The Misfits is a 1961
American drama film written by
Arthur Miller, directed by
John Huston, and starring
Clark Gable,
Marilyn Monroe,
Montgomery Clift,
Thelma Ritter, and
Eli Wallach. It was the final film appearance for both Gable and Monroe. It was not a commercial success at the time of its release, but it garnered critical respect for its script and performances.
Story
The Misfits takes place in
Reno, and depicts the chance meeting and friendship of a depressed
divorcée, Roslyn Taber (Monroe), and Gay Langland (Gable), an aging ex-
cowboy prone to gambling, who survives by rounding up and catching
mustangs. These had once been sold as horses for children, but now the only market is selling them to
slaughterhouses for the manufacture of
dog food. Wallach plays Guido, Langland's pilot partner, and Clift plays Perce Howland, a
drifter rodeo rider. The rodeo scenes were filmed in
Dayton, Nevada, northeast of
Carson City. The climax of the film takes place during wrangling scenes on a dry Nevada lakebed east of Dayton, near
Stagecoach. The lakebed today is known as “Misfit Flat."
[“Guy Rocha, ″Myth #60 - Myths and ‘The Misfits,′″ Nevada State Library and Archives, originally published in Sierra Sage magazine, Jan. 2001]
Principal cast
Other Cast
Production
The making of
The Misfits was troublesome on several accounts, not the least of which were the heat of the northern Nevada desert and breakdown of Monroe's marriage to writer Arthur Miller.
Director Huston gambled and drank, and occasionally fell asleep on the set. The production company had to cover some of his gambling losses. His lover
Marietta Peabody Tree had an uncredited part. Miller wrote new pages throughout the shoot, revising the script as the concepts of the film developed.
Monroe was sinking further into alcohol and prescription drugs. Huston shut down production in August 1960 to send Monroe to a hospital for
detox. Close-ups after her release were shot using
soft focus. Monroe was nearly always late to the set, sometimes not showing up at all. She spent her nights learning lines with drama coach
Paula Strasberg. Monroe's confidant and masseur, Ralph Roberts, was cast as an ambulance attendant in the film's rodeo scene.
Gable insisted on doing his own stunts, including being dragged about 400 feet across the dry lake bed at more than 30 miles per hour.
In a documentary about the making of
The Misfits, Wallach told a story of Huston directing a scene where Wallach was at a bar with Gable. Huston told him that the most intoxicated he had ever been was the day before, even though he had seemed sober. The lesson for the actors was that an intoxicated person tries to act sober.
1930's Western actor
Rex Bell (who was married to
Clara Bow) made his final film appearance in a brief cameo as a cowboy. Bell was
Lieutenant Governor of Nevada at the time.
Thomas B. Allen was assigned to create drawings of the film as it was made.
Magnum Photos had staff photographers including
Inge Morath and
Eve Arnold assigned to document the making of
The Misfits.
During production, the cast's principals stayed at the Mapes Hotel in Reno. Film locations included the
Washoe County Court House on Virginia Street and nearby
Pyramid Lake. The bar scene where Monroe plays
paddle ball was filmed in
Dayton, Nevada, east of
Carson City.
Filming was completed on November 4, 1960 and
The Misfits was released on 1 February 1961.
Commercial and critical reception
Despite on-set difficulties, Monroe, Clift, and Gable delivered performances that modern movie critics consider superb.
[The Misfits - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes] Monroe received the 1961
Golden Globe Award as "World Film Favorite" in March, 1962.
Directors Guild of America nominated Huston as best director.
There were high expectations, given the star power of its writer, director and stars. Producer
Frank E. Taylor had heralded
The Misfits as "the ultimate motion picture" before its release.
The Misfits was met with mixed reviews, due mostly to its inevitably disjointed nature, and failed to meet expectations at the
box office. Despite being shot in
black and white, the final cost was about $4 million. It was said to be the most expensive black and white film made to that point in time. Its original domestic gross was just over its estimated budget of $4,000,000, making $4,100,000 in its initial USA release. It has brought larger profits to
United Artists since its release on DVD.
Aftermath
Gable suffered a
heart attack two days after filming ended and died 10 days later. Monroe and Clift attended the premiere in New York in February 1961 while Monroe was on pass from a psychiatric hospital; she later said that she hated the film and herself in it. Within a year and a half, she was dead of a drug overdose.
The Misfits was the last completed film for both Monroe and Gable, her childhood screen idol.
Montgomery Clift had been badly injured in an
automobile accident in 1956 that required
reconstructive surgery on his face, painfully evident in the many close-ups in
The Misfits; he died four years after the filming.
The Misfits was on television on the night Clift died. His live-in personal secretary, Lorenzo James, asked Clift if he wanted to watch it. "Absolutely NOT!" was Clift's reply, the last words that he spoke to anyone. He was found dead the next morning, having suffered a heart attack during the night.
Thelma Ritter enjoyed several more movie successes before passing away eight years after the movie was made.
Eli Wallach and
Kevin McCarthy went on to movie and stage careers that extend into the 21st century; both are nonagenarians.
Inge Morath of Magnum Photos married Arthur Miller in 1962; their union lasted 40 years until her death in 2002.
Miller's autobiography,
Timebends (1987), described the making of the film.
The 2001
PBS documentary,
Making The Misfits, did the same.
Miller's last play,
Finishing the Picture (2004), although fiction, was largely based on the events involved in the making of
The Misfits.
