MovieFiendz Review: The Misfits (1961)

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]The Misfits is a 1961 romantic drama film. This is directed by John Huston and is the last movie of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. So, two on-screen legends, want to check out this film that's leaving Amazon Prime cuz it's part I think there's a weird thing going on with Amazon Prime where they since they purchased MGM, they didn't just absorb their whole catalog, they're sort of licensing out a lot of movies. So, they don't get You don't get to have every MGM movie if you have Amazon Prime. So, that's why every month they kick a few out to other people, distributors, or whatever. So, this movie is about Roslyn. She's a former stripper who wants to divorce her husband. So, with the support of her landlady, she's able to do so. It's a very somber opening. However, while she's out celebrating with some, you know, whiskey and booze, they meet Guido. He is a man who uh uh introduces her to Gay, Gay short for Gaylord. And Gay is a cowboy and he's like a, you know, a rugged, you know, man. So, he he Guido invites them all to uh an unfinished house in the middle of nowhere where he was going to build it for his wife. However, his wife passed away tragically. So, everyone in this movie seems to have some sort of somber attitude. But, basically Roslyn likes hanging out at this house. Obviously, she's very beautiful. So, all the men are smitten with her and they just get to hang out there and a beautiful view and just sort of live, you know, life untethered and free. That's sort of like the main theme.

[00:01:33]And something that I kind of made me interested is that um I always wondered why Marilyn Monroe, you know, the super blonde, beautiful Hollywood screen legend married Arthur Miller, a playwright, a nerd, you know, a writer. It's because this movie has amazing writing. This I didn't really get it at first, but near the end of the movie, the themes of the film really come out to play as we find out what um Guido and uh Gay like to go do for for money. They go out and they they wrestle horses and they usually capture horses brutally and then they're they're usually brought to slaughter for feed or they're sold if they're a stallion they're sold for money and they they able to recruit Percy. He's like a another cowboy man and the three of them take her out for the her first sort of hunt and it really really disturbs her because she finds out what they're going to do to the horses and it's like a metaphor for almost like killing something beautiful for no reason just for money just for for whatever and it doesn't really hit her until near the end and she freaks out and they they all laugh at her and it's a really bittersweet weird little movie but masterful writing. Now I know obviously she didn't marry him just cuz he's a good writer. He's obviously a good writer but they must have you know had other stuff going on you know cuz you know for a while there Marilyn Monroe was sort of typecast as the nerdy air not nerdy ditsy airhead blonde and then she sort of had to step away from that so she had to make her own production company and she needed like a good writer and I don't know when she married him but they obviously wanted to step away from that sort of stereotype so this movie is definitely not like her other films it's very gritty and very somber and different and almost like a like a Tennessee Williams like play of of really good quality it's just a really solid film overall. I really like this one I gave The Misfits a 7 out of 10.