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Saturday, January 25, 2020

RIVER OF NO RETURN (1954)

CinemaScope got director Otto Preminger halfway to his signature ‘imperial’ style, what with the long takes and reliance on master shots so typical of early WideScreen. (Later that year, CARMEN JONES completed his visual transformation with an uncredited assist from B’way’s Herbert Ross, long before he turned film director, whose input in dance & group movement added contrapuntal fluidity.) Here, in Preminger’s sole Western, the simple story has Robert Mitchum (after singing the title track under the credits) hitting a Gold Rush Tent City to pick up motherless Tommy Rettig, the kid he left behind. These two are off to a new life as frontier farmers, but wind up involved with saloon singer Marilyn Monroe and her charming if black-hearted ne’er-do-well pal Rory Calhoun who soon rushes off to make a gold claim, leaving Mitchum, Monroe & Rettig unprotected against hostile Indians, forced to raft their way down the rapids of the River of No Return. Lenser Joseph LaShelle lays out some handsome location footage, but studio mockups and poorly judged process work hurt more than usual since so much depends on the action scenes. Nice to see Monroe relax in her song numbers, but those line readings! She always sounds as if she’s trying to get her money’s worth for the elocution lessons. (The long takes Preminger preferred must have terrified her.) But the film goes down smoothly with Mitchum & Rettig surprisingly right as father & son, and a neat bonding-thru-violence twist ending.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Note the flotation devices on our Euro-poster. Yikes!

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