An unusual find this, dating from a time when publishers were experimenting with publishing film scripts in book form. Penguin went with a cleaned-up script for Tennessee Williams's Baby Doll (reviewed below) but for The Misfits opted for a hybrid - the movie described in present tense (like the screenplay) but with emotions written in and lyrical evocations of the landscape. It works surprisingly well.
Roslyn is in Reno for a divorce. She meets up with widower Guido and divorced Gay and later, the rodeo rider Perce. They are all misfits. Roslyn doesn't fit with ordinary married life, Guido flies a plane but there's nowhere really to fly to, and Gay and Perce are cowboys out of their era. They end up trying to catch mustangs for dog food, an extraordinarily powerful concept, and all their subsumed emotions - their half-baked attempts to fit in - come to a head.
I've never seen the movie, put off because it's the last film for Monroe and Gable, but the sadness is present in the book, too.
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