Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,
Robert Mitchum, Marilyn Monroe, Rory Calhoun, Tommy Rettig, Murvyn Vye, Douglas Spencer
Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum) is a farmer living outside of town along the river the Indians call “The River of No Return” with his young son Mark (Tommy Rettig). When a saloon girl Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe) and her boyfriend, gambler Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun) end up stranded on a raft on the river near the farm, Matt and Mark rescue them, but Harry steals Matt’s only horse and rifle and takes off for nearest town to register a claim for a gold mine he won in a poker game, leaving Kate behind with Matt and Mark in terrible danger since they have no gun and no horse, and this is dangerous Indian territory. Their only choice it to take the raft and try to make it to town down the river without dying first.
This is a really neat classic western from 1954, filmed in CinemaScope and in Technicolor which was something to see in 1954, and is at the height of great western movie times. Plus this has the added attraction of having Marilyn Monroe in it, and is one of the lesser known films in her “body” of work. She’s beautiful here, as always, but certainly knows how to handle herself in the rugged outdoors along the Salmon River in Idaho where this was filmed. The story is full of action and adventure, wild animals, crazy white water, Indians who seem really pissed off for some reason, and the usual campfires, coffee, and horses. The story moves right along and wraps up neatly in a package right at the end with Marilyn being carried off into the sunset. What could be better than a good old fashion western film filled with gunfights and unbelievable scenery as well as good values and fair play by the good guys who always win. But this film has a few twists and turns along the way, and isn’t all black and white as far a wrong and right. But the guy in the white hat eventually comes out on top and goodness wins as it should. There is a lot of music in this film as well, although you can’t really classify it as a musical, but almost. Most of it is sung in the sultry voice of Marilyn Monroe, but the husky deep bass voice of Tennessee Ernie Ford singing the great western theme song, River of No Return in the beginning is what led me to this film in the first place. Waileree! Marilyn doesn’t do bad singing it in the end either. I have a Pandora station of Cowboy Songs, and I live a few blocks from Knotts Berry Farm which often brings great western music to us, most often with the group Chaparral featuring Johnny Blankenship and Harvey Walker who are staples at Knotts, have being there for as long as anyone can remember. Between the two, I got really hooked on western and cowboy songs (Harve used to play fiddle for Roy Rogers’ Sons of the Pioneers) and Pandora used to play Ernie Ford’s River of No Return on a regular basis which got me to wondering about the song, and I figured it had to be a movie theme. I found it streaming on NetFlix and it was a wonderful 90 minutes going back to the great Westerns of old and I totally enjoyed this trip back in time. If you ever get in the mood for a great sample of the old western films, this is a great one that is not that well known (at least to me) and since I was about 3 years old when it came out, I somehow never saw this one. I really had a good time watching this, and I’m sure you will too.
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