Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
While filing for a divorce, beautiful ex-stripper Roslyn Taber ends up meeting aging cowboy-turned-gambler Gay Langland and former World War II aviator Guido Racanelli. The two men instantly become infatuated with Roslyn and, on a whim, the three decide to move into Guido's half-finished desert home together. When grizzled ex-rodeo rider Perce Howland arrives, the unlikely foursome strike up a business capturing wild horses.
The Misfits carries enormous historical weight as the final completed film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, and Arthur Miller's screenplay offers a melancholy meditation on the dying American West and displaced souls. The acting is genuinely exceptional — Gable delivers one of his most complex performances, Monroe brings raw vulnerability rarely matched in her career, and Montgomery Clift is heartbreaking in a supporting role. However, the plot meanders considerably in its middle section and the romantic dynamics feel schematic at times. Russell Metty's black-and-white cinematography is competent and captures the Nevada desert well but rarely achieves the transcendent quality of the era's best work. The film's thematic territory — the end of the frontier myth, modern alienation — was not entirely novel even in 1961, though Miller's treatment is personal and textured. The ending, with its ambiguous reconciliation after the harrowing mustang sequence, earns emotional resonance but leaves some threads unresolved.