Review of River of No Return (1954) by Kevin R — 22 Feb 2014

WOW... It seems the reactions to this film are pretty mixed. It's true that the story is not properly fleshed out, and the characters don't always react how you think that they should, but it's a solid adventure film. The acting is a tad stiff and it seems that neither Mitchum or Monroe are always giving it their all. If you read up you will learn that Monroe nearly died when making this film, but her performance improves when she is performing musical numbers.

Mitchum is nowhere near as good here as he is in films like Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear. There seems to be a lack of chemistry. My guess is that both of the main stars probably consider the material beneath them. Which is understandable. We get the typical scenes where the Indians foolishly allow themselves to get picked off one by one, and we have a scene where Mitchum's character forces himself on on Monroe's character. It's pretty disturbing and seemingly uncharacteristic of Mitchum's character. But the action on the river is pretty solid. This scenes are obviously dated by today's standards, but if you put yourself back in the 50's you will probably enjoy them. It's just too bad the script is mediocre or this might have turned out to be a classic.