Jonathan Pearson

Since my show schedule has been light this week, I decided to see what movies were playing on TCM this week. I've already watched Fire Over England (1937) with Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Olivier, as well as the epic musical, Fiddler on the Roof (1971). As the week goes on I will probably blog about each of those two! But for now I wanted to share you this classic from 1961, The Misfits, starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. 

Directed by John Huston, this classic is about Roslyn (Monroe) who goes to Reno to divorce her husband and meets Isabelle (Thelma Ritter) and Guido (Eli Wallach), who introduces her to Gay (Gable). They go out for a drink and then go back to Guido's house for the night. They all develop a friendship but Guido and Gay both fall in love with Roslyn. 

Roslyn is beautiful. Throughout all the men who've left her and hurt her, she still maintains her innocence and truthfulness. This movie was Monroe's last and knowing what we know about her life now, you can see how this character really represented her--her hopes, dreams, childlike charm, gentle sexiness.

Roslyn and Gay fall in love. They start a life together. Farming and living a quiet life in the Nevada countryside. One day the gang decides to go into town for the rodeo. There they meet Perce (Clift).

Perce and Roslyn develop a friendship after Perce gets injured at the rodeo. He joins the gang for a night of drinks where Gay invites Perce to join them to go up to the mountains and round up some Mustang horses to sell for feed.

Roslyn doesn't realize what's going to happen to the horses when they're caught. She thinks they'll be sold for cowboys to ride. Gay tells her times have changed and they need the horses to make dog feed. Once she realizes they'll be killed, she convinces Perce to cut loose all the horses. But Gay takes off after the horses on foot and a battle begins between him and a stallion. He eventually tames the stallion. Everyone thinks he's going to kill it, but he lets it go. He tells them he doesn't want anyone telling him what to do--he makes his own decisions on his own time. 

They say their goodbyes to everyone and drive off into the night, using the north star as their only light home. It was both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable's final film. Gable died of a heart attack 12 days after they completed filming; Monroe dying a year later while filming,    Something's Got To Give, which IMDB lists as her final film, even though it was never completed. Truly a great film! It's not available streaming on Netflix, but you might catch a replay on TCM!

The cast and crew on the set of The Misfits.