EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

dougdoepke Great Canadian scenery, but episodic storyline, at best. To escape marauding Indians, farmer Mitchum, son Rettig, and barroom showgirl Monroe escape down a roaring river on a raft, encountering a number of perils along the way. With this kind of adventurous premise, the movie should overflow with suspense, but it doesn't.What the result shows is that legendary director Preminger was much more at home with drawingroom intrigue, e.g. Laura (1944), than with outdoor adventure. Here he films a spotty screenplay in unengaged fashion, adding nothing to the action. In short, events in the movie unfold without pulling us in. Then too, many of the river process shots are clumsily blended with the live shots, a constant reminder that this really is a movie.Mitchum's excellent in a tailor made role. He looks fully at home as a macho man in the Canadian wilderness. For Monroe, however, this is her only starring role in an adventure film and it's understandable. She looks decidedly uncomfortable, except when doing her showgirl act, which is when the engaging side of her personality really comes out. Nonetheless, the movie exploits her tangible assets with frequent dips in and out of the water, in provocative fashion. All in all, however, I see why this film is infrequently mentioned in her list of cinematic highlights.Anyway, unless you have a yen for grand Canadian vistas or Marilyn's buxom appeal, my advice is to skip it.

Lee Eisenberg The movie that Marilyn Monroe considered her worst comes across as a rehash of "The African Queen". While Monroe does put all her effort into the role of a woman who accompanies a widower and his son down a dangerous river in the northwestern US, the movie itself is very dated. The scenery is some of the most impressive ever put on film, that can't carry the movie. The whole thing is basically the average idealized image of the old west. These sorts of movies are what made the spaghetti westerns so great with the latter's gritty look at the old west.Notwithstanding, Marilyn Monroe looks really fine (as can be expected). But that's all.

zardoz-13 Don't look for anything scandalous in this straightforward outdoors adventure. This river rafting epic with Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe captures more beautiful scenery that it conjures up memorable violence. Mitchum is a farmer tilling land for wheat in the middle of nowhere. He has just gotten out of prison for shooting a man in the back. What difference does it make, he argues, where you shoot a man if he is a polecat? Eventually, he has to explain his disappearance to his nine-year old son Mark Calder (Tommy Rettig) who joins him at a mining camp. Mitchum rides into town, finds his son, and they head back to his farm. Meanwhile, Monroe is a saloon girl strumming a guitar. She has been helping little Mark since he arrived and was abandoned by a guy named Martin. As it turns out, Monroe is in love with a no-good skunk named Weston (Rory Calhoun) who swindled a frontierman's out of a mining claim. Now, Weston is trying to get to Council City to record his claim before the legal owner make it there. He borrows Mitchum's horse and rifle and leaves him with a knot on his head. Mitchum, Monroe, and the kid commandeer the raft and flow down river. Yes, there is the inevitable showdown between Mitchum and Calhoun, but the surprise is in who shoots Weston to keep him from killing Mitchum.

Jackson Booth-Millard I would like to see as many films starring the famous leading actress from Gentleman Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot as possible, and I spotted this one in another different genre, I was most intrigued, from director Otto Preminger (Laura, Carmen Jones, Anatomy of a Murder). Basically widower Matt Calder (Robert Mitchum) has recently return home and to his young son Mark Calder (Tommy Rettig) after serving time in prison for killing another man defending another. Mark has been looked after by dance hall and saloon singer Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe), and his father promises him that as virtual strangers he will do everything possible to bond at the homestead, with hunting, fishing and farming. Kay's fiancé Harry (Rory Calhoun) plans to get to Council City and file the deed to a gold mine he won in a poker game, but they get in trouble going down the rough river on a raft, and they are rescued by the father and son duo, only to have their gun and horse stolen by Harry and let him get away. Indians are roaming the premises, so the three of them continue down the river on the raft, and stopping to rest Matt questions why Kay wants to marry a man who threatens a child, and her defence is that he is worse having killed a man, and overhearing this discussion Mark finally learns the truth about his father's past. The three of them again continue down the river, and she slowly becomes grateful towards the father figure as he looks after them with bravery and tenderness, against such challenges as a lion attack, prospectors Dave Colby (Murvyn Vye) and Sam Benson (Douglas Spencer) who want Harry's gold, and more Indians. Matt, Kay and Mark manage to get through more rapids and arrive in Council City, meeting back up with Harry, and after a struggle Kay's fiancé is shot and killed by Mark, and in the end Matt and Mark take Kay with them back to their farm. Also starring Don Beddoe as Ben - Council City Storekeeper and Paul Newlan as Prospector. Monroe is absolutely beautiful here, especially as this is the first time I saw her with long blonde hair, and her singing is good too, and Mitchum does alright mumbling and being cool all the way through, the bits between them are alright, I think the best bits are probably on the raft and against Indians and a lion, at least they make the film reasonably exciting, a not bad western. Worth watching!