Bus Stop (1956)

Bus Stop
Directed by Joshua Logan
Written by George Axelrod from the play by William Inge
1956/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation/Marilyn Monroe Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Cherie: I hate you and I despise you! Now give me back my tail!

There’s a lot you can say against this movie, yet somehow I always enjoy it.

Young Bo Decker (Don Murray) owns a ranch in Montana and is an expert rodeo rider.  He has been raised by friend Virgil Blessing (Arthur O’Connell). Bo has led a very sheltered existence and Virgil has decided that the time has come for him to “meet a gal”.  The perfect opportunity will come in Phoenix, where Bo will compete in a rodeo.  Bo announces that the girl for him will be an angel.

The very first night in Phoenix Bo spots his “angel”.  She is Cherie (Marilyn Monroe), who is cadging drinks at a local dive bar and singing, badly, now and then.  Cherie has been raised in the school of hard knocks but sees herself on a direct route to Hollywood and stardom.  Bo makes the drunks in the bar shut up and listen to Cherie sing, she is grateful, and they step outside the bar where she confesses she is attracted to him.

This is all Bo needs to hear and wedding bells are chiming.  Cherie is baffled and has no intention of marrying anyone.  But Bo is used to getting his way and simply kidnaps her. The saga plays out at a roadside diner where the bus to Montana is forced to overnight by a snowstorm.  With Eileen Heckart, who is rapidly becoming my favorite actress of 1956, as Cherie’s waitress friend; Betty Field as the proprietress of the diner; and Hope Lange, in her film debut, as the diner’s waitress.

The number one complaint about this movie is of course the matter-of-fact attitude it takes toward the abduction and the resolution of the relationship between Cherie and Bo.  I’m not going to try to excuse this.  Then there is some questionable acting, notably from the usually reliable Field who for some reason puts on a bad Mae West imitation.  I just find something sweet about the very vulnerable Monroe character.  O’Connell is good and Murray is convincing.  Not for everyone for sure.

Don Murray was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Trailer