Bus Stop

Joshua Logan, USA, 1956, 96 minutes

Adapted from the play by W. Inge. In a rodeo town a naive country boy (Don Murray) sees a tawdry nightclub singer (Marilyn Monroe) as a beautiful angel. He virtually kidnaps her to take her back home and marry her. During the bus journey they are stranded at a cafe in the middle of nowhere where they have to start communicating...

After The Seven Year Itch, How to Marry a Millonaire, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, it seemed like just another film with Marilyn Monroe as the dumb blonde, but it has been said that this was her finest performance and the height of her career, even though she then went on to act with Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Clarke Gable, and even Laurence Olivier. But it has also been said of this film that the demand from the principle players was "a purely physical display of their bodies as sexual machinery". A little harsh, but not altogether untrue.

Apart from the interest this film holds as being the finest performance of a 20th century icon, there is little else that sets it apart from other firms of the era. The characters lean towards stereotype, and the cinematography is standard, but again, like other films of the era, it is superlative light entertainment.

Review by Julia Monelle
Taken from EUFS Programme 1994-95