Movies - The Misfits

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	Movies - The Misfits

The Misfits is a 1961 American movie, written by Arthur Miller, directed by John Huston, and starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach and Thelma Ritter. It was both Monroe and Gable's last finished film. Filming was completed on November 4, 1960 and it was released on 1 February 1961.

The Misfits depicts the chance meeting and unlikely love affair in Reno, Nevada of a depressive divorcée, Roslyn Taber (Monroe), and Gay Langland (Gable), an aging ex-cowboy prone to gambling and surviving on mustang rustling. He then sells the horses to slaughterhouses for the manufacture of dog food. Clift and Wallach provide supporting roles as Perce Howland and Guido, respectively.

The "misfits" of the title are both the weak horses which are most likely to be caught in the cruel roping, and the weak, sad characters of the story, unable to find satisfaction and picked off, one at a time, by fate.

Curiously, the highly sympathetic Roslyn Taber (played by Monroe) prefigures the "tree-hugger" and "wild-animal liberator" types that surfaced in the American citizenry in the 1970s and later.

The movie

The making of The Misfits was troublesome due to the overheated circumstances in the Nevada desert. Marilyn Monroe's chronic tardiness did little to make the process easier. She was in and out of the hospital twice during filming, once for an emotional breakdown and the second time after having a miscarriage. Close-ups shot of her after she was released from the hospital were intentionally shot using a soft focus to mask her appearance. Furthermore, John Huston gambled and drank through the nights, ending up so strained that he occasionally fell asleep on the set. The production company had to cover for his gambling losses.

Clark Gable insisted on doing his own stunts in the movie, including being dragged approximately 400 feet across the lakebed at speeds just over 30 m.p.h.

Three days after finishing filming, Gable suffered a heart attack. He died eleven days later. One year later, Monroe died of a drug overdose. Ritter died eight years after the movie was made. Clift, who had been badly injured in an automobile accident in 1956 and had to undergo reconstructive surgery on his face, died just over four years after filming ended.

Despite the difficulties, Monroe, Clift and Gable delivered performances that are considered superb by modern movie critics. Monroe portrayed a mentally lost young woman searching for answers, whereas Gable and Clift characterized troublesome cowboys striving to find their place in life. All three performances have been heralded iconic, and Monroe has garnered respectful notices for having a profound approach on a role that was light years away from her dumb blonde image.

Initially, the film was met with mixed reviews and it failed to meet expectations at the box office, but later it has developed a cult following. The film was incredibly expensive for its time. Despite being shot in black and white, the final cost of the film was around $4 million.

Trivia

Freddie Parker, who had a reputation for portraying drunkards in stage productions, froze up on set. Huston tried to talk him through it, but after filming ended one day, with Parker still in costume, Huston got Parker drunk. The scenes shot of Parker are of him actually intoxicated.

The punk band, The Misfits, took its name from this movie.

The magazine illustrator, Thomas B. Allen, known for his talent at visual essays, was assigned to create drawings of the film as it was made.

A group of photographers representing Magnum Photos were hired to take pictures of the making of The Misfits. The photographs, taken by Inge Morath and Eve Arnold among others, have since been on display at various exhibitions around the world.

Arthur Miller kept coming up with new pages for the script throughout the shoot. This was likely to be one of the reasons Monroe was frequently late on set, since she spent her nights learning the new lines with her drama coach, Paula Strasberg.

Producer Frank Taylor heralded The Misfits as "the ultimate motion picture" before its release.

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Movies - The Misfits

The movie

Trivia

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