*** The End Of The American Frontier- Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift in The Misfits

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD REVIEW

The Misfits –Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, directed by John Huston, from The Misfits by the playwright Arthur Miller

Let’s face it even for Eastern guys, Eastern guys who get a little nervous when there are not streetlights every few feet to pave the way or when he hears the coyotes howling in the cold night distance what is not to like about a movie set in the modern American West. The American West where the land, as old Harvard Professor Turner declared in his famous thesis on the frontier, had long before run out when everybody hit the ocean and realized that unless they were going to take the proverbial slow boat to China they were going to have to make their mark in the canyons and arroyos, or else. That “or else” is what drives this film under review, The Misfits where old- time values hell-bent stubborn cowboys are up against a fast encroaching civilization that had already devoured most of their way of life by the 1950s time- frame of the film.

Yes, the New West, Larry McMurtry’s many novels described New West of suburban dreamers and small- town hangers- on   and those who haven’t made the adjustment where civilization is fast taking the starch out of the independent-minded cowboys who are trying to hold on for dear life. And losing. They had obviously not read that afore-mentioned Harvard Professor Turner's thesis about the end of the American frontier. The code of the old West, the every man for himself and his, the rough-hewn justice where there was no law and one shot first, and better, shot quick and all its other values was losing its grip to the ethos of the modern bottom line capitalist farmer and rancher. Larry McMurtry in his book and in the subsequent film The Last Picture Show as well as others have also taken up this theme but none have done it better on film than The Misfits.

The plotline is simple enough- Rosalyn (played by Marilyn Monroe almost every Great Depression/ World War II in the battlefields man’s idea of the perfect blonde, and maybe she was at that) headed to Reno, Reno, Nevada in case you don’t’ know but for our purposes the capital of the quick divorce then for marriages that “didn’t take.”  Hers didn’t. Along the way during her stay in Reno she met Gay (played by Clark Gable, everybody’s idea, 1930s Saturday matinee idea, and that counted for a lot, idea of a real man, and maybe he was) and they have an affair, a stormy sometimes things affair fraught with all the problems that two previously married people can muster up. Aided and abetted by a guy in the wings, Guido (played by Eli Wallach) ready to swoop in and pick up the pieces and a crazy-ass rodeo cowboy. Perce, who does not know how to quit when he is ahead and in one piece and who has all the angst of the modern day cowboy whose sun is setting.

Beyond those tangled interpersonal relationships though stands the hunt, the hunt for wild mustangs that starkly epitomized the alienation of the modern cowboy from his roots and from an encroaching world. Now was this hunt to gather a nice dependable steed for a day’s work out on the range. Hell no, it was strictly for dough, for coffee and crullers since the captured horses, beautiful horses running wild, were to be sold for dog food. Jesus. The tension around this hunt, the driven attempts by Rosalyn to stop that madness is what drives the last part of the film, ending where Gay and she go off into the sunset after he gets “religion” on the horse issue (remember romance and happy endings, or not too unhappy endings, is what drove box-offices in those days).         

Add a screenplay by the legendary playwright Arthur Miller and direction by John Huston. Further add the strong performances, aided by the stark black and white format highlighting the beauty and danger, Nevada danger, of the rocky west, of a grizzled Clark Gable, the ill-fated Marilyn Monroe and the troubled Montgomery Clift supported by Thelma Ritter and Eli Wallach and you have a very good film indeed. I have read that Miller’s screenplay was written especially for Monroe, his then wife. If so that explains why this story about castoffs, drifters and non-conformists looking for some emotional relief in the New West that has passed them by had such a powerful effect on me. Monroe as the beautiful but hard luck and misunderstood object of affection seemingly was playing herself here. And to great effect. Watch it.