- Awards
- 21
"You're Three Dead Men..!!"
Well, Gable, Monty and Monroe sure were --- Eli Wallach lived to be nearly 100 years old.
Now, that's a movie...
I watched THE MISFITS last night, in celebration of Marilyn's 100th birthday. It barely broke even at the box office in '61, was criticized for being so expensive for a B&W movie, and received a patronizing reception from the critics. While Marilyn and Clift went to their graves convinced that it wasn't any good as a film, Clark Gable, initially confused about exactly what kind of western he was making, became convinced before the picture wrapped that it was going to be one of the best of his career (just exactly why, I'm not sure, but he died a week after production ceased and he never saw the final cut -- if any cut).
Marilyn was horrified that her husband, screenwriter Arthur Miller, "would do this to me?" regarding her "you're three dead men!!" scene, even though director John Huston tastefully keeps the camera at a half-mile's distance from Monroe, and it works just fine. (His gambling bills didn't help the bad will from Fox).
Marilyn once said Montgomery Clift was the "only person in Hollywood more screwed up than I am." She was afraid her on-set behavior had killed her childhood her idol, Clark Gable (his widowed gently assured the star that she hadn't)). And the Millers would soon divorce.
THE MISFITS holds greater esteem today (as indeed it always should have) and some consider it to be her best performance, if the least glamorous. Like some Crawford fans who didn't want to see her scarred up in A WOMAN'S FACE, some Marilyn aficionados only want to her in sequins. Some find the script talky and pretentious but, if so, it doesn't seem to matter.
I think it's a wonderful movie, my favorite Marilyn Monroe film, and one of my favorites ever. The period seals, and defines, it: that doomed, end-of-the world, Twilight-Zoney ambiance of the early-1960s.
Apropos of something important, Gable expired within days, Monroe in less than two years (her final completed movie), and Clift kicked-off in 1966. It was their dusty cinematic sarcophagus, haunted and forlorn and looking into the face of eternity, like the era itself.
What more could I want?
Well, Gable, Monty and Monroe sure were --- Eli Wallach lived to be nearly 100 years old.
Now, that's a movie...
I watched THE MISFITS last night, in celebration of Marilyn's 100th birthday. It barely broke even at the box office in '61, was criticized for being so expensive for a B&W movie, and received a patronizing reception from the critics. While Marilyn and Clift went to their graves convinced that it wasn't any good as a film, Clark Gable, initially confused about exactly what kind of western he was making, became convinced before the picture wrapped that it was going to be one of the best of his career (just exactly why, I'm not sure, but he died a week after production ceased and he never saw the final cut -- if any cut).
Marilyn was horrified that her husband, screenwriter Arthur Miller, "would do this to me?" regarding her "you're three dead men!!" scene, even though director John Huston tastefully keeps the camera at a half-mile's distance from Monroe, and it works just fine. (His gambling bills didn't help the bad will from Fox).
Marilyn once said Montgomery Clift was the "only person in Hollywood more screwed up than I am." She was afraid her on-set behavior had killed her childhood her idol, Clark Gable (his widowed gently assured the star that she hadn't)). And the Millers would soon divorce.
THE MISFITS holds greater esteem today (as indeed it always should have) and some consider it to be her best performance, if the least glamorous. Like some Crawford fans who didn't want to see her scarred up in A WOMAN'S FACE, some Marilyn aficionados only want to her in sequins. Some find the script talky and pretentious but, if so, it doesn't seem to matter.
I think it's a wonderful movie, my favorite Marilyn Monroe film, and one of my favorites ever. The period seals, and defines, it: that doomed, end-of-the world, Twilight-Zoney ambiance of the early-1960s.
Apropos of something important, Gable expired within days, Monroe in less than two years (her final completed movie), and Clift kicked-off in 1966. It was their dusty cinematic sarcophagus, haunted and forlorn and looking into the face of eternity, like the era itself.
What more could I want?
