River of No Return (1954)

This may have been Marilyn Monroe's least favorite film she starred in, but it's my favorite of her films I've seen. I think that's because, like Gable's "Call of the Wild", and "The Tall Men", there is a single man, who finds a beautiful woman(married or not) out in the middle of a wilderness, and spends the rest of the film trying to convince her that their chance adventure together was for a cosmic purpose..... It begins with Robert Mitchum, as Matt Caldor, returning to the area of northern Idaho where he was before he spent 6 years in a penitentiary for shooting a man who was about to shoot his friend. As it happened, he had to shoot the man in the back, something Matt's half grown son: Mark(Tommy Rettig) found repulsive. The great irony of the film is that near the end, Mark finds himself in the same situation, when Marilyn(Kay)'s former boyfriend (Rory Calhoun, as Harry Weston) is about to shoot Matt, who doesn't have a gun. Mark uses a store-displayed rifle(why would such a rifle be loaded??)......Matt was introduced to both Mark and Kate when he arrived at a mining camp near his homestead, after his 6 year absence. Kay was an entertainer for the rowdy miners, and had picked up Weston as a boyfriend. He won a gold mining claim in a gambling game, and wanted to register it at the far off town, down river. He foolishly decided to raft down the known dangerous river, rather than taking a horse trail. Kay went with him. They got into trouble, as they passed Matt's farm, and Matt had to rescue them. Kay sang a number of songs, some as she strummed on her guitar on the trail. The best song is the title song, sung several times, at the beginning, and near the end, when Kay sang her version in a saloon.. These can be heard at YouTube. All the songs were composed by the team of Lionel Newman and Ken Darby. In addition, the traditional "Red River Valley" was heard in the mining camp.......There are some legitimate gripes by others.. Yes, there were too many closeups of the struggles on the raft in the rapids that were obviously studio shots in front of a back projection screen. Instead of a romantic hug and hard kiss, we only get Matt's dramatic forced kiss and rape attempt. This didn't seem to shake up Kay too bad, and at the end, she submitted to Matt's carrying her out of the saloon, and onto his buckboard, with the implication that she would live with him on his farm, even with dangerous Indians around......Matt's original motivation for taking the dangerous river route was 2 fold.:1)To flee from the Indians ,who burned his house, and 2) To get even with Weston for stealing his rifle and horse and leaving him knocked senseless.. In part, he was accomplishing that by stealing his woman. Kay's original motivation for staying with Matt, rather than going with Weston, was that she figured the injured Matt would need some help for a while, and Weston promised to return after he filed his claim. When the 3 reached the claims town, they found Weston busy at his favorite occupation: gambling, suggesting he wasn't planning on returning. I've already told the rest....The outdoor shoots were done mostly in and around Canada's national parks in the Rockies. Apparently, there were also some shots on Idaho's Salmon River, which is sometimes described as 'The river of no return'. Despite it's shortcomings, I didn't lose my interest at any point. Marilyn is often seen in revealing tops, and Mitchum is hunky enough to keep the women interested. The story is relatively simple, with only a few significant characters.

WOW, no wonder Marilyn Monroe is a timeless Icon, what beauty, what class what charm and what a soulful voice, she could of been just a great singer, she did it all.... And I don't know to what extent her guitar playing was but if sure looks to me like she was playing the guitar, could of been open tuning.... Norma Jeane, timeless vibrations you gave us Dear, Thru ages-never another talent will be your peer....... You left us lovely Goddess way to soon, see you act and dance, feel your soul croon... Yes it came thru on the silver screen, millions of devoted fans on your divine feminine team. Too soon you left us, our tears testify, Jolton Joe Knew and loved my oh my... Yes our 1st lady of sexual flame, burned out to fast, it was them who were to blame............ We all love you Marilyn

I would like to see as many films starring the famous leading actress from Gentleman Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot as possible, and I spotted this one in another different genre, I was most intrigued, from director Otto Preminger (Laura, Carmen Jones, Anatomy of a Murder). Basically widower Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum) has recently return home and to his young son Mark Calder (Tommy Rettig) after serving time in prison for killing another man defending another. Mark has been looked after by dance hall and saloon singer Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe), and his father promises him that as virtual strangers he will do everything possible to bond at the homestead, with hunting, fishing and farming. Kay's fiancé Harry (Rory Calhoun) plans to get to Council City and file the deed to a gold mine he won in a poker game, but they get in trouble going down the rough river on a raft, and they are rescued by the father and son duo, only to have their gun and horse stolen by Harry and let him get away. Indians are roaming the premises, so the three of them continue down the river on the raft, and stopping to rest Matt questions why Kay wants to marry a man who threatens a child, and her defence is that he is worse having killed a man, and overhearing this discussion Mark finally learns the truth about his father's past. The three of them again continue down the river, and she slowly becomes grateful towards the father figure as he looks after them with bravery and tenderness, against such challenges as a lion attack, prospectors Dave Colby (Murvyn Vye) and Sam Benson (Douglas Spencer) who want Harry's gold, and more Indians. Matt, Kay and Mark manage to get through more rapids and arrive in Council City, meeting back up with Harry, and after a struggle Kay's fiancé is shot and killed by Mark, and in the end Matt and Mark take Kay with them back to their farm. Also starring Don Beddoe as Ben - Council City Storekeeper and Paul Newlan as Prospector. Monroe is absolutely beautiful here, especially as this is the first time I saw her with long blonde hair, and her singing is good too, and Mitchum does alright mumbling and being cool all the way through, the bits between them are alright, I think the best bits are probably on the raft and against Indians and a lion, at least they make the film reasonably exciting, a not bad western. Worth watching!

A rancher tames white water rapids and a sultry woman as they take a raft trip down a river. Mitchum is solid as the no-nonsense hero. Monroe gets to warble a few songs and her singing is not terrible. The same can't be said of her acting. She really needed an actor's director to coax out a good performance, and Preminger was not that type of director. In fact, Preminger is incompetent in pretty much everything he does in this Western, a foreign genre for him. The scenes of Indian attacks are quite poorly staged. The rafting scenes, often utilizing projected background, look cheesy. Rettig, who started on the "Lassie" TV series the same year as this movie, does OK as Mitchum's son.