THE MISFITS
For this 1961 drama, written by Arthur Miller no less, director John Huston had at his disposal a stellar cast of Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift, not to mention Eli Wallach who was no slouch in the acting department.
The film begins in Reno where Roslyn (Monroe) is getting a divorce. She has moral and practical support in the form of her landlady, Isabelle, played by the always wonderful Thelma Ritter, who seems to provide this an an unpaid service to any woman who happens to stay at her rooming house.
Divorce out of the way, Roslyn meets aging cowboy, Gaylord (Gable) and his buddy Guido (Wallach), who both have lascivious designs on her and accordingly invite her out to the country with them. I was thankful that Isabelle tags along as an unofficial chaperone so that this scenario doesn't turn out to be as uncomfortable as it might have done.
They are then joined by a rodeo cowboy they know, Perce, whilst Isabelle drops out of the film. Perce is played by Clift, and this is the first film I have seen featuring him after the car accident in 1956 which effectively destroyed both his career and his life. Whilst I couldn't detect any obvious facial damage he is no longer the handsome young man of the early 1950s, although as he shows in a scene where Perce is talking on the phone to his mother he hadn't lost his acting prowess.
His presence, in one of the last films he made before his untimely death in 1965, together with the fact that this is the last film of both Gable and Monroe, adds an air of melancholy to watching this picture which is not inappropriate given the themes Miller is tackling.
The main theme, the encroachment of modernity, becomes clear once the quartet head up to the hills where the three men are going to earn some money by roping up wild horses. Bringing Roslyn along for this 'adventure' is not a great idea since she can't abide animal cruelty, and she is not impressed when she learns that the fate of the horses is to be sold to dealers so that they can be made into dogfood.
The men have clearly done this many times before, since they set about the task very easily.
Guido is a former World War II pilot who now flies a small plane with which he can spot horses and scare them towards where the others are waiting to rope them.
However whereas before they would catch dozens if not hundreds of horses, here they only manage to find half a dozen, evidence that their way of life is dying out.
Contributing to the intensity is Roslyn’s increasing distress which culminates in a remarkable scene, in which she convulses in the middle distance, screaming to the high heavens, berating the men for only being happy when they are killing things.
Before we get to these climactic scenes out in the Nevada wilderness the film has a surprising amount of humour which I wouldn't associate with Miller.
But despite the humour there's no getting away from the fact that all three men are damaged in their different ways: Gaylord is estranged from his children, Perce from his mother, whilst Guido's wife died in circumstances for which he can't avoid blaming himself.
One evening, after an entertaining rodeo scene, all three men get thoroughly wasted on booze, and when eventually they all somehow get home safely and have fallen into an inebriated slumber, all Roslyn can do is lean back and softly say 'help'. All three men are looking to her to somehow rescue them and the weight of that responsibility is wearing her out. The 'home' she is leaning against is in fact a half-finished house in the middle of nowhere, which serves as a symbol of their broken lives.
At one point the mustangs that are being roped are described as misfits but obviously it is the human characters who are the real misfits, especially the men.
Roslyn is less obviously a misfit, but her extreme empathy (which is why animal or human suffering affects her so) is out of place in the macho culture surrounding her. This culture is perhaps best personified by Gable as Gaylord, although he at least shows her some tenderness, as opposed to Guido who is an embittered soul whose only interest in her is sexual.
There's a powerful scene late on in the film in which Guido propositions her in an unsubtle way which Roslyn rejects in no uncertain manner.
It's part of an impressive overall performance from Monroe, especially given her drug problems at the time, and that she and Miller were going through their own divorce whilst the film was being made.
Speaking some lines at least which could easily be interpreted as reflecting Miller's view of her can't have been easy.
No attempt is made in the film to conceal or dampen down Monroe’s sexuality; quite the opposite as the camera zooms in on her body on several occasions in a way which made me feel queasy.
Given that Roslyn is no 'dumb blonde' she shouldn't be objectified in this way but that was the culture of the time. But I was pleased at least that in her last picture Monroe was given a complex character to play which was worthy of her acting skills.
And, being the softie that I am I couldn't help tearing up when in almost the last line of the film Gable looks at her and says 'God bless you, child'. It’s a sweet moment upon which to end a film which contains a lot of desolation but which is well worth watching.
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