Desert Storm

GAIL LEVIN DOCUMENTS JOHN HUSTON'S FABLED DISASTER IN MAKING "THE MISFITS"

Gail Levin's documentary Making "The Misfits" (to be shown on PBS's Great Performances on October 2) tells the riveting story of what happened behind the scenes on that legendary film. Directed by John Huston in Nevada, The Misfits starred Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, and Montgomery Clift. The screenplay, about three misfit cowboys who all try to connect with Roslyn, a melancholy, misfit blonde, was written by Arthur Miller as a valentine to his then wife, Marilyn.

Famous sequences from the movie are highlighted in the documentary, including Clift's laconic phone conversation with his mother, Marilyn's hysterical tirade in the desert, and Gable's capturing the wild mustang—which was the last scene shot and was so strenuous that his wife blamed it for his death six days later.

These scenes are interspersed with grainy newsreel footage of 1960s Reno, and shots of the smoky confines of the Mapes Hotel casino, where Huston often lost up to $50,000 a night.

The Magnum photo agency won exclusive access to the production and sent some of its most celebrated photographers to take candids on and off the set. Many of their evocative images are woven throughout the documentary, such as Inge Morath's series of a zonked-out Marilyn dancing barefoot in the moonlight. The devastating portrait Morath took by chance of Miller and Marilyn in their hotel room, together but not speaking, became emblematic of both their marriage and their relationship on the set. Everybody who was interviewed for the documentary blames Marilyn for the chaos during shooting. The movie ran over schedule because Marilyn was always late. She didn't know her lines. She was on too many pills, depressed, suicidal. "She was despicable to Arthur," script supervisor Angela Allen says. However, Arthur Miller defends his former wife. "Marilyn didn't trust people. She was disappointed." Forty years later, he earnestly contends that making The Misfits was "a wonderful experience artistically." Although, he adds, "it was terrible to watch Marilyn suffer so."

When The Misfits opened in 1961, critics hated it, and it was a box-office disaster. "The Misfits just didn't work," says assistant director Ed Parone. Paradoxically, Making "The Misfits" does work, both as a wonderful piece of cinematic history and as a subtle visual record of one of the world's most famous couples caught uncomfortably off-guard. Don't miss it.

PATRICIA BOSWORTH