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The Misfits

         One old movie I saw recently starred Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach. It was black and white from 1961, called The Misfits. I'd heard the name, but had never seen it or heard about it.

         They were chasing wild horses,mustangs, like cowboys, but using a pickup truck and a plane. They had no intentions of "breaking" them and selling them. They wanted fast money, which meant selling them for dog food. Immediately, I found this appalling. Apparently, so did Marilyn's character after she found out the whole story.

         Speaking of Marilyn, she did a great job. She was sexy without throwing it in your face or acting overtly stupid. If anything, she played a naive part. Her character was an ex-stripper, but she was conservatively dressed for the role. In real life, she was going through alcohol and drug abuse. Many close up shots had to be done in a softer way to hide the problems. She was in and out of detox during filming. Her marriage was crumbling.

         It was hard to understand Montgomery's character. He was a rodeo rider with a lot of baggage. Gable played an aging cowboy, and evolved by the end. Eli played the bad guy as usual, purely mercenary. They were all attracted to Marilyn, but she stayed with Gable.

         It took me a long time to figure out who Eli was, since he wasn't listed on the program. This was years before The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, his most famous movie. He was thin and unwrinkled. I kept wondering if it was a young Larry Storch, who I've only seen in comedies, or a young Robert Vaughn. Then the voice hit me. He was still playing the cynical, greedy role.

         I took the title to be about the people at first, and, of course, it was in the end. But they called the wild horses "the misfits". Both the people and the horses didn't fit into a changing world. With the exception of one horse, both groups managed to survive. Excellent movie.

         The script writer was Arthur Miller, who was married to Marilyn. Gable had a heart attack right after filming was finished and died 10 days later. Marilyn died the following year. So it was the last film for both. The movie was not a box office hit. Only in retrospect has it found its place.