River of No Return

Rating:
Summary: Shallow Waters.
Review: Though I am a huge Marilyn fan, even I must admit that this movie is a stinkeroo.It's not quite bad enough to be campy,but it is, as Marilyn herself described one of her worst roles, " a Z cowboy movie." If you know your M.M. history you may find this film interesting because of the trivia surrounding its making. Co-star Robert Mitchum, who loved and respected M.M., was an old friend who first met her as a 16 year old, when he worked along side the then Norma Jeans first husband in a factory.Also during the filming, she was joined by former room mate and good friend, Shelley Winters, who was in Canada filming an equally forgettable film, "Saskatchewan", with Alan Ladd. Shelley, Marilyn, and Bob Mitchum would get together at night for cocktails and to complain and laugh about their respective roles. The director of this film, Otto Preminger, notoriously felt this film and Marilyn were beneath him, and grew to despise M.M., and what he considered her un-professionalism. He was even less tolerent of M.M's then acting coach, Natasha Lytess, who, with Marilyns growing stature at the box office, wielded much influence, sometimes demanding re-takes , which questioned Premingers authority. She was eventually thrown off the film by Preminger, after critiquing and confusing child co-star, Tommy Rettig. Marilyn also suffered a leg injury during the films shoot, the severity of which was questionable, but apparently she did have a cast, of sorts, and in several scenes where her lower extremeties are covered with a blanket, it was as much to hide the cast as to suggest protecting her from the cold. Aside from all this useless trivia that only freaks like me know and care about, the only other thing of interest in this film is the obvious one, the presence of M.M. In spite of her lack of faith in the script, and her growing displeasure with the shooting, she is incredibly beautiful in this film.Though I saw this movie late in my admiration for M.M., it contains some of my fave M.M. moments. Her singing is surprisingly good and bluesy, she makes a couple of undistinguished tunes sound actually good, and the snippet where she sings the sweet "lullabye" to the little boy whilst playing the guitar, well...her beauty, simplicity, and purity provide a very tender Marilyn "moment." Also, near the end, where she's singing the title song amongst a group of extras, who seem genuinely enamored and admiring of her, she is other-worldly beautiful, projecting a luminosity and sincerety that overrides the flaws of the film. Marilyn's acting was admittedly not her best here.This is partly because, as she was then under the tutelage of coach Lytess, she enunciated each word, as directed by Lytess, to the point that it's unintentionally comical and wooden in delivery. Watching her just a few years later in "Bus Stop", she's just as beautiful, but had grown so as an actress, that it almost seems like a totally different person. All these negatives aside, if you're a movie fan who can appreciate the sometimes intangible and unspoken magic of the medium, then M.M.'s luminous, legendary presence may be enough for you to get through this film, which would have been a total bore, had it starred anyone other than the Golden Girl herself.