Synopsis
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.
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Cast
- Marilyn MonroeRoslyn Taber
- Clark GableGay Langland
- Eli WallachGuido
- Montgomery CliftPerce Howland
- Thelma RitterIsabelle Steers
- James BartonFletcher's grandfather
- Kevin McCarthyRaymond Taber
- Estelle WinwoodChurch lady collecting money in bar
- Rex BellOld Cowboy (uncredited)
- John HustonExtra in Blackjack Scene (uncredited)
Recommendations
- 100
New York Daily News
The film moves at a leisurely pace at first, but it accelerates as it moves towards its exciting climax. - 100
The Telegraph
What a multiple swansong and beautiful accident The Misfits is. - 100
CineVue
It’s a picture so precariously balanced on the edge of poetry and sentiment, of defiance and self-pity. - 90
Variety
At face value, The Misfits, is a robust, high-voltage adventure drama, vibrating with explosively emotional histrionics, conceived and executed with a refreshing disdain for superficial technical and photographic slickness in favor of an uncommonly honest and direct cinematic approach. Within this framework, however, lurks a complex mass of introspective conflicts, symbolic parallels and motivational contradictions, the nuances of which may seriously confound general audiences. - 80
The Guardian
For me, the film is itself a bit of misfit, full of big stagey speeches, contrived moments and some overemphatic performances, but opened out with muscular style by Huston. The faces of Gable, Clift and Monroe together in closeup have a Mount Rushmore look to them. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Many have called this film a brilliant mood piece of a dying Old West; that doesn't make it a masterpiece, but the ghosts of its cast do still haunt one's viewing experience. - 75
LarsenOnFilm
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. - 60
Time Out
The final screen outing for stars Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, this is a sparky but rather shallow story of emotional frailty in the Nevada desert.
