The Big Picture

• The Misfits is a dark examination of the failed American dream and features career-best performances by Hollywood legends Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable.
• The film was misunderstood upon release due to Monroe's dramatic performance contrasting her usual comedic roles.
• A mere ten days after filming was completed, Clark Gable died, with Marilyn Monroe passing roughly a year and a half later.

The Misfits is one of the greatest films of the '60s, and captured lightning in a bottle by containing career best performances by two of Hollywood's greatest legends. The film stars Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, and Thelma Ritter. It was the last film Gable or Monroe would ever complete prior to their deaths. A dark, modern Western about aging cowboys and a dying West, the John Huston and Arthur Miller penned film is a dark examination of the failed American dream. If you're scratching your head wondering why you haven't seen the film that featured so many Hollywood heavyweights, you're not alone.

Now revered as a cult-classic masterpiece, The Misfits was released in February 1961 and was a box office failure, despite receiving mixed acclaim from critics. People were unsure of what to do with such a transformed, dramatic Monroe who turned in a heartbreaking performance as a depressed, whiskey-guzzling woman who held her own against screen legend, Gable. Similarly, Gable played a hardened cowboy, and while the charm remained, there's no remnant of the hero audiences had come to associate him with. Add on harrowing performances by Clift as a failed rodeo rider, alongside Wallach and Ritter in riveting supporting roles, and it was an anomaly. Now, many people consider it to be one of Monroe's greatest performances, and once Gable watched the finished product, he believed it to be the best work he ever did. Shooting in the hot Nevada sun, Gable suffered from a heart attack two days after filming and died ten days later, and Monroe died over a year later in August 1962, from an apparent overdose. The Misfits has become as legendary as all its behind-the-scenes turmoil, as it's on-screen triumph.

What Is 'The Misfits' About?

The Misfits is a gritty examination of a changing American West, and the lost dominance cowboys once possessed over the land. Notably written by Monroe's husband, Arthur Miller, It begins with the soon-to-be divorced, ex-stripper, Roslyn Tabor (Marilyn Monroe), arriving in Reno, Las Vegas, so she can file for divorce. Aimless and lonely, she falls prey to an aging cowboy and gambler, Gaylord Langland (Clark Gable). The two are joined by World War 2 veteran, Guido (Eli Wallach), who becomes equally entranced by Roslyn. Deciding to stay at Guido's secluded home in the desert while awaiting the divorce, Roslyn and Gay enter a relationship filled with drinking and gambling. As the men become obsessed with possessing Roslyn like they once were with possessing land, she becomes chained to their toxic lifestyle.

When Roslyn, Gay, and Guido drive out to a rodeo and meet the wild ex-rodeo rider, Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift), things take a sinister turn. Struggling to make ends meet in a world where cowboys are nearly extinct, Gay hatches a plan to capture and steal wild horses, and sell them to be slaughtered and turned into dog food. Guido and Perce agree to help, while the sensitive Roslyn begins to feel uneasy about the plan. Monroe's performance is a devastating kick to the gut, and her raw vulnerability as a woman being pushed around by greedy men reflected her own life at the time. Gable is electrifying as well as an embittered would-be-hero who loses every redeeming quality as the film progresses, and he and Monroe share stunning scenes as a doomed couple finding solace in each other's loneliness.

'The Misfits' Is One of Marilyn Monroe's Best Performances of Her Career

People attending The Misfits who were expecting the sex symbol they had come to know, love, and objectify to shine on the screen were in for a rude awakening. At that point, most of Monroe's characters were ditzy, comedic blondes in films like Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and The Seven Year Itch. The importance of Monroe's looks and apparel was often placed over the talent she had to offer. In The Misfits, she reminded audiences just what she was capable of as a dramatic actress. Her character, Roslyn, shared similarities to Monroe's troubled life, as she was often coveted by men, only to remain disrespected and alone.

Training with her longtime acting coach, Lee Strasberg, Monroe gave a career-best, haunting performance. In her most poignant scene with Gable's character, Gay, he sees her as more than just a pretty face. He comments, "What makes you so sad? I think you're the saddest girl I've ever met." Huston stays close on Monroe's tear-filled face, and she simply responds, "You're the first man that's ever said that. I'm usually told how happy I am." The scene is a reflection of why the film was likely such a hard pill for audiences to swallow. Monroe was no longer the smiling, giggling star willing to do anything to be likable.

Roslyn is somber, lonely, but strong in her convictions when it comes to protecting the wild horses from the men in the film's riveting last hour. Monroe notably didn't like her performance at the time, and didn't like to watch herself in the film. Now, in her vast but all too short filmography, it's fitting that she saved the best for last. Discussing the film years later, and the surprising choice to cast Monroe in such a complex role, her ex-husband Arthur Miller explained his choice: "I thought of it as a role Marilyn could play. She was at a stage in her life when no one was really going to give her a dramatic role, because she was especially a comedian and a light fluff, and I knew better."

Marilyn Monroe Was Hospitalized During the Filming of 'The Misfits'

The Misfits was a notoriously difficult shoot, so much so, that author James Goode wrote a book about it: The Making of the Misfits. Huston was shooting the film on location in the desert, where temperatures were reaching over 100 degrees daily. During the shoot, Monroe's marriage to Miller was falling apart, which led to heavy drinking. Monroe was not the only one struggling with depression and addiction either, as co-star Montgomery Clift had recently suffered a near-death car crash which resulted in drug abuse. The pair's various addictions added to the growing tension on set. Going on to appear in only three more films after The Misfits, Clift died five years later at the age of 45 from a heart attack.

Monroe wound up being admitted to the hospital and was treated for depression during The Misfits. She would die roughly a year and a half after the film was released in August 1962. In the wake of her passing, Huston revealed what it was like for Monroe on set:

"A number of those close to her during the filming of 'The Misfits' thought it would only be a few short years before she died, or went into an institution. Her great enemy was sleeplessness. God only knows why she feared it so much. … In any case, she fought her enemy, consciousness, with sedatives, until she achieved not only sleeplessness, asleep, but insensibility. Then, stimulants would be employed to awaken her. This vicious circle played such a habit with her body, that she had to be hospitalized for 10 days in the middle of the picture."

Clark Gable Died Ten Days After Shooting 'The Misfits'

Clark Gable died just ten days after filming The Misfits, at the age of 59. Many vicious rumors spread around Hollywood that John Huston himself killed him, due to the grueling shoots and stunts Gable performed with the wild horses in the heat. Huston debunked those rumors in an interview years later on The Dick Cavett Show. He confirmed that they were entirely made up by infamous gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, and that stuntpeople performed the most dangerous sequences.

Though Gable was unable to see the final result of The Misfits, he was able to watch his performance in the studio before his death. Upon the viewing, he claimed it to be the best performance he ever gave, as a heartless man doing anything he could to remain in power over his environment. Arthur Miller said of Gable's reaction, "He had seen the rest of the film, and he told me that was the best picture he'd ever made…I don’t know, his station wagon went off, and he was dead about two days later of a heart attack." Gable was also notably a childhood idol of Monroe. The daughter of a single-mother, Monroe revealed in interviews that she would fantasize about Gable as her own father.

'The Misfits' Is One of the the Best Films of the '60s

In The Misfits, screenwriter Arthur Miller breaks apart the structure of the classic Western, and puts it back together in jumbled pieces that refuse to resemble a happy ending. By deconstructing everything that America had come to love about one of its most beloved genres, it broke down the America that had come and past. Roslyn doesn't know where to go, or where she belongs anymore, so she settles for a toxic cowboy instead. Leaving behind her old ways would save her, but would also be the death of who she is. Miller later revealed the meaning behind the film, and the true essence of the three lonely souls at the story's center: “They were misfits because they couldn’t dominate the earth anymore.” The wild horses they chase are elusive, and will never give them what they want. No matter what, Mother Nature wins every time.

The Misfits is available to stream on Pluto TV in the U.S.

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