Misfits, The (1961)
The Misfits (1961), directed by John Huston.
First review
Here is a case where it is hard to separate the poignancy of the story from the production of the film, the actors from their characters. Clark Gable's last film, Marilyn Monroe's last film: both died soon after. Montgomery Clift lived a while longer, but was in the middle of "the longest suicide in Hollywood history". (As I write this, Eli Wallach is still working in his 90s [Later: RIP 2014]). A "troubled" production, you can read the details in the wikipedia. A hard-drinking director is a bad influence on the crew.
It's a rambling plot, mostly about a group of people, their conversations and relationships. But given that, it's one of the finer films I'd never seen before. Arthur Miller wrote this while married to Monroe: maybe this punches my American playwright ticket for another six months.
Monroe is the center of the picture and is in almost every scene. Again, it's hard to separate her acting from her personal problems, but at times the performance is amazing. Her uncertain, distracted demeanor is perfect for the role of a woman in Reno for a quick divorce. She's like a sex goddess just starting to reach the age of wisdom, sad but with a good heart, still willing to hope.
She falls in with gal pal Thelma Ritter and they hook up with real cowboy Clark Gable and his pilot buddy Eli Wallach. Much drinking, dancing, and driving in the desert. She moves in with Gable, but then becomes distracted by quirky, busted up rodeo rider Montgomery Clift.
Then it's up into the mountains to catch wild mustangs. What they don't tell her until it's too late is that no one rides mustangs anymore ("Kids ride motor-scooters these days") and these will be sold to a dealer who slaughters them for dog-food. This is the crisis segment: arguing about it, chasing down the horses, roping them and tying them to the ground. No stunts here, it's all done for real and is both cruel and impressive.
It reveals a chasm of time and culture, and between men and women. The men are of that old world where everything living kills to survive, and even kind men can kill. It's true, but she's not having it, doesn't want to think or hear about it. She's crossed over into that fantasy realm where blood and killing are always wrong and no one ever causes pain intentionally. In the end, it looks like she may win the argument.
Strangely enough, Gable's acting style helps here. He's old school, enacting a character, where the others are more "method", living the parts. He symbolizes the old world, but their new realism, fantasy realm or no, breaks him down in the end. He says he can no longer recall the way the world used to be: "It's like trying to remember a dream."
How is it that Monroe whacking the paddle-ball in the bar is not an iconic image for her? It's an amazing scene.
A tiny technical point: a movie convention is to show views through binoculars as two intersecting circles. That's not what it looks like when you use them. They do it correctly here.
Some fine photography.
Available on Blu-ray
Second review
quote
What makes you so sad? I think you're the saddest girl I ever met.
Notes:
The theme seems to be the fragility and unreliability of marriages and families.
Dialogue-heavy, as you expect from an author like Arthur Miller. Sometimes it descends into playwright-speak, as in Wallach's meditation on flying bombers during the war.
The world "misfits" is used for the wild horses, but we know it means our characters.
Monroe's character is like young Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs (1991): neither can take the cruel reality of ranching.
In Jaws (1975) they attach barrels to the shark to slow it down. Here, for horses, it is rubber tires. On ropes, not harpoons.
I did not notice before: a little boy gets an unexpected shot of liquor during the great paddle-ball scene.
Reflections on Clark Gable: after his wife, Carole Lombard, died in a plane crash during WW2, it seemed the joy went out of his performances. I'll have to rewatch more of his work to see how he progressed. In this, his last film, he is the old cowboy who never surrendered, trying to get life from a young woman one more time.
It is often said that Monroe "struggled" with alcohol and prescription drugs in her final years. Her performance -- as with everyone here -- seems excellent to me. One scene -- the breakfast table -- is shot with heavy filtering, presumably to conceal hard nights and days. Lighter filtering was common in filming women in those days and we have that, too,
Photographed by Russell Metty. Alex North's tempestuous score is used mostly for the opening credits and the horse chasing scene.
Available on Blu-ray. Grainy image, as in the source I suspect. No commentary track: there would be a lot to say about this one.
