The Sheila Variations

The Making of the Misfits

Eve Arnold, photographer

So I have finished my third book in the From the Stacks challenge.

First of all - the challenge has exploded. Check out the updated list of participants - as well as all of the books that will be read by all of us in this challenge. Amazing!! Also amazing how little overlap there is - in terms of books.

Here is my own personal list.

I read Master and Margarita and I read Isaac Newton.

And I finished The Making of the Misfits this past week.

This is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time - but it's a bit hard to find. (At least, you can't find it in your regular old Barnes and Noble). I have known about the notoriously difficult shoot for The Misfits since I was in high school - just because - if you study film, if you're interested in Marilyn Monroe, whatever - you would have heard about this shoot. It's like the shoot for Cleopatra. Or Waterworld, for that matter. Certain movies become famous for the difficulty of the actual shooting itself. The Misfits is one of those. And I had heard about this book The Making of the Misfits - it's quoted left and right in Marilyn Monroe biographies, Monty Clift biographies, John Huston biographies ... and I finally tracked down a copy at a used bookseller - and I've had it for quite some time.

Now - another thing that makes the shooting of The Misfits stand out:

Magnum sent a barrage of photographers to hang out on the location - and document the entire process. We're talking about photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Inge Morath ... and more. People who are famous. So this is also one of the most documented shoots EVER. Every single second of it is captured by at least one of these photographers. The photos are amazing. I've spoken about Eve Arnold before ... and her gift with photographing Marilyn (although Marilyn was one of the most photogenic women ever to grace the planet).

So there is that as well (having all the photographers there). The photographers were not clustered on the edges, trying to get a good shot (the way they were on the Cleopatra shoot - which was barred to outsiders and press - because of the sensitivity of the fact that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were openly cheating on their spouses - who were RIGHT THERE) ... The Misfits, a grueling difficult shoot, was documented by people who were asked to be there. These are not blurry paparazzi shots. ... these are works of art.

Bruce Davidson, photographer

Eve Arnold, photographer - that's Frank Taylor, the producer, Arthur Miller, and Gable

Ernst Haas, photographer

Magnum also wanted to do a picture book on the shooting of the movie (this is all from before they even started shooting - there was a buzz around this movie, for many reasons) - and so there were also reporters and writers who came along on the shoot, to do interviews, articles, etc. James Goode was one of those people.

One of the things that really interested me about this book was that there is no retrospective point of view. It is a running diary of James Goode's experience on the film - so it's all: Today we moved to the second location ... Last night we gambled all night ... whatever. He is writing down his impressions as they occur.

I have heard so much about the problems on this shoot from other books - the breakup of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe - John Huston's compulsive gambling - Monroe being hospitalized for exhaustion (this was not a Lindsey Lohan type thing - where "exhaustion" stands in for "partying non-stop without wearing panties". Monroe was not a partier - although she was addicted to sleeping pills, due to her lifelong struggle with insomnia.) Not to mention Monroe's mental state at the time - which was not good - due to the growing distance with Arthur Miller, her embarrassing failed love affair with Yves Montand - the arduous nature of the shoot in Reno - the fact that Monroe was in every shot of the film practically - she got no rest - and, in general, her acting demons coming up and grabbing her by the throat. Monroe always wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. It seemed to her, at times, that the studio wanted to thwart her in this goal - putting her in crappy vehicles like Let's make Love to punish her. This is why she formed her own production company. This is why she read books like The Brothers Karamazov because she knew she could play parts like the seductress in that book. The Misfits was, by far, the most serious and grueling part she had ever been asked to do. Arthur Miller had written it for her. He had used aspects of her personality in the role of Roslyn. He probably had a Svengali thing going on ... if I just write this piece for her, and she gets the acclaim she deserves, maybe our marriage will survive?? Sadly, it was too late - and everything started to fall apart DURING the shooting.

James Goode - observing all of this - doesn't have much to say about it - since he's on the ground with them, everything is going down right in front of him - all he knows is Marilyn moved out of the hotel room she had been sharing with Miller. That's it.

It surprised me, reading this book, how professional Marilyn Monroe was - what a trooper she was. Not that I didn't think she was professional - but just from all the stories I've heard of what a nightmare she could be (she had a real problem with memorizing lines - it is thought that she probably was undiagnosed dyslexic - she would invert words, repeatedly - causing much problems with simple lines like, "We're over here!" A small line like that could take 70 takes for Marilyn to get right.) I had assumed that the entire story here in this book would be one of growing annoyance, or impatience ... with her illnesses, her tantrums, all that ... but that's not the case at ALL. I'm obviously a huge fan of Marilyn Monroe, and I feel protective of her (I realize this is ridiculous, but whatever) ... so I was so pleased to read that while yes, she had some mental and physical problems during the shoot - shooting had to stop while she was airlifted to a hospital in Los Angeles so she could recover - Everyone still had to be paid during the time she was gone - and, uhm, Clark Gable was the freakin' star - so the costs started skyrocketing. But besides all of that - I was happy to read about how much the crew loved her, how much the people of Dayton (the little town in Nevada where they shot a lot of the film) loved her - "When she wasn't filming, she would talk to anybody. She was real down to earth" - said one Dayton resident. Stuff like that ... I am not surprised at all. A sweet woman - whose life fell apart during the filming of this movie.

Bruce Davidson, photographer

One of the things that I loved about this book was how funny it was. It's just a running diary - but I think Goode captures so well that sense of absurdity and collaboration in trying to make a picture like this one. Instead of being on the backlot at Paramount - they are out in the desert - working with wild horses, real cowboys, raging bulls, dust storms, airplanes, rodeos ... Location shoots are intensely difficult - it's hard to control the sound, the extras, mother nature ... And Goode just captures so much of what I love about film-making: the hunker-down mentality, the "let's just get it done" mentality ... everyone working their asses off towards one goal. Everyone a part of this larger project. Yes, we've got Clark Gable. He is very important. But so is the sound guy. So is the stunt double for Montgomery Clift, the rodeo cowboy Clift had been following around for months before shooting began. So is the proprietor of the hotel in Dayton - who opened up their entire hotel for the cast and crew of this film - and treated them with kindness, welcoming them to their town. The guy who figures out how to get the lights into Roslyn's tiny room - and the makeup person who makes sure that Marilyn's pancake makeup didn't melt off of her - Just the whole TEAM. The book is so evocative of that crazy atmosphere. Like - there's a combination of plain old hard work - and then also an awareness of the absurdity of the entire thing. I loved how funny the book was - it made me feel like I was there.

Bruce Davidson, photographer

I'll post some excerpts, some of my favorites:

Gambling is a vice and may be a sin, but at least there was no hypocrisy about it in Reno. Everything was in the open, including the expressions of greed, momentary triumph, and, finally, despair, in the eyes of the tourists and permanent residents. Every human quality was enlarged a hundredfold in the unseeing faces of the players. Here, for the first time, an observer could see absolute greed, absolute degeneration, and often an absolute vacuum of emotion. Listening to stories on The Misfits set about the avariciousness of the Reno inhabitants, [John] Huston defended the town, himself belieing Reno, and the West in general, to be the last stop for the vanishing American innocent. [Arthur] Miller, of course, was saying much the same thing in his screenplay about some of the last free men on the continent.

Miller and Tom Shaw, Huston's first assistant director, were given an example of Miller's point when they tried to hire some casual faces for the picture. They wanted an Indian, for one, as a kind of grace note or signature to reappear throughout the picture in the crowd scenes, and finally found the man they wanted drinking in a skid-row saloon with a white friend. The friend translated Shaw's offer, but the Indian, a Paiute from the local Pyramid Lake reservation, was umoved. Shaw: "Would you do a job for ten dollars?" The Indian: "I have ten dollars. I'm an Indian, and you won't take my picture. I may be the face on the nickel, but I won't kiss the buffalo's ass." Shaw later found a corrupt Indian.

Okay - so can you get the tone here? These are the kinds of anedotes that are MANNA to my soul. Maybe because of the inherent humor in this. The humor in this ridiculous (and yet - also - important) business of entertainment.

I LOVED this anecdote - because, to me, it is so indicative of Clark Gable's character. Well, not just of his character - but of his talent. More inexperienced actors talk about working with, say, Robert DeNiro - and how he makes you be better. He forces you to be in the moment, to listen. And it doesn't seem like he is doing anything at all. It is just that he knows how to be PRESENT. Listen to this anecdote from a woman who is not even an actress - but who had a small part in the film:

Playing opposite Gable in this brief scene was blonde Marietta Tree, socialite and friend of John Huston, and most famous for the Democratic political salon that she runs in her upper-Eastside mansion in New York. Mrs. Tree had not intended to appear in the picture, but had simply stopped off to see Huston on her way to San Francisco. The day before, Huston had interviewed a local actress who was to play the part of the departing St. Louis divorcee, and had decided against using her. Gable, Huston, and Mrs. Tree were talking later at lunch when Gable suddenly said, "Why don't we have that one over there?" meaning that Mrs. Tree could very well play the part. Mrs. Tree protested, saying that she wasn't an actress, and not the type. Gable replied that she was just the type he wanted. Huston said, "Why don't you do it, honey? We can fix you up so you'll look real flashy."

Mrs. Tree described her first role, "Gable and I read the scene three times and acted it once. Then I went out to dinner with John and rehearsed the scene twenty times during dinner. Huston even played the part of Susan for me. The next morning I was called for makeup at 6:15 and I was shown how to make up my own mouth, which came to me as a revelation. There were three rehearsals but I did the scene in one take.

There was really no reason to be ervous, because Gable and Huston gave me such a feeling, as professionals. I felt like a very young ballet dancer being wafted across the stage by Nijinsky. Gable played the part so completely that he became the man and I became the girl. When the time came for me to turn, I couldn't leave and he put me on the train. I had no responsibility."

Why does that move me so much? It just does. The book is FULL of glimpses of these people - Gable, Clift, Monroe, Huston - people who are, frankly, idols to me. I look up to them. They are, partly, why I am who I am today. Because of their inspiration, because of seeing their movies at a young age and thinking: Hoooooleeeee crap. I have to do that!!

So I just love to learn more about them. I never get over them. And I love the image of Gable being so good - and so in character - and just so solid - that this woman who wasn't even an actress found herself playing this scene. (And if you see the movie - she's only in it for 10 seconds, maybe? It's a short scene - but she's great. Her presence tells the whole story - totally sets up the Gable character. You don't have to do it with dialogue - we don't have to have Gable give a huge monologue about who he is - all you see is him putting this crying divorcee on the train out of town ... and you know who he is.)

Then there's this:

July 23 - Rehearsals began this morning for the scene between Rosly and Mr. Taber on the courthouse steps. Policement were necessary to keep off the crowds but a number of children made their way to Huston and the principals. One little boy looked at [Kevin] McCarthy in his shiny Chicago suit, announcing, "This is a gangster movie and that's him!" Another, perceiving Huston's good nature, reached out and tweaked John's nose, saying, "Gee, mister, you got a lot of guts to direct this picture." And he had.

Kevin McCarthy talked about his role that evening at the hotel. "I grew up with Nan Taylor, Frank's wife, in Deerwood, Minnesota. My sister is Mary McCarthy, who wrote Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. I've been a member of the Actor's Studio since 1947, with Montgomery Clift and Eli Wallach. I work there about ten hours a week. My agent was against me doing this small part in The Misfits but for me it was a sentimental appearance. They're compensating for my minute part by a special arrangement card in the title for me, Estelle Winwood and James Barton. Really, I only do twenty-seven words. I didn't feel I was Mr. Taber until I put on that shiny suit. It bothered me that Frank Taylor thought I could be Mr. Taber. I worked for Miller once before in the Robin Hood Theatre at Arden, Delaware. He directed All My Sons, which we played for comedy. I told Huston that I didn't feel I was accomplishing this character. He said, 'It's there by implication in what she's saying to you. Just imagine that you run the most successful Cadillac agency in Chicago.' Frank Taylor thought I ran a used-car lot.

Marilyn had the difficult scene, the blast-off for the picture. She had considerable anxiety but like a wise child she uses it. Huston is the best director I ever worked for."

"She had considerable anxiety but like a wise child she uses it."

Peeps, I have not been able to stop thinking about that sentence from the first moment I read it. God.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer

Here's more - from one of Goode's many interviews with John Huston:

"We had no difference in casting, or in the story. In collaborating with Miller, I'd go a little further, a little deeper. He'd go a little further. Knowing when you arrive at the point where you should stop is maturity as an artist. I had to use drawings, now I try and get as much out of the people as I possibly can. I know automatically each scene. I court accident. I try to keep them that way, spontaneous. I very much like going into a little room. It has its own requirements. Confronted with limitations, thinking is less prosaic. Don't forget the eye of the public. They'd laugh like hell at Booth's Hamlet. The public now knows what ham acting is. We try to get all the reality we can in this picture, but still you must remember the picture is a convention. It is on a screen with music, and it must be a convention. I tell an actor as little as I possibly can. When I have to step in I feel defeated. I haven't had to tell anyone anything on this picture.

Guido [played by Eli Wallach] is probably the most complex character in this film, a bit of the hypocrite. He changes tune. None of the others would. He'd become an animal lover if he could have the girl. He has made his compromise. Perce [played by Montgomery Clift] on the other hand is very simple. What he does makes no damn sense but thank God for them. They're awful good men. Pity is that they're inverted. You've got to be singularly blessed to be part of anything and keep your self-respect."

Speaking about working for the major studios in Hollywood before the war, Huston said, "I'm not sure I wasn't better then. Some of the worst pictures I ever made, I've made since I've had complete freedom. As for Langland [the part played by Clark Gable], as long as those horses are in the hills, he's a free man. As for myself, I'm not in the system as long as I can tell anyone to kiss my ass."

Heh. A lot of those old studio directors had that "I'm not sure I wasn't better then" sensibility.

This next excerpt made me laugh. A bit of background. Montgomery Clift, by this point, had had the accident which had ruined his face - and had begun his downward spiral that would kill him not too many years later. This poor man. This poor tormented unbelievably talented man. Nobody wanted to work with him anymore - because of the drug addiction, and all of his problems. Despite the fact that once upon a time he had been the premiere actor of his generation. Marlon Brando was freakin' intimidated by this guy's talent, mkay?? But Huston decided to take a chance - because Clift was so perfect for this part - especially with his now battered face, and that kind of - constantly tormented blank look in his eyes. God, what a tragedy. But anyway - I can't remember the details - either the insurance company would NOT back Clift - or Huston said he would pay the insurance himself - I'm not sure ... but it turned out that Clift was, perhaps, the most reliable one on that entire shoot. He didn't drink (he guzzled grapefruit juice 24/7 - and that was it) - didn't do drugs - showed up on time - knew his lines - and would be so brilliant on the first take that people, hardened crew members who don't impress easily, would burst into applause. He was that good (and if you see the movie - he IS that good.)

Inge Morath, photographer

Anyway, the following anecdote made me laugh - just because of the whole mumbly Actor's Studio thing - which was still a new thing at this point. And having Gable - king of the studio system - acting with all these younger Actors' Studio types - that's another reason why the film (although not perfect) is SO interesting to watch. It doesn't matter your "method". Talent is talent.

But anyway, I love this because it shows Clift's sense of humor about the whole Actor's Studio thing - and also Gable's graciousness:

[Gable] told Nan Taylor that she must understand that when he spoke of himself as an actor he spoke without vanity, that vanity was a sin. Monty Clift said that actors could speak with pride, however, and Gable agreed. Gable spoke about his own early career on Broadway and on the road, including Shakespearean roles. The others compared the Actor's Studio as training for acting, and Kevin McCarthy said, "Of course, the Studio can't teach you how to do Shakespeare, but it can give you things you can use." Monty replied, "Yes, Kevin, you and I have hung on to our purity of diction."

Ha! Which is so true. Clift was never one of the Brando-Dean mumblers. There is an elegance about his work - and I would venture to say as well, that when he is good? He's not just good - he's perfect.

Tragedy. Thinking about Montgomery Clift makes me sad.

Everyone is interviewed for Making of the Misfits - any film buff, of anyone interested in the process of film-making, should definitely check it out. It's not just the actors. The costume crew is interviewed, the sound people, the cowboys, the townspeople, the assistant directors - and here is Russell Metty, cameraman, talking about his part of this process:

"The quality of this picture is adjusted for realism. We get blacker blacks, whiter whites, and fewer grays, high contrast, more like a news photograph, by using less light. It's harder to shoot here on location because this house is confined.

"I became a lab technician when I was eighteen, and spent two years developing, printing, cutting. I was an assistant cameraman for two years, an operator for six years, and became a first cameraman on West of the Pecos. I am here on loan-out from Universal-International, and my last picture was Spartacus."

Signs of trouble - Goode doesn't dwell on it - just makes note of it:

July 30 - No shooting; Monroe is indisposed. Clift, Eli Wallach, and Frank Taylor have flown off to Los Angeles for an Ella Fitzgerald concert.

Here's a snippet of an interview with the wonderful Eli Wallach (I love the bit about "who pays the check?" That's thinking like an actor. Knowing who's gonna pay the check in the scene makes all the difference in how it is played. THAT is detail:

"John Huston elicits a performance, gives you clues, suggests, doesn't stomp on it, draws it out of you. He's very amenable to suggestions. I feel it; it's up to him to orchestrate it. Huston said, 'Make an impression on her. Make a dent.'

"In that scene in Harrah's Club in the bar, I asked, 'Who pays the check in this scene, John?' and he said, 'I don't know.' It was kind of a struggle of virility and manhood and honor about who paid the check. Nor did we rehearse the dance scene ...

"There were times today when marilyn was absolutely wonderful when she began to relax a little. She had a kind of innocence, a freshness. Gable was sincere, cooperative, warm - an actor. Thelma [Ritter] I have great respect and warmth for. For each of us this is the first time we have worked together. I identify with each role. It was good to take Marilyn and dance with her, to take her away from Gable. I understand Guido. I find that Arthur has written in depth in this screenplay, that you can walk around each character. They are self-contradictory, unpredictable. Do you realize the split in a guy like Guido? At the very moment he speaks of his wife he is wooing this girl.

"What I know about acting is - trying to capture a universal that people can identify with, a behavior they have seen, known, or experienced themselves. Why the popularity of Mickey Spillane if not for images? To capture that genie and bottle him and to seemingly let him out accidentally, that's what is marvelous about acting to me....

"I have a great trust in John because I think he understands almost in Hemingway's terms that man can take his licks without whimpering. He keeps me from being self-pitying, self-indulgent, or weak. And Marilyn said a very touching thing to me in the lobby the other day. I was wearing a Sigmund Freud costume [Huston was going to be directing Freud the next year - and Eli Wallach dressed up as Freud on one of their days off, as a gag]. She said, 'Eli, you're going to be working all your life.' I said, 'Yes, until I die.' She said it so sweetly. I would like to be like A.E. Mathews, an actor who just died this week. He was working until this season. He was ninety-three years old."

Eli and Marilyn were great friends. I love that sweet glimpse of her in that anecdote.

There was a dog who had a part in the picture and he caused a lot of problems. He was not a good movie dog. Humorous anecdote here:

Completing the action in the living room of the Stix house, Huston rehearsed the players for a scene in which Roslyn [played by Monroe], a little high from the drinks and the dancing, falls fromt he front door, where the step is missing. The rehearsal of the fall was so realistic that everyone held his breath until Eli caught Marilyn in his arms. This prompted Gable to say that for a moment he was afraid Eli wasn't going to catch her and they would all be out of work. After a moment in the picture in which Roslyn dances dreamily by herself around a large tree, Gay Langland takes her to the station wagon to drive her back to town. Guido helps them into the wagon, but Langland's dog, Tom Dooley, wouldn't cooperate during the takes. Miller thought that Eli could simply kick the dog into the car. Furiously, Eli wondered whether they couldn't find a dog that would simply get in and sit down. But it was too late; Tom Dooley was in too many scenes to be replaced. Alabam' Davis thoguht that Tom Dooley was simply a "method" dog and all he needed was a dramatic coach.

And this made me laugh out loud (the book is full of overheard snippets like this):

Two persons were discussing [Frank] Taylor in the lobby and one man said, "What's Frank Taylor's background?" His friend, "He's a publisher." "What's a publisher doing producing a movie?" "They're going to release the book in movie form."

I know this isn't really a book review (what I'm writing here) - but I kept a running list of anecdotes and snippets I loved from this book - and I knew Ceci, at least, would appreciate it ... there's so much good stuff (although I would also like to read a more distanced story of this shoot: why it got so expensive, what happened, why the film doesn't really WORK - at least not the way everyone expected it to - a lot of that had to do with the fact that Gable died shortly after shooting - before the picture was released - and that gave the picture a kind of notorious reputation - Huston was watching a scene in the editing room of Gable being dragged by a rope behind a truck and he commented to himself, "They're gonna say we killed Gable." Who knows - it might have been a mega-hit if Gable had been alive when it came out.) But anyway. Onward with the excerpts.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with the great Montgomery Clift who is, in my opinion, the definition of an intelligent (and yet also intuitive) actor. The guy had it all. He was a raw nerve, but he was also an intellect, he studied his craft. Amazing - it's all here in his language. Listen to his openness. Is it any wonder that this man was destroyed by the mere act of living? He couldn't hack it. Thank God he was an actor - at least he had a place where he was SUPPOSED to be that open. Oh, and believe it or not - Montgomery Clift was terrified of working with all of these people whom he considered to be giants (and they are - but so is he!) - he was intimidated by Gable, by Huston, by Miller - he couldn't believe he had been asked to be in this thing ... the beautiful (and yet tragic - because he couldn't see his own goodness) of this man:

"What I think of Miller - boy, he represents to me such an ideal as an artist! Somehow the artists are all allied, whether it's Miller, Cartier-Bresson, Marilyn or Huston. My feeling aobut Miller is that I sort of face East every time I see him. I'm that much in admiration of him.

"I was happy that there was something he genuinely wanted me to do. Acting with all these goddamned talented people around is pretty frightening, but I look forward to it. If I were convinced they were also scared ... The problem is how to remain thin-skinned and yet survive. One can uncallous one's self, you know. I haven't talked to John or Arthur about the part. I don't have any desire to formulate anything too strong of my own. I don't know what John or Arthur may be after. He knows what he's written about. I think Taylor's tremendously talented to put together this network of people. Nothing of him is the norm. There is the whole terrible problem of remaining vulnerable, and Taylor has the small, intimate means of making you feel wanted. And it's a lovely thing to work with a director who is not vain.

"I have no misgivings about this character. Someone said, 'My God, it's exactly like you.' Now it's just a question of can I do it? It's a wonderful part, and if I don't do it justice I'll shoot myself. You're not the master of a film as an actor. A director with control contributes. I don't know where contribution begins and ends. Whenever the fortuitous happens, it happens. When I see the film, if I vomit, I'll know I haven't done it justice.

"I find no value for myself in analyzing something down to some terribly finite Freudian point, because it loses its measure of relish. Wonderfully enough, Arthur is so wildly aware of the ambivalence in relations between people that for a performer it is almost an offense to dissect it. I imagine that he, as a writer, would not be able to write it if he consciously tried to become clinical and symbolic. Nothing would flow. I have trouble working with people I greatly admire. I started with Eli. You know, it's been two weeks now and I can't find one goddamned thing I don't like about him. I've never worked with any of these people before.

"I wish I were more thin-skinned. The problem is to remain sensitive to all kinds of things wihtout letting them pull you down. Now, take this - the fact that someone drops a book of matches at a time when he most wants not to seem ill at ease. To a normal person that is not a terribly moving talent, but to an actor in films, such a thing maybe perhaps changes the whole relationship to the girl that dropped the matches. The only line I know of that's wrong in Shakespeare is 'Holding a mirror up to nature.' You hold the magnifying glass up to nature. As an actor you just enlarge it enough so that your audience can identify with a situation. If it were a mirror we would have no art. Essence is a wonderful word. Miller has written the essence of Roslyn. You'd be bored to death if it were a mirror. Take the line in the script, 'Who did this to me? The ambulance did it.' Magnifying the essential things that liberate the imagination and enable one to identify - when one has those qualities, they are fabulous gifts. Take a pause, for example. That I call a magnification. I wouldn't call it a mirror. The magnifying glass has been misused totally, but in this picture it has been put to the use of capturing what possibly is flitting in and out of someone's mind and one person's relationship to another and another, and that's what's fascinating."

Amazing analysis. I have a lot to think about from his words.

Okay, so anyone who discussed impressions of Marilyn Monroe, anyone who knew her, came into contact with her, has my ear. Listen to Henri Cartier-Bresson's impressions of this woman:

Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer. That's Thelma Ritter, Monroe, and Huston - discussing an upcoming scene

"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, that 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 naivete ... 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."

"One has to be very local to be universal." God, this is also food for thought. This is something I have been working on in my own writing, my own acting, my own art - for years. The best artists are, indeed, "very local" and it is this very local-ness that makes them universal. Thanks, Henri. And thanks for appreciating Miss Monroe in such a specific way.

Inge Morath - that's Monroe talking with Paula Strasberg, her ubiquitous acting coach

Now listen to this conversation between Huston and Miller (unlike most writers - he was there throughout filming - and although he messed up a couple of times, in terms of not knowing his relationship to a film director - which is different from that to a theatre director, where - 9 times out of 10 - Miller will be the bigger star, and Miller will always have the final word. Not so in films. However, the following conversation - about how to shoot a certain scene - shows that Huston was completley open to Miller's contributions - mainly because it is he who wrote it, and it is he who understands, better than anyone else, the point of view of each scene. BUT - how to make that come across? That'll be Huston's job. This is true collaboration here:

John Huston and Arthur Miller sat for an hour in Steve Grimes' reactivated saloon, discussing the camera's point of view as the station wagon with Roslyn, Gay, Isabelle, Perce and Guido enters the town. The shot in question was to be a long continuous look at the car from a motorized cameral dolly, involving a great deal of action on both sides of the street. There was understandable anxiety.

Huston: "Do we shoot them or what they see?"
Miller: "What they see."
Huston: "Then we hold on a few things."
Miller: "A cowboy backing a horse out of a trailer, or the shot I wrote about the Cadillac and the bumper."
Huston: "Thsi thing about the gamblers and the showgirl. It's just happening. If it's pointed out, it's bad. It acquires a significance it doesn't have. (Pause) I'm just trying to see which is the better way."
Miller: "I'm inclined to stretch her (Roslyn's) point of view.
Huston: "It's her point of view, or it's our comment."
Miller: "The shots can be brief."
Huston: "They ahve to hold long enough on the screen to be seen. (Pause) These shots are literally vignettes."
Miller: "My feeling is there is a compromise to be made here. If you keep referring back to their car, you can pull in anything you want."
Huston: "You have to keep moving. As you go by things, you see them."
Miller: "I'm afraid if we stick to their point of view (the passengers in the car), it would limit us. Shoot the car and the passengers from inside the car."
Huston: "Then you can't cut to vignettes, like the deputy jumping up and down on the Cadillac bumper."
Miller: "How about an omniscent view."
Huston: "Then you lose your people, you go into God's viewpoint of the town. (Pause) We mustn't confuse Roslyn's viewpoint with our own. If we shoot her looking at the deputy, aren't we endowing it with significance?"

And that is a glimpse of a good director at work. Young directors today should study John Huston's movies for this kind of intelligent structured point-of-view work.

The following anecdote made me laugh:

August 22 - For once, everyone was glad to go to work, just to escape the hell of Reno. The power lines had not yet been repeaired and the Mapes coffee shop was down to cold cuts and coffee. Shooting today was a sequence of Dick Pascoe, as Clift's stunt double, riding a black and white Brahma bull out of a chute and across the ring until he was thrown, then rescued from the bull's horns in the nick of time by Jim Palen, made up as a rodeo clown. Four times the bull crashed through Steve Grimes' fencing with Jones' horsemen in frantic pursuit. On the last breakout, the bull scattered the crowd of extras in the street, taking refuge in Gold Canyon Creek. Each time the bull got loose, Pete Logan, who used to announce the rodeos in Madison Square Garden, called over the public address system, "Carpenter, please."

hahahaha They're so over it. Oh, bull got loose, there goes the fence again, carpenter, please.

More on the bull (and notice the good humor here about Monroe's absences ... yes, it was annoying ... but the tone of the anecdote is not annoyed):

August 25 - Shooting again in the rodeo ring, long shots of Pascoe on the bull and the bucking horse. The bull got loose again, prompting remakrs that the bull needed a carpenter's local to follow him around and was harder to get on the set than Marilyn Monroe.

hahahahaha

Monroe could not work in the morning - due to many issues, mainly having to do with insomnia - and always crashing into the deepest of pill-induced sleeps at around 6 a.m. This kind of thing was always a problem for her - ALWAYS. John Huston took care of her, was gentle with her, made her feel confident about her ability to play the part - never harassed her - and yet obviously was frustrated that he could not begin shooting with her until noon, at the earliest. They got so little done, waiting for Monroe. And every single night - Huston and a couple of buddies - sat up gambling and drinking. So everyone was sort of losing it - in terms of sleep, (and also money - Huston lost a ton - thousands of dollars). Monroe was addicted to sleeping pills and Huston could never walk away from a bet. Eventually the situation cracked and Monroe's health broke down. She was flown to Los Angeles to recover. Shooting stopped.

Take a look at this photo.

Cornell Capa, photographer

Members of the crew and also locals in the town ... gathering to see Marilyn off. This photo goes a long way to explaining Marilyn's affect on people, and even though she was a pain in the ass - she was so well loved. I mean, obviously - she was a huge star - that wasn't an accident - audiences loved her as well - who cares that it took her an entire day to get out the line "Where's the bourbon" in Some Like it Hot? Yes, it drove Billy Wilder to distraction that she could not get the line right ... but when push comes to shove, she's Marilyn Monroe, and her mere presence in a film was enough to justify all that crap (Lindsey Lohan - who I actually like, and think is very talented - needs to realize that she is not yet at that place ... she may be some day ... but not yet). When the cameras rolled, and Marilyn was on ... you didn't want anybody else to be there. You didnt' care about the lost day of work. Because she is Marilyn Monroe and you can count on 1 or 2 or 3 fingers the actors who had that kind of magic. Not only that - but the photo shows her relationship with the crews on her films - having a good rapport with the crew was always very important to her. She loved crews - the gaffers, and grips, and carpenters. They treated her with kindness, they loved her, and she loved them back. She had a harder time with the executives, the business folks - who treated her like a whore who just got lucky. The dudes holding sound equipment up on ladders knew better. A lucky whore? Are you kidding me? Have you seen what happens to this woman when the cameras start to roll? Marilyn, in her scenes, often played to them - the crew - because she knew how much she was loved, it made her feel comfortable and confident.

Another anecdote showing why John Huston was so good with actors. If you tell an actor exactly how to do something - well, first of all, you're an ass. Why don't YOU act then if you think you can do it better? Second of all, you're cutting off the magic - the possibility of something that might be better than what is in your own head. People say about Woody Allen that he never tells them anything, never directs ANYthing - what he does is - is cast well - he casts perfectly - and he is completley confident in whatever EVENT is taking place in any given scene. The actors need to know the EVENT ... not how to do it. Here is what I am talking about:

Eli Wallach volunteered an example of Huston's genius as a director. In the scene today, Gable and Wallach are alone at the table, watching Monroe and Clift dancing, and getting drunker and drunker. Wallach quoted Huston as saying, "Eli, yesterday in Virginia City I was deeply drunk. So drunk it didn't show." That was all he said, and Eli played the scene that way, saying later that Huston was a master of indirection.

So many directors have no idea what the actor's craft even is (especially now - when directors come out of film schools, as opposed to the theatre). Telling an intuitive actor like Wallach to be so "drunk it didn't show" is perfect. It's just mysterious enough that Wallach can just run with it.

James Goode gets some AMAZING interviews with Clark Gable - who at this point - had only a couple months left to live. It's astonishing - and so sad - how vital and YOUNG this man still was. His intelligence, his openness, his curiosity about life and his own craft ... he's still in process. He worked his ass off.

Eve Arnold, photographer

Amazing actor. There are also a couple of anecdotes in the book about him murmuring to John Huston after watching Montgomery Clift do a scene: "That Clift boy really comes across." He was amazed by Clift. In my opinion, Montgomery Clift gives the best performance in that film - and Gable could notice it happening - and didn't have any weird ego thing about it - he was more just in awe. "The look that comes in that kid's eyes sometimes ..." Here are some excerpts:

"I don't know exatly what they mean by method acting. I do know it must have a lot of merit, because it has proven itself with some of the people we have in the business today. The acting I know - what I know of it - originally came by working with professionals in the theatre, being privileged to working with them, watching them work from behind the scenes. I had a great deal of training from Lionel Barrymore. I was a juvenile lead in a play called Copperhead. I played an extra in Romeo and Juliet with Jane Cowl. I was given the opportunity to understudy Romeo, Mercutio, Tybalt, Benvolio. I memorized all of the parts and watched all of the movements from the wings, understudying Dennis King as Mercutio, Rollo Peters as Romeo, and Lewis Hester as Tybalt, and got a great deal of experience in Shakespearean roles ...

"Acting came to me first because I wanted to do it, but it was hard work. You had to work. I didn't learn one particular way of acting. I learned several different ways - I'm still learning. Strangely enough, I learn something new in every picture I make. I don't know what they mean by a finished actor. As far as I know, finished is when you can't get a job."

heh. I just find all of that so moving

Now a bit about the bedroom scene - which ended up causing a lot of problems - because of the nudity ... or the implied nudity ... and in one case, the actual nudity:

Inge Morath, photographer - more on her later ... she ended up being Arthur Miller's next wife - and last wife. They were together until he died last year. So the shots of Marilyn and him ... taken by Morath ... are fascinating to me. Inge Morath said, of Marilyn Monroe: "She is the only woman I ever knew who photographed 10 pounds lighter." ha!

At the Stix house Huston was shooting the bedroom scene again, at the request of both Gable and Taylor. Gable, dressed, walked into the bedroom and kissed Monroe awake. She stretched, nude between the sheets, and reached for the white terry-cloth bathrobe. She sat up and put it on, through nine takes, exposing her right breast to the camera in the seventh take, which was the shot that was finally printed. Huston interrupted the takes, saying angrily, "It's a mess ... I mean the sheet you're holding in your hand." Huston arranged the sheets and the blanket. Tom Shaw said they could use the shot of the exposed breast for the foreign market and one of the others for the United States ...

Arthur Miller and Frank Taylor had looked at the film of the bedroom scene; Taylor thoguht that the take whicih momentarily showed Marilyn's breast was by far the best, and wanted to keep it. Miller was undecided. They asked Marilyn, who said that it was natural. She said that the picture had no seal from the Motion Picture Association anyway, and added, "Let's get the people away from the television sets. I love to do things the censors wouldn't pass. After all, what are we all here for, just to stand around and let it pass us by? Gradually they'll let down the censorship - sadly probably not in my lifetime" Max Youngstein had called from United Artists in New York, "just out of academic curiosity," and was told about the shot, which Taylor described to him as "a beautiful natural accident."

Max was enthusiastic. "Let's use it! Let's do it! The time has come! This is UA's answer to television!"

John Huston, who was opposed to the shot, listened to Taylor and Miller, and said, "Fine, I've always known that girls have breasts."

Eve Arnold, photographer - that's Gable and Monroe, I love that one

Marilyn Monroe herself finally consented to an interview. Here are a couple of excerpts:

"I'd prefer not to analyze it [acting] ... it's subjective; rather, I want to remain subjective while I'm doing it. Rather than do much talking I'd rather act. When it's on the screen, that's when you'll know who Roslyn is. I don't want to water down my own feeling ... Goethe says a career is developed in public but talent is developed in private, or silence. It's true for the actor. To really say what's in my heart, I'd rather show than to say. Even though I want people to understand, I'd much rather they understand on the screen. If I don't do that, I'm on the wrong track, or in the wrong profession.... Nobody would have heard of me if it hadn't been for John Huston. When we started Asphalt Jungle, my first picture, I was very nervous, but John said, 'Look at Calhern (the late Louis Calhern, a veteran actor), see how he's shaking. If you're not nervous, you might as well give up.' John has meant a great deal in my life. It's sort of a coincidence to be with him ten years later."

Eve Arnold, photographer - Marilyn didn't spend any time in the casinos - not like John Huston did - but she did come out with the crew one night. Here's a shot from that night - Huston and Monroe ... look at her girlishness. I just love her.

And that image is in contrast to the one taken near the end of the shoot - Monroe and Miller, their marriage nearly over, standing in the hotel room they no longer share. And Inge Morath took this photo.

Inge Morath, photographer

Miller and Morath did not get together on the shoot - their romance began after - and was haunted a bit by Monroe, of course -who died in 63 ... but Morath had a good head on her shoulders and was very taken with Monroe. Morath, asked many years later, what it was like to be the wife who came AFTER Marilyn Monroe, considered by some to be the sexiest woman in the world - (this was in the NY Times, this interview with Morath) - and Morath said, "You have to remember that I also had a great career in my own field, and I also had had a number of pretty terrific boyfriends." hahaha She was 65 years old when she said that, maybe older - and I just loved her for that. She loved Marilyn Monroe - she said that after she married Arthur Miller (okay, please forgive me - but tears are in my eyes right now) - she had a recurring dream - where she and Marilyn Monroe were dancing together. Beautiful glimmery ghostly now-dead Monroe dancing with Inge Morath - the woman who finally made Arthur Miller happy. Such self-knowledge in those statements, such acceptance and joy.

Here's another one of Moraths photos - this from the beginning of the shoot. Notice Arthur Miller in the foreground, Marilyn a tiny figure in the background.

Inge Morath, photographer

So I figure I'll end this now. Down below you'll see a couple more photographs that I LOVE (including one of my favorites ever taken of Marilyn Monroe - it's the first one in the group) ... and one last anecdote, which shows the main thing I loved about this book - which didn't go too deep, stayed on the surface a bit more than I would have liked ... but anecdotes like this - fragments of time captured - funny moments nailed down and remembered - it's the kind of writing I like, it's why I keep a journal:

That evening, John gave a birthday party for both Arthur Miller and Montgomery Clift at the Christmas Tree Inn on the Mount Rose highway outside Reno, high in the mountains. It was attended by Mrs. Walter Huston, John's mother, Marilyn and Arthur (in one of their rare public appearances), Monty Clift, Eli Wallach, Angela Allen, Eve Arnold, Gladys Hill, Ernst Haas, Tom and Ruth Shaw, Russell Metty, Doc and Connie Erickson, and Ernie Anderson; Rudy Kautzsky, Marilyn's driver, Charles Edwards, Eli's driver; Charles Coffman, Clark Gable;'s driver; Ralph Thelander, Clift's driver; and Al Edgecomb, driver for Huston.

The occasion was raucous. Most of the people there had held themselves in for three months, but the next day was the last day of location shooting, and a few remarks seemed to be in order. Marilyn's unfamiliar social presence only added to the compulsion. A few of the verbal exchanges:

Eli: "I'm abandoning my career." Russell Metty: "How can you lose what you never had?"

John was talking to Marilyn. Monty leaned over to listen. John to Monty: "Are you about to make an observation?" Clift: "No ..." John: "Well, you look like you're about to make an observation." Clift: "No ..." John: "Today's your birthday, so shut up."

John to Mrs. Guy Michaels, the wife of the owner of the Christmas Tree: "I want my steak well done, very well done, burn it." Marilyn: "How cruel!"

Arthru Miller looked over his presents, one of them being twelve pencils from Ernst Haas: "Nothing loosens my tongue like an unsharpened pencil."

Huston: "How old are you, Arhtur? Spit it out clearly; you're not in a pool hall now."

Russell Metty got to his feet at this moment and delivered a series of humorous broadsides around the room, determined to speak his mind after a long silence: "Arthur writes scripts and John shoots ducks. First Arthur screwed up the script and now his wife is screwing it up. Why don't you wish him a happy birthday, Marilyn? Arthur doesn't know whether the horse should be up or down. Marilyn thinks we should keep the scene showing her half-naked in bed. Monty is buying into the Del Monte grapefruit juice business. Ernie Anderson is the most mysterious man I know. No one knows what the hell he does, but he always seems to have John's telephone number in San Francisco. This is truly the biggest bunch of misfits I ever saw." (Applause)

The dinner collapsed, and the company went into the bar and began to gamble at a crap table. Huston won and lost, and Arthur Miller rolled for the first time in Reno, winning a little and then losing it all. Marilyn was persuaded to try: "Oh, why don't they ever come up right (throwing a seven after making a point)? Oh, I didn't mean that, can I take it back?" When she got the dice again, Marilyn asked John: "What should I ask the dice for, John?" Huston: "Don't think, honey, just throw. That's the story of your life. Don't think, do it."

Ha!!

Below you'll find more photos - as well as to the PBS website that hosts a ton of them, if you want to see a bazillion more (which is yet another reason why PBS has my monetary support and will forever).

Wonderful little book, LOTS of fun to read - and makes me want to see The Misfits again.

EVE ARNOLD PHOTOS

HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON

What a candid, huh? Look at all three of those men.

INGE MORATH PHOTOS

More photos here! Posted by sheila