Michael Branch: ‘Out On Misfits Flat’

John Huston directs Marilyn in ‘The Misfits’

Writing for High Country Times, Michael Branch describes The Misfits as ‘the quintessential Nevada film’, and recounts his trip with a friend to ‘Misfits Flat’, where the movie’s most dramatic scenes were filmed:

“Miller and Huston tried to script and shoot the death of the Old West out here on Misfits Flat, but to be in this place is to experience an expansiveness and light that doesn’t give a damn about that. Even the poignant loss dramatized in the film is a human-scale emotion that the immensity of the land won’t abide. I’m reminded of the moment in The Misfits when Roslyn is asked if she’s ever been outside of Reno. ‘Once I went to the edge of town,’ she replies. ‘Doesn’t look like there’s much out there.’ Gay Langland, the free-spirited old cowboy played so perfectly by Clark Gable, replies with a simple insight that any misfit desert ranter can understand: ‘Everything’s there.'”

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