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In retrospect, THE MISFITS has taken on a grander, more haunting feel now that we know more about what would happen to the people who made it. It serves as the last and arguably best screen performances for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. Written by playwright/Monroe’s husband Arthur Miller and directed by vet John Huston (THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE), the story has a slow build to a perfectly realized conclusion.

Roslyn Taber (Monroe) has just gotten a divorce in Reno from her husband, who we can infer was at least mentally abusive to her. To start the film, Roslyn has been in a car accident and the mechanic Guido (Eli Wallach, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY) offers Rosyln and her new friend Isabelle Steers (Thelma Ritter, REAR WINDOW), who owns the boarding house where Roslyn is staying, a ride to the courthouse. Afterward, Guido asks them out for drinks, where they meet suave, aging cowboy Gay Langland (Gable).

Rosyln warms up to the cowboy quickly, much to the chagrin of Guido. Roslyn is the kind of woman who men instantly want to get to know, but never get around to getting to know them — if you know what I mean. She is so bewitching that Gay says she’s the one that would make him give up his old ways or at least the kind of beauty who’d make a man say we would.

Guido invites everyone up to his cabin in the desert, where Gay and Roslyn decide to stay for awhile. Gay and Guido plan to roundup some wild stallions for cash, but need an extra hand. On their way to the rodeo, they run into Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), a handsome younger man, who’s just about too old to be a regular on the bull riding circuit.

All four main characters are misfits to some degree. Roslyn is gorgeous to a fault. She attracts wolves, who are unable or uninterested in giving her what she needs. She is also tired of the constant attraction men have with violence. Gay is desperately holding onto a lifestyle that has long gone by the wayside. He’s getting too old to be so desperately clinging to his life of “freedom,” which has alienated himself from society. Perce is more of the typical 1960s misfit in that he’s lost in life and doesn’t know what his place in the world is, especially having been let down by his parents. Guido has been lost since the death of his wife, who he must have married young. He’s looking for a replacement woman, but doesn’t really have the looks or the proper tools to find one. He reeks of desperateness.

All three of the men want Roslyn, but for the first time in her life she’s going to put what she wants first. The final horse roundup serves as a wonderful metaphor for the way Roslyn feels she’s been treated by men all her life and how Gay has been treating women all of his life.

Huston has the skill and patience to allow time to build his characters and their relation to each other. Gable has been quoted as saying he felt this was his best performance and it’s hard to argue with the screen icon’s opinion. It is certainly the most complex and most fulfilled performance of Monroe’s career. She is electrifying. Miller wrote the role specifically for her and she throws every ounce of herself into the performance. Clift is Clift — one of the greatest actors to ever grace the screen. Wallach also needs to be commended for painting Guido in a believable and understandable light when it’s a role that so easily could have become a caricature with a typical character actor hamming it up as an oily, conniving sleaze.

Russell Metty’s black & white cinematography is the perfect match for this sad tale. One can almost feel the heat in shots of the white sands of the desert at the end. The more one knows about the players involved; the more one can read into a grander meaning, but even a novice can come to this film and see the power of its wonderfully crafted story and intricately developed characters, who are all lonely souls looking for their place on this planet.