THE MISFITS

The swan song for screen legends Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, The Misfits is a tragic and gorgeous ode to loneliness.

It is interesting to revisit a film at different points of your life. I originally saw The Misfits when I was 16, in the midst of my Marilyn Monroe obsession. The movie, I found, was bleak. And sad. And kind of mean. Shoot, even Clark Gable, one of my other classic-movie crushes, looked all old and tired. To a 16-year-old, 37-year-old Marilyn (in her last completed film role), looked worn-out and kind of broken. I didn't know much about poor, messed-up Montgomery Clift at the time, but apparently Marilyn said of him at the time, that Clift was "the only person I know who is in worse shape than I am."

Now I'm older than Marilyn was when she died, and look at her (and her character) differently. Marilyn's Roslyn is sweet and trusting, and knows... she just knows that she'll be screwed over despite being so open to the supposed kindness of strangers. She absolutely broke my heart this time around. Roslyn shows up in Reno for a quickie divorce, and soon falls in with a trio of men, all of whom initially portray the best intentions, but all who, to some degree, have expectations in return for their kindness.

Clark Gable plays old cowboy Gay (Gable died of a heart attack days after filming completed), who has seen it all, but that doesn't mean he has to settle on anyone else's terms. Roslyn first sees him as a gentlemanly father figure, but it is obviously he wants more than that. Then there is Eli Wallach's Guido, a local mechanic. He is a widower, with the half-finished dream house in the dessert where he and Gay bring Roslyn and her friend Isabelle (the great Thelma Ritter, who knows exactly what is going on, even when Roslyn is clueless). Guido also puts on the air of best intentions, but like the other men, his true colors come out at the end.

Finally, there is poor Montgomery Clift, who plays sad-sack rodeo cowboy Perce. Perce seems like he probably has the best heart of the bunch, probably because he radiates the same sort of guileless innocence as Roslyn. But like Roslyn, he hasn't had a lot of luck (his character even acknowledges this his messed-up face is almost healed, a reference to Clift's own altered mug, reconstructed after a disfiguring car accident).

The action (or non-action, for the most part, as The Misfits is very character-driven and stagey, written by Arthur Miller) climaxes out in the desert as the men wrangle some wild mustangs, much to Roslyn's despair. The mustangs become a metaphor for Roslyn's own freedom always leading to stifling entrapment, and she basically flips out in what is now a classic scene. Off in the distance on the desert flats, Roslyn screams and writhes toward the sky, while the men look on coolly, trying to hide their discomfort.

In this film, more than any of her others, in my opinion, Marilyn simply breaks your heart. Gable, who at first seems out of his element as all his co-stars are doing method acting while he is still in over-the-top 30's mode, settles in to his role, being both sympathetic and often kind of despicable. And poor Monty Clift. What a sweet, sad man. I have only seen him in A Place in the Sun, which I didn't like much, and now want to explore more of this beautiful, tragic man. And that is what The Misfits is, ultimately: a tragic story of tragic people. But tragedy is much more relatable for adults than for 16-year-old, so this time around, I found the movie to be rich, gorgeous (my god, the black-and-white cinematography!), and terribly sad.

BLU-RAY NOTES

Only a movie trailer? Really? I'll be waiting, and I'm sure there is SO much that could be said about this classic film.