older Isabelle to sexy divorcée Roslyn (Monroe), as no sooner has she received her divorce papers but she’s already falling for another guy in Gay (Clark Gable), an older, bluntly speaking cowboy that still gets by on charm and good looks, who knows a woman when he sees one, and since she’s never been outside the city limits, they all agree to spend some time together near the mountains in the partially built but still unfinished home of Guido (Eli Wallach), Gay’s sometimes partner, a despondent war pilot still mourning over the loss of his wife. Monroe exudes sensuality in an opening dance sequence, accompanied by endless rounds of drinking, until she wanders outside and swirls alone among the trees, a free spirit taking no root, but by morning, she’s in the arms of Gay. While he might have made a once proud living rounding up wild mustangs in the nearby mountains, the numbers remaining are a scant few, where they are now forced to scrounge out a pitiful existence selling what few they find for dogfood. Nonetheless, the sound of adventure makes them all spring to life, picking up a rodeo cowboy Perce (Montgomery Clift) along the way, where after getting brutally thrown off a bull and a horse, leaving his head stitched up and bandaged, they celebrate by carousing in a local saloon Marilyn Monroe - He Put His Hands On Her! YouTube (2:48). By the time they reach the endlessly open landscape reminiscent of “the surface of the moon,” the futuristic picture of the modern world couldn’t be more pitifully empty, where the psychological descent into the interior road to hell comes quickly, leaving Roslyn aghast at the barbarous treatment of the horses, where Huston’s man against beast, near avant-garde approach defies belief, especially Roslyn’s helpless cries of desperation. Beautifully mixing a modernist Alex North musical score with a visual ballet of choreography thrillingly shot by Russell Metty Marilyn Monroe in 'The Misfits' (1961) YouTube (4:07), the extended finale sequence is an exhilarating but ultimately devastating glimpse into the heartless souls of men, an utterly transfixing film given a touch of grace and poetic transcendence.
