The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: The Cinema of John Huston by John McCarty

Author:John McCarty [McCarty, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cinema critique
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2016-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

THE MISFITS (1961)

A Seven Arts Picture released through United Artists, 124 minutes

CREDITS:

Director: John Huston; Producer: Frank Taylor; Screenplay: Arthur Miller; Cinematographer: Russell Metty; Editor: George Tomasini; Music: Alex North; Art Directors: William Newberry and Stephen Grimes.

CAST:

Gay Langland: Clark Gable; Roslyn Taber: Marilyn Monroe; Perce Howland: Montgomery Clift; Guido Dellini: Eli Wallach; Mr. Taber: Kevin McCarthy; Isabelle: Thelma Ritter.

Contemporary Reviews

“John Huston’s direction is his best in years, well-knit and hard, at times even recalling The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Too bad that his camera occasionally peers lubriciously down the girl’s bodice or elsewhere to remind us that Roslyn is really Marilyn Monroe.”—The New Republic

“Miss Monroe, on screen, is again the dumb blonde trying to act interpretively and introspectively. But the wonderful intuition of her earlier career is gone; and the cerebral method has now taken over. You can see the wheels working behind those wide eyes and furrowed brow. Mr. Gable in his last picture, was, as always, an old pro—wonderfully expert—as the ex-pilot, Wallach is splendid, and so is Clift as the rodeo rider. John Huston directed with great power, sensitivity, pictorial excitement—and, I have been told, much patience.”—Cue magazine

“It has a vitality so rich that I dare say it can scarcely be taken in at one viewing. It gives that sense of warm, almost fleshly contact with reality that one never experiences except where a Film has grown out of somebody’s response to life.”—The New York Herald Tribune

“Mr. Huston’s direction is dynamic, inventive and colorful. But the picture just doesn’t come off.”—The New York Times

Superstar American playwright Arthur Miller (All My Sons, Death of a Salesman) drew the inspiration for The Misfits, his first original screenplay, from a short story he’d written some years before. The story was about a group of modern-day cowboys, who, accom­panied by a troubled divorcee, set out to capture a string of wild mustangs in order to sell them to a dog food manufacturer. In the end, they come to view the animals as symbols of themselves and decide to let them go. Miller expanded the story into a full-length screenplay for his then wife, Marilyn Monroe, who was looking for a strong vehicle in which to demonstrate her abilities as a straight dramatic actress.

John Huston was approached to direct by producer Frank Taylor, and, after reading the script, quickly agreed, for the theme of the film had much in common with his own past work. All the characters in The Misfits are reckless, easily bored types whose lives seem plagued by ill-luck. Typically, the source of this bad luck rests not in their stars but in themselves, a truth they are forced to confront when they trek into the hills to capture a herd of wild mustangs that one of the group, a cowboy pilot named Guido, has reported seeing from the air. As in the short story, the mustangs are to be sold to a dog food manufacturer, a situation that the divorcee, Roslyn (whom Guido pretentiously describes as having the “gift of life”), protests against violently.

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