One photographer, Magnum’s renowned Henri Cartier-Bresson, left the location after taping an interview with unit publicist Sheldon Roskin in which he spoke of The Misfits. He discussed Miller’s approach to the story and felt touched by some of the events. When referring to its illustrious star, Monroe, Cartier-Bresson said,
I saw her bodily—Marilyn Monroe—for the first time, and I was struck as by an apparition in a fairy tale. Well, she’s beautiful—anybody can notice this, and she represents a certain myth of what we call in France la femme eternelle. On the other hand, there’s something extremely alert and vivid in her, an intelligence. It’s her personality, it’s a glance, it’s something very tenuous, very vivid that disappears quickly, then appears again. You see it’s all these elements of her beauty and also her intelligence that makes the actress not only a model but a real woman expressing herself. Like many people I heard many things that she had said, but last night I had the pleasure of having dinner next to her and I saw that these things came fluidly all the time... all these amusing remarks, precise, pungent, direct. It was flowing all the time. It was almost a quality of naveté . . . and it was completely natural. In her you feel the woman, and also the great discipline as an actress. She’s American and it’s very clear that she is—she’s very good that way—one has to be very local to be universal.
In the midst of all the confusion Jerry Wald and Twentieth Century had arranged for the premiere of Let’s Make Love in Reno, since Marilyn was on location there. Fox flew in reporters and columnists from New York, San Francisco, and Hollywood.
At the same time, two forest fires in the Sierras were raging out of control, burning $200 million worth of timberland and cutting the power lines to Reno. Due to the resulting widespread blackout, Marilyn had a legitimate excuse for not attending the premiere, and it was canceled. She could not have been more content. The last thing in the world she wanted was to give Yves Montand free publicity.
Once the electricity was restored, a “normal” filming schedule could resume. After the rodeo in which Perce, played by Clift, gets thrown off his horse and injured, Marilyn’s character Roslyn overreacts. Considering she had just met Perce and was already involved with Gay, the writing was blatantly overwrought. In Gable and Monroe’s next scene, while waiting in the car for Perce and Guido, Gable delivers the first of many rather preposterous oratorical speeches written by the screenwriter. He preaches cliches to Roslyn to calm her apprehensions about Perce being damaged beyond repair, “Honey, we all got to go sometime, reason or no reason. Dyin’s as natural as livin’; a man who’s afraid to die is too afraid to live, far as I’ve ever seen. So there’s nothin’ to do but forget it, that’s all, seems to me.”
Though Miss Monroe’s voice was normally low due to her lack of confidence, perhaps she was reacting to her own abandonment issues when she flubbed her lines, even forgetting Perce’s name. After Huston requested several times that she repeat her lines, Marilyn replied, “I know all these lines, John, I promise you I do.”
“What, honey?”
“I promise you I do.”
“Yes, honey, I know.”
Marilyn remembered after filming that the dialogue between her and Houston was always the same: he talked down to her. Later in the day she would be so upset she would scream profanities about him to whoever would listen, “How dare he call me honey!”
Miller caught a glimpse of the negative publicity from Hollywood regarding his screenwriting competence. Gossip columnist Florable Muir had been in Reno for the supposed premiere of Love that had been canceled. The talk was that Miller was not even distressed by his wife and Yves’s affair, but the script was a mess and had to be sent to playwright/screenwriter Clifford Odets for help. Oh, how the company wished that were true!
By the end of August, Marilyn’s wake-up makeup artist found her unable to get to the set. After months of mounting tension between Monroe and her “estranged husband,” the blistering heat, and especially after reading the “schoolgirl crush” interview Montand had granted Hedda Hopper, she collapsed. Rumors were rampant that she and Miller had had a knock-down-drag-out fistfight and that she had overdosed on sleeping pills. In reality she was initially thought to have pneumonia because of a high temperature, but soon it was determined she was suffering from a severe flu. The preceding year’s miscarriage, her ectopic pregnancy and subsequent surgery had depressed her immune system and she had become somewhat anemic. Though she badly needed ferrous sulfate for her blood, she was given heavy doses of antibiotics instead. She wanted her regular doctor and insisted she be treated at Westside Hospital in Los Angeles.
Because her illness might destroy his movie, Miller reluctantly visited Marilyn in the hospital, but by this time she could see through her husband’s apparent concern and only loathed his brief and awkward presence. Fortunately for Monroe, a ray of light streamed through her hospital room when Joe DiMaggio visited. Marilyn could not have been happier and her recovery understandably quickened. Marilyn made clandestine arrangements to return to Reno via San Francisco to stay briefly with the man she still loved, the Yankee Clipper.
A press release by Bob Lewis downplayed her distress. Since the remaining screenplay depended so heavily on Monroe, as she had lines on every page but two, Taylor, Huston, and United Artists suspended production. To everyone’s dismay, cast and crew went off salary until Tuesday, September 6, while Marilyn was romancing with DiMaggio in San Francisco.
Most of the company left town, except Huston, who spent time with the film’s editor, George Tomasini, searching for more footage on wild horses. The big dry-lake scene of lassoing wild Mustangs was scheduled after the reprieve.
Back to work by September 8, Marilyn was relieved to have seen DiMaggio and her concentration was much improved. Shooting the scenes in the Dayton bar was tedious, as Clift was flubbing his lines. In sympathy, Monroe followed suit. Finally, in Gable’s most difficult scene, he had to desperately call for his children, climb into a car, and fall down while stone drunk. Monroe was to follow him to the ground to assure he was all right. After five lines in a drunken stupor, Gable was to pass out. His doctor had advised him that, due to his heart condition and the extraordinary heat, he should curtail his drinking, but Gable had ignored him. Marilyn’s masseur, Ralph Robert, had stocked an ice chest with vodka and champagne in the back of his station wagon and almost daily Gable asked for his refill of two shots of vodka. Knowing well how to play drunk, Clark Gable acted magnificently through a succession of takes. His adoring wife, Kay, who rarely came to the set, beamed as her husband’s performance drew thunderous applause from every crew member, the first and only response of its kind during the filming. Huston, who also knew drunkenness, had gotten what he wanted.
With the finale of the film approaching, the company’s first unit traveled twenty miles east to a dry lake to shoot the actors with wild horses. A large body of water had evaporated, leaving prodigious expanses of dried alkali devoid of any vegetation, and the place resembled the surface of the moon. The alkali dust blew around while filming, causing the cast and crew much discomfort and making the film’s completion overwhelmingly difficult. The dust permeated everything, all equipment, vehicles, and bodies. Though the aging Gable proved adept at lassoing his first mustang, he became incensed over the adverse working conditions.
Jealous over his wife’s love of Clark Gable, Miller made sure the fifty-nine-year-old’s masculinity was put to the ultimate test on the dry bed of alkali dust. Soon even Huston would stall production when Gable was out sick with bronchitis. It was ironic that the ASPCA sent a representative to oversee the treatment of the animals but the movie company and screenwriter blatantly and callously ignored the health of the humans.
The complicated filming of the mustang roundup with its countless retakes, and the stresses and dangers of capturing the showdown between man and animal on film was indeed laborious.
The original September 14 completion date had already come and gone and prod
uction was pushed from one to three more months. Meanwhile, Frank Taylor promoted the film to Dell Publishing, which would be publishing the script of The Misfits. Frank bragged that Miller would definitely receive an Academy Award for his screenplay and that Gable was a sensation. He still believed the script was “the best screenplay that’s ever been written. ”
Gable requested that the Stix house bedroom scene be reshot out of sequence. After Gary and Roslyn had spent the night together falling in love, Gable wanted to show more tenderness and affection toward his love interest than he believed he had. Temporarily relieved to be free from the suffocating alkali dust, Gable was to kiss Miss Monroe while in bed. Insisting upon “realism,” Marilyn lay nude under the sheet. Hoping to sexually arouse her idol, she suddenly sat up and exposed her right breast in one of the takes. This seductive ploy was not welcomed by the protesting director. On the other hand, second unit director Shaw believed it perfect for distribution to foreign countries, where censors were not as strict as in the States.
A major rift was incited by the “exposure.” Marilyn enjoyed tweaking noses at the Motion Picture Association, ostensibly to “take people away from their television sets.” (Monroe refused to appear on television on many occasions.) Taylor loved it, Miller dissented, Huston hated it, and Max was excited by the “natural accident.” In the end, the shot was removed. Huston professed he was not scintillated by Miss Monroe’s right breast, claiming he “already knew that women had breasts!”
Fortunately for the entire film company, on September 26, Clark Gable finally put his foot down once and for all to stop the “rambling screenwriter” from his constant script alterations. Stifled by the chaotic atmosphere and, being the most experienced and outspoken on the set, Gable had his attorneys write the production office to enforce the clause in his contract stating that he would not accept any more changes. The added burden of having to relearn lines and camera changes that prohibited appropriate rehearsal time was finally lifted. Gable was protecting the entire cast and crew but especially Marilyn Monroe, whose low confidence level made her need more time to memorize her lines. The actress had long believed Gable also thought the project was a mistake. He informed friends visiting on location, “I don’t see how they’re going to get a picture out of it, but I’m with it now and I’m going to do the best I can.”
At the dry lake, the exposure to the elements created more pain and injury for the cast. Roping on the alkali dust as well as running behind and being dragged by a truck were nearly impossible even for the experienced stuntmen. Huston was thrilled to capture everyone else’s real blood, sweat, and pain on film. Neither Huston nor Miller had warned Gable about this added stress; when under contract with MGM, the studio never allowed the star to participate in even remotely dangerous activities.
The last scene in the picture was to be shot on the lake, but it was too cloudy and a day was lost. The next morning it rained. Production halted and the company indulged in its favorite pastimes. They shot one more day of film, but over the weekend a significant storm was brewing over the Sierras, bringing more rain on Sunday. Monday was cloudy, with cast and crew on call in case the weather changed. For three months the Nevada weather had been almost perfect except for the spiraling heat. This newest glitch effectively spoiled the film’s completion. As the cars pulled up in the morning, they were turned away when the rains came again. The principal crew members met to discuss possible relocation to Palm Springs or perhaps Arizona. Even Los Angeles started to look good. At $35,000 per day, waiting for a break in the weather looked anything but good to the production office. Being more than $1 million over the original $2 million budget was disastrous. The new plan was to start at 9 A.M. and grab all the shots imaginable in one final day. The company continued to sneak in scenes during weather breaks until finished. On October 18, the location shooting was completed and the company returned to Hollywood for process shooting. Marilyn said good-bye to Huston, promising she would attend the wrap party. The returning location vehicles averaged eight thousand or more miles on their odometers and had been nearly ruined by the elements. The evening’s farewell party, coordinated by Mrs. Mapes, was charming and fun. By morning, the principals were racing back to Los Angeles either by car or plane for Monday morning start-up at Paramount’s Stage 2.
Approximately eight million people observed the debates on national television between Marilyn’s future lover, John F Kennedy, and Richard M. Nixon. Monroe did not vote but prayed that Kennedy would win the election. In the meantime, it was back to the studio to wrap up the picture and her marriage.
First Marilyn and Eli Wallach were photographed in a Dodge truck against a rear-screen film projection of the swirling dry-lake dust. Frank Taylor was relieved to have the semblance of a first cut. Mrs. Huston was especially impressed with Marilyn’s performance, and both Bill Weatherby, a United Artists executive, and Taylor were confident they had captured the story of Marilyn’s “spiritual autobiography.”
Miller was seeing Inge Morath and Marilyn was waiting to see Joe DiMaggio again, while giving a passing thought or two to John Kennedy. The stagehands worked more feverishly than in Reno. At the end of the working day everyone went to their homes or favorite hotels and the Los Angeles weather was a major relief. The skies were clear in the morning and the temperature steadied at seventy-five degrees. The comfort of the surroundings made for more efficiency, though Huston was now sporting a cane because of an injured ankle.
The director worked with Gable and Monroe on the last scene of the picture. Gay has released the last Mustang for the woman he loves and, while seated in the cab of the Dodge, he tells her, “Just head for that big star straight on. The highway’s under it: take us right home.” Whitey Snyder noticed the sweat pouring from Gable’s forehead during the shoot and wondered whether his high blood pressure was acting up again. With his face appearing inordinately red, and powdered to take some of the shine down, Gable was obviously uncomfortable but endured every take.
The producer had the rough cut of the film to preview with Max Youngstein, a United Artists executive assigned to oversee production. There was a long silence in the screening room after the viewing. Max Youngstein quietly took Taylor aside and told him how disappointed he was. The conflict and turbulence, so visible amongst the actors on location, had disappeared on film. Youngstein did not even recognize the work of John Huston, know to function like a pressure cooker who would build up steam for a terrific ending. Huston’s usual signature did not appear at all on the footage. Taylor made excuses, saying he had tried to supervise Huston and Miller but left the men mostly to their own devices, staying back to listen to them, while trying to be a kind of invisible catalyst.
When Taylor confronted Huston, Huston blamed the script, protesting that what Youngstein was looking for was not in the script and could not be manufactured by the director. In typical Hollywood fashion, the principals blamed each other. With an artistic failure on his hands, Miller started rewriting, specifically the Stix house scene, in a vain effort to get more “joy” into the dancing. Instead of reshooting, the film editor located some lively footage of dancing and drinking. Miller approached Gable with his changes, but Gable argued against them, wanting to see the first cut before making a decision. When he and Monroe viewed the rough-cut version with their MCA agent, George Chasin, Gable became more certain he did not want to reshoot or change any scenes.
Gable prevailed. He told his agent that Miller and Taylor were further botching the screenplay and he would not have any part of it. After Gable’s conversation with Chasin, Marilyn caught up with Clark as he was leaving the studio. Gable concluded, “It’s finished.”
Surprised, she asked, “Didn’t you get their revisions?” He replied, “Don’t worry, hon, I’m finished today and they can’t do anything without me.”
Instead of revising the early scene, on November 4 Huston reshot the final scene with Gable and Monroe. Both performers were in the cab again “shooting for the stars.�
�� The director got it in one take and said, “Cut!” for the last time. The film finally wrapped. Before leaving, Gable hung around chatting with friends and fans, then suddenly left, saying he wasn’t feeling too well and thought he was coming down with the flu. He went home to his ranch in Encino.
Gable would boast about his earlier days at MGM, about the wild partying on weekends that went on late into the night and how, instead of going home, he would hit the studio makeup department in his tuxedo, wait until his valet undressed him, and study his lines for that day’s shooting. At age fifty-nine, he no longer carried on like that.
Back at Stage 2, Marilyn attended the wrap party celebrating the end of the picture. She bought a fifth of whiskey for each crew member, and Snyder personally gave them to those who had shared the tedious, grueling experiences near Reno. Miller avoided the party altogether, driving back to the Beverly Hills Hotel in his rented car, alone.
By the time The Misfits was finally released on February 1, 1961, there had already been mixed notices about the story line, but the reviews hailed both Gable and Monroe’s performances. Paul V. Beckley of the New York Herald Tribune wrote, “It is hard to believe Miller could have written it without Marilyn Monroe. There are lines one feels Miss Monroe must have said on her own. There is much evidence in the picture that much of it has a personal relationship to Miss Monroe, but even so her performance ought to make those dubious of her acting ability reverse their opinions. Hers is a dramatic, serious, accurate performance; and Gable’s, as I said in my review, is little less than great.”
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