Stark Drama

Arthur Miller wrote the screenplay for this film about a group of people, rootless and alone, who come together in Reno, Nevada and learn a little something about themselves. Marilyn Monroe stars as a dancer who has come to Reno for a divorce from her husband Kevin McCarthy. She stays with divorcee Thelma Ritter, and she has no idea where to move on to next. Eli Wallach is a pilot/cowboy who falls for her, and he's a widower with a house out in the middle of nowhere he offers to her. Clark Gable is his cowboy partner who falls for Monroe, too. Montgomery Clift is a walking rodeo accident/cowboy who joins up with them to go Mustanging. Each character has their own story, secrets, and pain, and Monroe seems to be the one who draws it out of them. Monroe gives an excellent performance, fragile yet sexy, and it shows the kind of actress she was becoming. The men all give top performances as well, and Thelma Ritter proves again that she could deliver a wisecrack better than anyone. The scenes surrounding the capture of the Mustang horses are unforgettable, and all the more starkly presented with the terrific black and white photography. This isn't a film that will make you feel good when it's over, but it presents some very real characters in an almost too honest way.

A MUST-HAVE FOR ANY SERIOUS MARILYN FAN.

This Movie isn't for everybody...shot in black and white, it's a moody and stark Account of a group of Misfits,an aging cowboy,a rodeo rider,a mechanic and a confused divorcee.
Marilyn Monroe is making the most of the material, as written for her by then estranged husband Arthur Miller. Some of her Lines are uncanny, as if taken straight out of marilyn's own Life. Some of them not very flattering.
The performances by Clark Gable (in his last Role),Monty Clift and Eli Wallach are superb.
I like the Scenes in the desert where Rosalyn (a brilliant Marilyn) starts to get deviant against the others....
I know Marilyn did not particularely care for this Movie...too many memories of a bad marriage, a script she didn't care for and intolerable conditions while shooting the movie in the Nevada desert. And it wasn't a blockbuster.
But this Movie is probobly one of my favorites of marilyns...

Monroe at her best

In "The Misfits," Arthur Miller creates an atmosphere which seeps directly into the viewer's bones...
Dark, depressing, gloomy, and filmed in black and white, works beautifully.
Monroe, Gable, Clift, Wallach, and even the Mustangs all search for their place among the elements.
From bar to bar they go, drinking, flirting, drinking... did I say drinking?
They all want Monroe, but she doesn't know what she wants...just
to take care of somebody, just to be loved, just to be left alone. (Sounds familiar) she was cast perfectly.
An unbelievably powerful scene is ...
when Monroe does not want the men to catch the Mustangs for dog food...she runs in the middle of the desert, screaming, yelling, crying, tossing the sand in the air...
"Leave them alone, let them be. Why are you doing this? They want to be free. Please. Please. Leave them alone."

The viewer will be there...

feeling, lifting whatever passion they may have too, letting it go, letting it go...

because without freedom or direction.... one has nothing, the characters had nothing, the mustangs with their hoofs tied, had nothing.

When Monroe screams like a mad woman, we all scream with her...
For any wrong ever done, any lonliness we ever had, any love we never recieved.

***Note***A must watch for Monroe's performance alone!