150 Word Review: 'The Misfits' (1961)
Hold your horses
The Wild West isn’t just dead, it’s rotting in the sun in The Misfits. This is Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable’s last movie; they’re both extraordinary. Gable suffered a heart attack days after wrapping filming. Eighteen months later, Monroe died of a fatal drug overdose. They’re a pair of raw nerves, a divorced stripper and a louche, aging gambler who meet in Reno, unfortunately, a boozy purgatory for lost souls.
Gable was 59 but looks 10 years older. Monroe is beautiful and troubled. Is she really so innocent? Gable leers at her body. They form a love quadrangle with an angry widower played by Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift’s kind, sad cowboy. John Huston directs; the desert isn’t empty, it’s lonely. Haunted. There used to be hundreds of wild mustangs in Nevada. No more. The screenplay is by Arthur Miller, Monroe’s then-husband. The dialogue rattles. They broke up during filming.