A typical western movie poster depicts a courageous cowboy battling evil Indians. John Wayne is the archetypal western hero and is shown on the posters of his film as menacing and intimidating. The Misfits is a 1961 western starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. The film is an atypical western in that none of the characters are great heroes.

The film was not successful and famous because it’s the last film of both Gable and Monroe. The film’s posters have become collector’s items because of the premature deaths of its stars – similar to when the value of a painting ascending because of the death of the artist. Posters for The Misfits are difficult to find, but with research and time, a seeker can become an owner of a very original western movie poster.

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The best and most convenient resource in finding a western movie poster is the internet. A website such as eBay, is good because often the items on the site are rare. Very common in movie posters of the 1960s the painting is very bright, to the point of being almost garish. The text is also attention-getting in bright, large bubble letters.

Similar to that is a Belgian poster for the film that bears many of the same characteristics, including the large block lettering, and the almost-stylized rendering of the film’s actors. Unlike a usual western movie poster, the female character is depicted in equal prominence to her costars (probably due to the fact that it’s Monroe, and that typically westerns do not feature strong female protagonists).

A Mexican version of the poster is closer to the ideal of the classic western movie poster. It portrays Gable and Monroe larger than life (Gable is wearing cowboy hat), and on the bottom, there’s a shot of Gable wrangling a horse.

The most famous version out of all of the posters for The Misfits shows the characters in square panels, Monroe being the only one that has a full-body shot. A small concession to the classic western movie poster is a small panel on the bottom that shows Gable’s character struggling with a horse. This is the only concession, however. Save for the men wearing hats, one would not be able to deduce that it’s a western movie poster. Instead of scenes of action and bravery, we are shown scenes of alienation and high emotion.

Collectors of film memorabilia will probably want to hunt these posters down because of they are so hard to find. Posters of Stagecoach and spaghetti westerns are easier to find because the films were more successful and more fondly remembered. Like getting Rembrandt’s final masterpiece, owning an original The Misfits poster is more than just owning a western movie poster, it’s like owning the final work of Clark Gable or Marilyn Monroe.