River of No Return

/ Colin McGuigan

There are movies that don’t quite work as well as they might, even though on paper they have a good deal going for them. I’d place River of No Return (1954) in that category, an appealing cast and a big name director working in an attractive setting but the end result being a film that falls short of expectations. While it has its moments and does entertain, it’s not entirely successful. Why should that be so? I guess it’s down to a combination of factors – a star and director who were inexperienced in the genre as well as a shoot which was reportedly challenging for them all.

In essence, River of No Return is a very simple story, an outdoors adventure with a hint of revenge and redemption caught up in the currents of the narrative. It opens in a mining camp, one of those rough and ready melting pots of the frontier where prospectors and rogues rub shoulders and fortunes may be won, lost or merely dreamed about. Widower Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum) rides into this raucous mass of humanity searching not for gold but the son he hasn’t seen for many years. The reason for this absence might be guessed at but it’s not explicitly stated until around the halfway point in the movie – it’s no spoiler to state that he killed man, shot him in the back in fact in order to save a friend. Well, he finds the boy (Tommy Rettig), who has been befriended by saloon singer Kay (Marilyn Monroe), and sets off back to his farm with him. As it happens, Kay and her gambler boyfriend Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun) also decide to pull up stakes at around the same time, in their case to file a claim for mining rights won in a card game. These two leave in a hurry though as that card game was very likely crooked and they make their way via a river raft. In a movie ripe with coincidence, it just so happens that Calder’s farm is located along the banks of that same river and Kay is unexpectedly reunited with the boy when she and Weston run into difficulties. That Weston is out for number one is rarely in doubt and this is confirmed by his decision to repay Calder’s kindness by stealing his horse and rifle, leaving him to fend for himself and the boy in an isolated spot with hostile Indians waiting in the wings. Left with no other option under the circumstances, Calder loads his son and Kay onto the raft and, as his home burns and the arrows rain down around them, heads downriver in pursuit of safety, and of Weston.

Seeing Otto Preminger’s name listed as director is typically an indication of a worthwhile movie but, initially at least, neither he nor producer Stanley Rubin were enthused by the prospect. Admittedly, this director isn’t a person who one would associate with westerns. Even so, a lack of background in the genre doesn’t necessarily equate to a lack of ability or even affinity. Still, River of No Return does not represent Preminger at his best. I don’t feel the characters are explored in the way his better films did, and the set piece action scenes which ought to serve as highlights are adequate but not much more really. On the other hand, the location work, mainly in Alberta, looks terrific, a feature which is weakened somewhat by back projection.

If Preminger wasn’t a western “name”, then the same was true of Marilyn Monroe. She was of course a big star and the kind of draw that any filmmaker would have welcomed. While I’m not sure she ever comes across as a credible western figure, she is undeniably decorative and her scenes in the saloons are memorable and well staged, as are her interactions with Rettig. She never looks all that convincing during the rafting sequences although that’s perhaps understandable and she’s not alone in that respect. Mitchum, on the other hand, was very much at home in westerns and his presence provides a solid anchor. This was his second collaboration with Preminger after Angel Face and even if the film is no match for that earlier production, he is fine alongside Monroe. However, there is one scene where, following on from some mild flirtation, his character assaults her and I find it jars no matter how often I’ve seen it – it feels out of character based on what preceded it and adds nothing to the plot either. It’s just there. Then there is that backstory to the character which is only made clear well into the movie. I recall when I first saw this film that this element seemed to be dropped in rather abruptly with little build up or foreshadowing. Of course it’s an important plot point, one which feeds into and influences the tone of the climax, but it seemed to me at the time that it was clumsily inserted, and I still feel it could have been integrated more smoothly from an earlier stage.

Rory Calhoun wasn’t as big a name as either of his co-stars, although he had had a good part alongside Monroe in the previous year’s How to Marry a Millionaire and was a lead in many lower budgeted westerns at this point in his career. When he is on screen he brings a slick charm to his part which is quite appropriate. That thing is though, he’s not on screen for all that often and is absent for the entire mid section. Like Mitchum and Monroe, the character he’s playing has a good deal of potential with allusions to greater depth but the writing allows only glimpses of that to show through. Tommy Rettig is fine too as the boy reconnecting with an absent father and having to deal with what he learns about him. There is a point to be made about needing to accept how options can be shaped and thus limited by circumstances, but the way in which this is achieved in the climactic scenes is rather brutal from the youngster’s point of view and I’m always left to wonder what effect that would have in the long run.

All told, River of No Return is a reasonably satisfying western, albeit one which is far from perfect. The visuals can veer from splendid to disappointing, even within the same shot, and the performances are pleasing without ever becoming compelling. As such, this is a slightly odd western, attractive and entertaining while coming up short with regard to all it promises. I give it a cautious recommendation. As for availability, there are DVDs from most every region freely available. I have the German Blu-ray, which I found satisfactory.

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63 thoughts on “River of No Return”

  2. And actually, when I was a teenager, this was the first MM film I ever saw on probably matinee TV in the 1980s – it was her second salloon song that was my first ever glimpse of MM on the screen — been a fan ever since!

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      • That’s probably a bit unfair to Lassie.

        Marilyn’s one great performance was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Although she is quite good in Don’t Bother to Knock and she’s OK in Niagara.

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          • Barry, Jane Russell was top-notch in GENTLEMAN PREFER BLONDES. Later on, Russell told the story that to keep Marilyn Monroe from being late to the set, that she would stop at Monroe’s dressing room and say, “Hey, kid it’s time go to the set.” Monroe would reply, “Okay.” They would walk together to the set. Janie and the Kid.

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        • I don’t have an issue with her performances per se, I think she was good in those thrillers in roles where she was playing the kind of characters viewers don’t tend to associate with her nowadays. And her ability in light comedy is very evident.
          As has been stated above, however, even if her name was and is used as a selling point and draw for the public, her presence alone wouldn’t actually carry a movie.

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        • Dee, I think that Marilyn Monroe was quite good in both DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK and NIAGARA. Looking back, her career could have been quite different if she had continued on the route of being a dramatic actress.

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            • Barry, you know as well as I do that making movies is a business and if producers like Laurence Olivier, Billy Wilder, Frank E. Taylor, and John Huston thought that having Monroe in a movie would make money, then they would cast her. They may very well have been nuts, but money talks.

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                • Barry, if we are just talking about producers casting Marilyn Monroe that would be Billy Wilder and John Huston. THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH(1955) and SOME LIKE IT HOT(1959) for Wilder. THE ASPHALT JUNGLE(1950) and THE MISFITS(1961) for Huston. Also, Wilder wanted Monroe for his KISS ME, STUPID(1964), but her death ended that casting. Jayne Mansfield was offered the role but couldn’t do it because she was pregnant with daughter Mariska Hargitay. Kim Novak got the part.

                  Sol C. Siegel produced both MONKEY BUSINESS(1952) and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES(1953) and Howard Hawks directed both, but these were 20th Century Fox studio movies. Darryl F. Zanuck was head of production and he cast Monroe. Hawks wanted Jane Russell for the role of Dorothy Shaw in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES for box office insurance, so they got Russell as a loan out from Howard Hughes’ RKO Studios. Russell received top billing.

                  The SEVEN YEAR ITCH was a 20th Century Fox movie. Producer Charles Feldman purchased the screen rights to George Axelrod’s hit Broadway play specifically to serve as a film vehicle for Marilyn Monroe. He then partnered with director Billy Wilder to develop and co-produce the movie. While 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck strongly agreed with the choice of Monroe.

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            • I think I know what you are getting at Barry. In her career she was able to escape into her alter ego. Her true character was someone known as Norma Jeane.

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            • It was the era of the Blonde Bombshell. Marilyn was the least talented of the breed. Mamie van Doren was a better actress. Even Jayne Mansfield was a better actress. Diana Dors and Brigitte Bardot were the only 50s Blonde Bombshells who were great actresses.

              In Hollywood actresses do not necessarily get cast because they can act.

              Marilyn was the female James Dean. Both had nothing careers but became manufactured legends after their demise.

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              • I don’t feel that’s entirely fair. Marilyn Monroe’s image and what might be termed her legend has grown over time, blurring the quality of her work to some extent. However, acknowledging that fact doesn’t have to equate to dismissing the work out of hand.
                Yes, she had her limitations, either stemming from or compounded by, or perhaps a bit of both, the personal issues she appears to have struggled with. Nevertheless, there are some fine performances – The Misfits has real pathos (I couldn’t imagine Jayne Mansfield, for example, playing off Gable so believably or effectively), both of her roles for Wilder are superb pieces of comedic acting, Hathaway got brought out a different side again. And so on.
                So maybe the pop culture imagery that has been built up around her has left her more visible than actresses whose acting talents exceeded hers, but that shouldn’t be taken as evidence that there was no more solid basis for her enduring fame.

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                  • He is without doubt a big part of why it works, maybe even the biggest part. Even so, he needed the right person to play off, or to play off him if one prefers, and I do think Monroe, particularly at the stage in her life and career, fitted the bill. I really can’t see the other “blonde bombshell” competitors making the same kind of impression.

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                • Colin, I think you put that excellently about Monroe. She was a unique screen presence. I just think at times she was magic on that screen and others don’t really compare to it. Barbara Stanwyck who IS one of the great actresses of all time was very sweet and understanding about working with Monroe on ‘Clash by Night’ and acknowledging the magic that she brought to the screen and making the pains of working with her worth it the same as Billy Wilder always said about Monroe too.

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    • I think the fact one doesn’t automatically associate heartwarming with a Preminger movie indicates the slightly odd feel of the production. It does have that vaguely uncomfortable sting that feels more in keeping when Mitchum finally catches up with Calhoun, but then the coda draws it off somewhat.

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      • A somewhat different perspective:Clark Gable was initially offered the lead inHome From the Hill, a film that he turned down and Robert Mitchum accepted. Bob Mitchum was initially offered The Misfits, which he turned down. When Mitchum heard that Gable was doing the Mistfits, he apparentl ysaid; “Oh my God, they are going to kill him.”

        And they did.

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        • Interesting. I could see Gable taking on the role of Wade Hunnicutt successfully, although I also feel Mitchum’s performance is superb and I’d hate to be without it.
          I’m not sure I could see Mitchum in The Misfits though – it needed Gable’s by then wearied and worn persona to add the necessary pathos. Yes, his passing and obvious exertions in the role provide an extra layer of poignancy, but it was a helluva role to go out on and the movie remains tremendously affecting largely as a result.

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  5. I saw at the bfi and found it a pretty disappointing western. Preminger thought he was above the genre. His noir films are better. After this one his films only show flashes of interest with many overblown bores (Exodus)

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    • I suppose that, on balance, I too prefer or get more pleasure from the movies in the earlier stages of Preminger’s career. Having said that, I find there are plenty of good and even great films to be found among his output in the years following this. But yes, Exodus, while well intentioned, is far too long and a bit of a chore to get through.

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    • David, I think Otto Preminger made some good movies after 1953. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM(1955), THE COURT-MARTIAL OF BILLY MITCHELL(1955), BONJOUR TRISTESSE(1958), ANATOMY OF A MURDER(1959), and more. I think these movies showed more than flashes of interest, of course that’s just my opinion.

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      • Preminger was at his best doing genre movies. No-one was better at film noir than Preminger. He was at his worst when doing Big Important Movies. Of his non-crime movies only BONJOUR TRISTESSE achieves true greatness. I’m also quite a fan of FOREVER AMBER. It’s a great trashy melodrama. And I mean trashy in a good way.

        Like so many directors, the higher he aimed the less satisfying the results.

        EXODUS needed to be cut by about two hours.

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  6. I need yo re-watch this Colin, it sounds less good than I remember! Preminger took to CinemasScope really well and I remember really liking the look of it. On the other hand, I’ve never quite understood the fuss about Monroe. I think there is a good reason why she was always paired with stronger actors and almost never had to carry a movie on her own.

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    • Yes, I know what you mean. Of course the legend has grown over time, and the rapid rise and then the early and dramatic demise all fed that.
      The movie is fine really, very attractive to look at in places even if the process work does jar at times. However, the personnel involved create a heightened sense of expectation, one which (for me anyway) is never quite met.

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  7. Quote Colin, “It’s just there”. The film is full of untimely inserts. That encounter with Mitchum’s character assaulting her (Monroe) was the ultimate insert. Seemed to be written in for the purposes of saucing things up for the audience only Mitchum could get away with and the fantasy of Monroe getting manhandled. JMO

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        • I don’t buy it in terms of the narrative though. I can’t recall exactly now, but I think the events take place around an hour or thereabouts into the movie with no indication that I noticed as to this being the kind of behaviour Mitchum’s character was likely to indulge in. Later on it doesn’t feel to me like the relationship between Mitchum and Monroe has been moved to a markedly different level than was the case before that occurred. What I mean is the characters and the way they relate to each other could, in my view at any rate, have just as easily progressed from point A at the beginning of the picture to point B at the conclusion without that episode ever having taken place.

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          • I know what you mean, Colin. I initially felt the same way. But, the more times I watched it……the more sense that encounter made. I also garnered a further appreciation of Monroe as a serious actress because of her sincere performance.

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            • Scott, I think sincere performance is right on. I don’t think Marilyn Monroe was a great actress, but I think she was good as Kay in RIVER OF NO RETURN, and she had her moments and the camera was good to her.

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  8. Colin, good write-up of RIVER OF NO RETURN(filmed 1953, released 1954), which I recall first viewing on Memphis, Tennessee’s WREC Channel 3 LATE MOVIE in 1974. I probably like the movie a little more than you do, but I see your points here, “All told, River of No Return is a reasonably satisfying western, albeit one which is far from perfect. The visuals can veer from splendid to disappointing, even within the same shot, and the performances are pleasing without ever becoming compelling. As such, this is a slightly odd western, attractive and entertaining while coming up short with regard to all it promises.”

    All in all, I think RIVER OF NO RETURN is an entertaining movie moved along by its star power by way of Monroe, Mitchum, Calhoun, Rettig, and the River. I rather enjoy the sort of makeshift family made up of Monroe, Mitchum, and Rettig as they make the journey downriver on a ramshackle raft. I like movies that make a journey both physical and mental.

    Well, this does seem like an odd movie for Otto Preminger to be making, and as you say, “Admittedly, this director isn’t a person who one would associate with westerns. Even so, a lack of background in the genre doesn’t necessarily equate to a lack of ability or even affinity. Still, River of No Return does not represent Preminger at his best” I agree with that this isn’t Preminger at his best, but I do see some Preminger in the depiction of the wild and woolly mining town. When Matt Calder(Robert Mitchum) rides into town and we see not a glamorized version, but a harsher sinful one. Riding into the mining town simultaneously with Calder is a minister of the Gospel(Arthur Shields) riding a small white mule, and here is the exchange between the two as Calder picks up the minister’s Bible which had dropped onto the street, “Your Bible, padre, don’t lose it now.” The padre replies, “Thank you, I expected to find a small trading post and instead Sodom and Gomorrah. All because someone found gold in this earth.” Calder asks, “You looking for it too, padre?” Padre replies, “I came here as a missionary to the Indians. I think the white man will need me more.” We see the sin ridden activities going on in the street and in the saloon. The gold seekers, the immorality of the tinhorn gamblers, the lustful dancehall girls, and worse. This is Preminger to a T.

    I like Marilyn Monroe in RIVER OF NO RETURN, because this is a different role for her in that she portrays an earthy survivor in a frontier setting, instead of a glamours musical comedienne. Kay(Monroe) is tough with a kindness that shines through in her attachment to the boy Mark Calder(Tommy Rettig). Also, in her loyalty to the shyster gambler Harry Weston(Rory Calhoun), even though she is very disappointed in his actions. This loyalty makes it a tough go for her to resist falling in love with Matt. This role gave Monroe a chance to portray an independent and confident woman, and I think she pulled it off rather well, despite all the behind-the-scenes tensions.

    RIVER OF NO RETURN is no masterpiece by any means, but I think it’s a good movie and well worth viewing.

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    • Walter, I too like the premise of the film, the makeshift family aspect as you put it. There’s actually something characteristically “western” about that notion, the way frontier life was perilous and families could be torn apart unexpectedly, and indeed cobbled together just as abruptly.
      I also think that opening section is well realized, both in the way it is scripted and how it is shot. So yes, it has its moments.

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    • Thanks for posting that link, Chris. That’s an excellent examination of the compelling nature of some of the visuals, the feeling that the filmmakers sought to achieve. Brief yet very well expressed and well worth a read.

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  11. I appreciate you making note of this about Bill Krohn. Not only because he deserves it, but because he and I were longtime personal friends. We met in 1979 and our relationship always meant a lot to me. I felt he was way ahead of me in film criticism but he never acted that way about it and was always complimentary and encouraging about my own writing. I owe a lot for anything I’ve done as well as what I’m finishing now to that encouragement.

    I strongly recommend anyone who doesn’t know his work to read it, starting with HITCHCOCK AT WORK–one of the most definitive studies of that great director, tremendous for scholarship as well as for its myriad insights. Really, he was one of the most brilliant of all writers on cinema.

    Also might add he was a good hearted person, with no meanness that I ever encountered. In context of the troubled present, that’s a special virtue.

    We are blessed he was here.

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