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Misfits, Mustangs, Monroe and Mad Men
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Roslyn (Marilyn Monroe) discovers the terrible truth in The Misfits.
Marilyn Monroe’s last completed film, The Misfits, was released in early 1961. Written by her then-husband, Arthur Miller, as a sweeping Western and commentary on the dying Old West, the movie actually became more famous for its troubled production and subsequent deaths of its leading actors than for its own merits.
That’s a shame because it’s a pretty good picture. One of the high points in the movie comes when Roslyn, played by Marilyn Monroe, discovers that her day out with some Nevada cowboys to go “mustanging” isn’t exactly what she had anticipated. The mustangs, she learns, will be rounded up and sold to dealers who slaughter the wild horses and use the meat in dog food. Roslyn’s realization and subsequent anger upon learning the truth provide the movie’s dramatic climax and one of Marilyn’s finest performances. Indeed, one of Miller’s main reasons for writing the screenplay was to showcase Marilyn’s acting abilities.
Recently, that critical scene from The Misfits turned up in the current AMC television show, Mad Man. Set in an early 1960s New York advertising agency, Mad Men is a critically acclaimed show, highly respected not only for its plots but for its meticulous historical accuracy and detail.
Season 3, episode 11 (called “The Gypsy and the Hobo”) contains a subplot in which a pet food company seeks the advice of the Mad Men’s ad agency, Sterling Cooper, when, thanks to The Misfits, the public discovers that dog food contains horse meat. The client wants to change the public’s perception without changing the food’s recipe or name.
Click here to learn more about Mad Men.
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