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River of No Return is beautifully shot, contains gorgeous scenery, and offers up two of the greatest and grandest of all movie stars for our viewing pleasure. But, how to word this delicately?, the script needed a lot of work before it could be considered anything other than slight.
Mitchum plays our tortured hero in need of the redemption that only a reunion with his son and love of a good woman can provide. He's stumbled back in to town from who knows where, and meets back up with his long lost son. When we first meet Monroe she's a saloon singer strumming on a guitar. She stares off in the distance, looking vulnerable, tired and plaintive. They’re both given grand movie star entrances, and they deserved a better script to work with.
Of course by the end of the film they’ll have forged a nuclear family, and both of the adults will be redeemed, smoothed out and domesticated by their love for each other and the little boy. It’s as limp as a script can get. But there’s something entertaining and watchable about River of No Return. Most of it is the absolutely splendid natural beauty, which manages to make one forget about the obvious and shoddy looking green screen work with Monroe and Mitchum on the life raft. It’s so painfully obvious that it’s a rear projection and that their raft is being held up by crewmembers.
And Mitchum and Monroe were both endlessly watchable doing just about anything. They elevate the clichéd script with their sheer force of will and animal magnetism. Mitchum positively reeked of alpha male sexual force, and Monroe is a luminous goddess equals parts tough survivor and fragile creature. If for nothing else, River of No Return is worth watching just to see how they interact with each other, and how they fill the screen just by standing in front of the camera and seemingly do nothing. That’s a kind of charisma and power that’s lacking in today’s cinema.
