This is the last entry in my Forever Marilyn series. It is easily the most dramatic work in the series but felt the least like a performance from Monroe.Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) is in Reno getting a divorce when she meets Guido (Eli Wallach), a car repairman. Through him, she meets an aging cowboy named Gay (Clark Gable) and agrees to stay on with him. The two men have a plan to round up some of the last remaining Nevada mustangs and recruit young rodeo regular Perce (Montgomery Clift) to help. Roslyn is on board until she discovers that the horses will be turned into dog food. She begs Gay to change his mind but he feels this is his only way of reclaiming a lifestyle that has been steadily encroached upon by progress.
This film is notorious for being Gable and Monroe's last completed work. Clift and Monroe were both very dependent on alcohol and prescription pain medications at this point, Monroe was going through a divorce with screenwriter Arthur Miller, and director John Huston drank and gambled non-stop during filming. Honestly, reading the issues surrounding this production makes me wonder how it even got completed in the first place. The whole thing sounds like a nightmare.
And yet, it resulted in one of the most emotionally resonant films I've ever seen. Monroe is clearly psychologically vulnerable, seesawing between desperate joy to a total nervous breakdown. Clift is like a wounded dog, all big sad eyes and mournful bewildered voice. Gable handles his character's aging so gracefully and deftly, showing more range and nuance than any other role I've seen him in. Those are all big names, huge stars at the time, but I really feel like Eli Wallach stood toe-to-toe with them and did not get enough credit for his work. This isn't a film I could revisit very often but I am glad that I saw it.
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