From: ggggg9271@gmail.com   
      
   On Wednesday, July 4, 2007 at 6:17:53 AM UTC-10, FRAJM wrote:   
   > In 1961 my father and I went to see a new film starring his two favorite   
   > movie stars in all the world, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. After 20   
   > minutes, he said let's get out of here and for the last 45+ years that's   
   > all I've ever seen of _The Misfits_. Why did he walk on it? Because   
   > Monroe spends the movie in blue jeans and pigtails and he only wanted to   
   > see her glammed up as in _Gentlemen Prefer Blondes_ or his favorite film   
   > of all time, _Some Like It Hot_. As for Gable, he was looking old and   
   > playing someone who was at the core the saddest man in the world. It was   
   > just too much of a shock for the old man.   
   > Finally, I've gotten around to watching the DVD release of _The Misfits_   
   > and I could not be sorrier that my poor father couldn't have stayed with   
   > it to the end. It is a film of great beauty -- the performances, the   
   > direction (John Huston), the photography (Russell Metty), the music   
   > (Alex North), the editing (George Tomasini) -- and a theme that   
   > resonates with anyone who knows he or she is going to die.   
   > Monroe plays Roslyn, in Reno to divorce Kevin McCarthy. She has already   
   > been befriended by Thelma Ritter, who lights up the scenes she's in as   
   > usual. Roslyn soon becomes involved with three men, Gay (Gable) the   
   > aging cowboy, Guido aka Pilot (Eli Wallach) ex-WW II bomber, and Perce   
   > (Montgomery Clift). She moves into Guido's unfinished house out in the   
   > desert but is living, chastely it seems, with Gay. They fix up the   
   > house, plant a garden, have their first fight over whether Gay should   
   > shoot the rabbits who are eating their lettuce.   
   > At a rodeo, they pick up Perce, bumming around on the minor rodeo   
   > circuit, picking up $100 here, a concussion there, and generally feeling   
   > alienated since his mother remarried and his stepfather got his late   
   > father's ranch. Roslyn hates the rodeo, hates the cruelty to the animals   
   > and to the men.   
   > Eventually, the four of them go off to wrangle a herd of mustangs, wild   
   > horses. It's only when they get far out in the desert that Roslyn finds   
   > what is going to happen to the horses once they're captured, viz, sold   
   > to the knacker for pet food. She raises holy hell with the men who are   
   > willing to kill wild, free creatures just so they can avoid working for   
   > wages. Just the thought of the distant shot of her raging against the   
   > cruelty and hypocrisy of men, stomping and twisting in furious agony,   
   > brings a catch to my throat.   
   > The long sequence that constitutes about the last third of the film   
   > concerns the capture and ultimate fate of those mustangs and the effect   
   > it has on the four humans. The scenes of roping the herd stallion are   
   > thrilling and exciting, but you've got to be rooting for the doomed   
   > horse that fights and fights until it is too exhausted to fight any   
   > longer. It is possible that the vigorous work-out Gable got during these   
   > scenes, especially when he was being dragged by the stallion,   
   > contributed to the fatal heart attack he suffered shortly after shooting   
   > was finished.   
   > Arthur Miller wrote the script for his then-wife and overall it is a   
   > superb script. My only reservation about the film is the Roslyn is a   
   > little too wise and has amazing insights and ways of expressing herself   
   > that at times sound more theatrical than cinematic. For example, Perce   
   > asks her "who do you depend on?" She replies: "I don't know. Maybe all   
   > there really is is just the next thing. The next thing that happens.   
   > Maybe you're not supposed to remember anybody's promises."   
   > In any case, Monroe proved once again that she was a real actress. She   
   > might have been hell to work with, but what finally got on the screen   
   > has to have had it all worth while. Her disappointment with life, her   
   > sadness, and her pure faith in the power and goodness of life shines   
   > through her in every scene.   
   > Meanwhile, Gable had as good a role here as he ever got in his career;   
   > his Gay is complex, layered, sad, guarded, proud, lonely, nearly broken   
   > by the loss of everything he valued including family and wilderness and   
   > freedom.   
   > The other principal actors, Clift and Wallach, are likewise superb, each   
   > trying in his own way to use Roslyn to lift himself out of the hole he   
   > finds himself in. Their performances are utterly convincing and deeply   
   > moving.   
   > This is a film I will watch many times in the future and I know for a   
   > certainty that it is one of those films that I am going to find new   
   > treasures in each time.   
   > --   
   > Frank in Seattle   
   > ____   
   > Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney   
   > "Millennium hand and shrimp."   
      
   (Recent Youtube upload):   
      
   The Making of Marilyn Monroe's Very Meta Last Film   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)