Review of The Misfits (1961) by Jake R — 12 Jul 2009

This was an odd time for the world. The old order, the tradition that had stood for centuries and had gripped the world through the austerity after the Second World War was unravelling at an increasing pace. In Hollywood, the situation was getting worse. The original heroes were getting old and fading away, churning out loud, expensive movies in an effort to drag the public from their beloved television. The wave of young, enormously talented stars from the 50s were either dead or in the throes of the excess that comes with success. To be over 30 at the time one would have been as lost as if at sea. It's perhaps this vague, probably non-existent ideal that is captured in 'The Misfits'.

This is a film complex on so many levels. The quartet of stars make for a very uneasy cast. Apart from Wallach all of them seem worn raw and exhausted, quivering beasts assaulted by difficult lives. True, it unmasks any previous reservations with a clutch of extraordinary performances, but at what cost?

Gable, the 'King of Hollywood', looks like a carved piece of 100-year old furniture, but he has a leonine strength about him. That ruggedness and simple toughness constitutes a lingering demeanour of his 30s heyday, when he was the perfect crystallisation of masculinity. Though he still physically commands an instant respect, his philosophies and patronising attitude, powered by an unhealthy lust, all expose his anachronistic nature.

Clift too has lost all of his youthful lustre, his once roguish features battered by time and abuse. His prowess has far from dimmed though, and his technique, the original Method genius, is a remarkable essay in a broken middle-age missing the few years between that and his firecracker youth.

Wallach comes out of the experience the most intact, his own natural ability at simmering menace softened by a real affection, and, if anything, seems the most sharply drawn object throughout the film.

If anyone's going to marvel at this though it's because of Monroe. She seems as far removed from the giddy bounciness of her infamy as possible. Here she stumbles through the film in a disillusioned daze, her flawless features cracked by shadows of unbearable inner pain. It's hard to believe this was made only a year after 'Some Like It Hot': there her sparkiness and girlish sexiness seemed like bottled lightning, but here she's a broken hull of a woman, still with that gorgeous frame but coloured a shade of the saddest grey.

With performances as astonishingly powerful as this one need not really pay attention to the story. Huston's amateurish 'professionalism' makes no mark this is his work, while Miller's script is the sort of embarrassing digression of adults into grown-up kids that passes for 'indie' cinema these days. There are, admittedly, some nice thoughts about the nature of being lost in a sea of change, but most of it is dross, given an electrifying meaning by the powerful craft of the actors. It's a strange phenomenon when the film and its aspiratios mean nothing and the actors play themselves up to try and have fun with each other, but it does happen. Given the nature of hellish shoot one wonders how the film comes out with such a soft warmth. Those poor,mixed-up kids....