An original script from Arthur Miller, The Misfits turns on the playwright’s usual concern: that of the individual trying to maintain his identity in a changing world. Cowboys are the dying breed here, specifically an aging wrangler played by Clark Gable, a mechanic played by Eli Wallach and a daredevil bull-rider played by Montgomery Clift, all of whom head out into the Nevada desert to round up wild horses for dog meat. Then, of course, there is Marilyn Monroe, whose disintegrating marriage to Miller would end in divorce after the film’s premiere. She plays Roslyn Taber, a recent divorcee with a stunning figure and serious emotional problems – not unlike Monroe in real life. Hooking up with the boys, Rosyln embraces her newfound freedom by playing cowgirl, ostensibly pairing off with Gable’s Gay Langland but always making it clear that the door remains opens for the two other men. The resulting drama comes more from sexual tension than any narrative developments. Miller lays on thick metaphors about how the horses and the men hunting them are suffering the same fate, but his true obsession – the maddening Monroe – comes through more clearly. On one level, The Misfits is a joke on the starlet and all the men who have ever swooned over her. They’re seen as fools, leering cowboys, and she ultimately proves to be an unstable siren unworthy of their attention.
