Agreed. A Brilliant Film and a perfect cast..
Clark Gable looked every hour of his 61 years and somehow provided a jarring contrast to Marilyn however the casting is natural..Gable was manliness on the screen and Monroe womanhood on the screen..two celestial stars. John Huston had a hands off way of directing and created an atmosphere for a film. Gable ran with it and created a brilliant portrayal. With MM every thing she did, big or small, made the papers thus the ruckus during the filming: Her lateness, her
hospitalization, the production overruns..( her recent films Some Like It Hot, Lets Make Love and The Misfits all went way over schedule and Somethings Got To Give was also on track for huge overruns), while the media was not the way it is today, still rumbles were about her great affair with Yves Montand, and then to top it off Clark Gable dies right after filming.
MM and Arthur Miller had agreed to make this film for UA and had in fact received finanial advances to star in the movie, thus while stressed during the movie, they had to work together. Then UA did not know how to release it.
So they threw at the audiences rather than showcasing it. When Some Like It Hot opened it ran for 4 months before it made the neigborhood theatres. Both were UA films so somebody goofed.
Seen today it is one of the most important films from that era..and Gable, Clift, Ritter, Wallach are fine and Marilyn magnficent. As Billy Wilder--whom she fought with a lot during Some Like It Hot--said there was no one on the screen like Monroe, not even Garbo.
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Devans00
19 years ago
If you haven't already Williliwaw, I recommend you watch "Great Performances" (1972) {Making 'The Misfits'}. Netflix has the DVD.
It gives some insight to the people behind the personalities. I was amazed to hear about the extent to hero/goddess worship for Marilyn when she was alive. I thought a lot of her mistique was marketing build-up in the years after her death.
My main criticism is that Thelma Ritter wasn't given enough minutes. She more than held her own against Monroe and Errol. At least at the beggining of the movie. Near the end, she was hardly there.
I love the quote Errol Flynn said comparing himself to John Huston. Basically he predicted Huston's womanizing, gambling and carousing would lead to an early grave. Instead Flynn died within 6 months and Huston lived for another 25+ years.
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. --Law of Probable Dispersal
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joekiddlouischama
19 years ago
John Huston had a hands off way of directing and created an atmosphere for a film.
Very true. Huston's style is "invisible" and yet immensely powerful and moving. I write about that here:
doesn't have any distinct themes or a visual style that runs through all his films.
I totally disagree. Huston came out of the same filmmaking philosophy as Howard Hawks and John Ford, which was to showcase the story unpretentiously rather than try to show the director's hand from behind the camera via stylistic gimmicks. Still, despite his unpretentious style and the varied subjects and settings of his films, Huston definitely featured a consistent set of themes and his own visual aesthetic. Most of his films comprise a study of vulnerable loners and down-on-their-lick misfits who are somehow disaffected and detached from the hostile societies that they inhabit. Often in his films, two or three of these loners or misfits will come together in hopes of finding some security or sanctuary, some islands of hope and camaraderie in a stormy sea. Just as often, however, they'll eventually fall out or attain only a tenuous reconciliation, as their stubborn personalities, willful ambitions (ranging from duty to hubris), and earthy desires (such as lust and greed) eventually drive them apart. Movies such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Key Largo (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), The Misfits (1961), and The Man Who Would Be King (1975) (all of which are classics) all share these thematic concerns about misfits struggling (usually unsuccessfully) to fit together while fighting against their personal demons and the larger forces of destiny and tragedy. Indeed, Huston was a modernist director with a sense of fatalism that made him unique among Old Hollywood figures. Visually, Huston never called attention to himself, and yet his aesthetic style is quite palpable. As a painter, he had an excellent eye for compositions and landscape, and he possessed an inherently reflective and realistic sense of pacing. Huston's films never drag, but they unfold casually and unhurriedly, without rushing. His films are fluid yet sinewy, graceful yet gritty, prospering from an unconscious yet authoritative directorial perspective. They're intelligently aware and yet they don't strain to impose social meaning, and there's also a zestful freshness to them that reflects Huston's life spirit.
In other words, Huston was indeed an auteur, but if you interpret that label as referring to someone who only works in one or two genres or features a bunch of self-conscious stylistic trademarks, then of course you'll fail to properly recognize John Huston. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001379/board/thread/34976037?d=35176656#35176656
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