Misfits Country
by Arthur Winfield Knight
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Book Summary Information
Author: Arthur Winfield KnightEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-03-01
ISBN: 0974530913
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Tres Picos Press
Book Reviews of Misfits Country
Book Review: "Misfits Country" ... fits
Summary: 5 Stars
Arthur Knight's "Misfits Country," for those of us either old enough to recall or be adequately studied in cinema to harbor curiosity about what may have actually occurred in the minds and lives of the cast members of Hollywood's hot list during the shooting of what has been univocally described as one of the most difficult film productions ever undertaken, reads like a dream we may have never dreamt ... but always considered.
Arthur Miller's script for The Misfits, directed by John Houston in 1961 and strongly supported by then A-list actors Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift marked the last curtain call for two of America's greatest film stars ... they just didn't know it yet. And ... who would've?
Such retrospective analysis provided the fictional fodder for Knight, who delves deeply into the "what if?" He presents the reader with scenarios created from actual, factual research and a sharper mind for speculative scenarios with even more finely honed prose to explore the dynamics of what happened on the set ... or what may have, behind the sets and soundstages in the personal challenges facing these stars whose inner lights were dimming in a rapidly fading horizon of personal illusion simultaneously melding with that of the public silver screen.
Using the tension of Miller's and Monroe's failing marriage sizzling in the Reno, Nevada desert heat, accentuated by an increasingly inebriated Houston who had indeed lost his "direction," Knight explores the breadth and depth of these rich and famous personas America adored, and insightfully presents through his inner-dramatic format what may have really led to the end of the epic drama, the erratic lives of those who embodied it, and an era when a movie-going public departed theaters in awe, never knowing what dirt might lie within the folds of the theater's curtains. They bought the dream - Knight didn't.
The documented reality of the film's labored production is, in and of itself, tabloid material, but Knight exercises his focused writing to cast the characters in different lights - sometimes soft and forgiving, and others harsh and unyielding. Between the novel's bindings and among its pages, readers become privy to thoughts, attitudes, intentions and actions stripped of a Hollywood mystique that can never be proven. Nor, however ... can his suppositions ever be outright denied. And in such ... the drama within a drama emerges.
The film, after much delay, opened to mixed reviews, no doubt born from an expectation of audiences who were awaiting established superstar performances, but had no clue about a drunken and compulsively gambling director; the downright nasty marital discord of America's blonde-bombshell sweetheart stoned out of her beautiful gourd on drugs and alcohol during filming; the ever-widening gap of her marriage to acclaimed playwright Arthur Miller; or Monroe's implied liaisons with "Monty," a closeted bisexual who sported a drug usage profile equal to or greater than Monroe's.
Fact: Miller and Monroe divorced shortly after production on The Misfits was completed.
What "Misfits Country" offers that the film does not is a vast and deep undercurrent of raw dialogue that wasn't scripted for actors, yet in prose form reveals a story equally as compelling, perhaps even more compelling, than that of the film, where actors were merely reciting lines for takes ... but not delivering the stuff emanating from their true hearts, even if their true hearts' desires are the product of Knight's imagination.
"Misfits?" Probably. But in "Misfits Country," human beings - not actors - with much more real emotions, real issues, real dramas, real problems ... without direction ... and without doubt, seek solace, happiness, and comfort wherever it might exist ... for survival.
Reality, in "Misfits Country" seems to possess more inherent truth than what we saw on the screen when too, and quite fairly, we suspended our belief for entertainment.
Arthur Knight, an early scholar of Beat Generation poets and retired university professor, edited and published several acclaimed anthologies from this historic era of American literature. He's also written plays on his versions of the lives of Billy The Kid, James Dean, and Jack Kerouac. Among his other available novels is "Blue Skies Falling," a thinly-disguised take on the life of Sam Peckinpah.
"Misfits Country" presents readers with yet another dreamy journey into the lives of Hollywood's American film icons ... and outlaws.
Like Knight's past literary endeavors, "Misfits Country" is well worth the read - so read it now ... before the inevitable movie ... about the movie, arrives at your local theater.
Summary of Misfits Country
In the summer of 1960 a legendary director took a cast of movie icons into the Nevada desert to make a movie from a screenplay by a famed playwright. The Misfits was one of the most anticipated films of the 20th century, but difficult shooting locations, an unstable leading lady, an aging leading man, a crumbling marriage, and an undisciplined director all conspired to make behind-the-scene events as dramatic as the movie itself.Historical Books
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