River of No Return (1954) - film review

It is 1875 and the North American gold rush is well underway.  Matt Calder arrives at a gold prospecting settlement to collect his ten-year-old son Mark.  Recently released from prison after serving a sentence for murder, Matt has resolved to make a fresh start as a farmer.  He meets Kay, an attractive bar singer who has befriended Mark.  Kay’s boyfriend is Harry, a gambler who reveals that he has just won a claim on a patch of land believed to be rich in gold.  Harry persuades Kay to go with him to the nearest town so that they can file the claim and get married.  They go down river by raft, but the river proves to be more hazardous than they had anticipated.  They are saved from downing by Matt.  Harry repays this kindness by knocking Matt unconscious and running off with his only horse and gun.  Kay stays behind to look after Matt and his son.  When he regains consciousness, Matt insists that they must leave the area at once, since, without the gun, they are defenceless against the hostile Indians...

The pairing of screen icons Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe makes River of No Return a popular and lively western, although its appeal to serious aficionados of the genre is barely skin deep.  Tellingly, neither Marilyn Monroe nor director Otto Preminger wanted to make this film; both only went along for the ride because of their contracts with Twentieth Century-Fox.  For Preminger the experience of making this film was so fraught that, once it was in the can, he bought his way out of his contract with Fox, insisting that he would never again work for a large studio.  

For all the backstage tensions and Preminger’s aversion for CinemaScope, the film holds together pretty well – in fact, far better than it deserves to.  On the plus side, good use is made of the stunning Canadian location and Monroe gets to sing four enjoyable musical numbers in her inimitable style.  It’s a pity that the script doesn’t come up to scratch.  Even for a genre as prone to cliché as the western this is pretty derivative stuff.  It doesn’t take long before the heavy plot contrivances and hackneyed dialogue become so aggravating that you just have to ally yourselves with the inexplicably psychopathic Red Indians and start firing arrows (or the nearest object at your disposal) at the screen.  There is not a character in the film who has more depth than a sheet of BacoFoil, but that hardly matters.  Monroe and Mitchum are on fine form and, whilst the film is far from perfect, it is still mildly entertaining – particularly if you approve of the notion that children should be trained in the use of firearms from the age of ten.

© James Travers 2008

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