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RIVER OF NO RETURN
RIVER OF NO RETURN is available individually on DVD for $19.98 or as part of the Marilyn Monroe: The Diamond Collection Volume II for $79.98. |
This DVD review 
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DVD
reviews are Copyright © 2002 THE CINEMA LASER and may not be copied
or reprinted without the written consent of the publisher. |
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RIVER
OF NO RETURN is one of my favorite Marilyn Monroe movies. Let’s face
it, with the combined talents of Monroe, Robert Mitchum and Otto Preminger-
how could this be anything but great old-style motion picture entertainment
on the grand CinemaScope scale. RIVER OF NO RETURN fuses elements
of the western and adventure genres into an entertaining little package
that allows Monroe to perform two musical numbers. RIVER OF NO RETURN
also makes the most of its Canadian locations, by utilizing the CinemaScope
frame to capture some incredible vistas.
Set
in the Northwest Territory during the gold rush, RIVER OF NO RETURN
tells the story of farmer Matt Calder (Mitchum), who is awaiting the arrival
of his young son Mark (Tommy Rettig), whom he hasn’t seen in years. Picking
up the boy in a boomtown, Matt finds his son in the care of a beautiful
saloon singer Kay Weston (Monroe), to whom the motherless boy has become
instantly attached. After heading back to their home, Matt and Mark cross
paths with Kay again, when she and her fiancé Harry Weston (Rory Calhoun)
are rafting down the dangerous river that flows past Matt’s farm.
As
it turns out, Weston is taking Kay on this ill-advised journey, in order
to file a claim on a gold strike that he won in a card game. When Matt
warns Weston about the dangers of traveling down this particular river
by raft, the gamble thanks Matt by knocking him out and stealing both
his horse and gun. Unwilling to leave the man that her fiancé injured,
Kay stays behind to care for Matt and his son. However, when hostile Indians
attack his farm, Matt is forced to climb on board the raft with Mark and
Kay, fleeing down the river of no return.
20th
Century Fox Home Entertainment has made RIVER OF NO RETURN available
on DVD in a wide screen presentation that has been enhanced for 16:9 displays.
RIVER OF NO RETURN is an early CinemaScope movie that should have
an aspect ratio of 2.55:1. However, the transfer comes up a bit short,
around 2.35:1, cropping a small amount of information from the extreme
edges of the frame. Other than the aspect ratio being off, the transfer
of RIVER OF NO RETURN is quite pleasing- making this DVD a significant
improvement on every home version of the movie ever released or broadcast.
The
image on the DVD is sharper and better defined than I have ever seen.
Of course, the clarity of the transfer brings out the significant deficiencies
in the film rear screen projection and optical effects work. Colors are
a little inconsistent, but most of the time they give a good idea what
an original IB Technicolor print of RIVER OF NO RETURN might have
looked like. Blacks appear accurate, contrast is pretty smooth and the
level of shadow detail is more than respectable for a film from 1954.
The restored film element used for the transfer appears free from age
related blemishes, but there is a noticeable amount of film grain throughout
most of the presentation. The cleanly authored DVD doesn’t display any
noticeable signs of digital compression artifacts.
RIVER
OF NO RETURN is presented with
a Dolby Digital 4.0 soundtrack that is representative of the film’s original
sound mix. This is that big, wide, exaggerated fifties stereo, designed
for the cavernous movie palaces of yore and to complement super wide CinemaScope
framing. There is plenty of directional information in the forward soundstage,
including directional dialogue that follows the actors on screen positions.
The surround channels are dead silent a lot of the time, except for a
few climatic sequences on the river and to add musical fill to passages
of Lionel Newman’s score. Fidelity is pretty good on these nearly fifty-year-old
stereo tracks, so you will want to add more than a bit of amplification.
Background hiss and surface noise have been minimized to a great extent
on the track, making for a fairly clean aural presentation. Dialogue is
always crisp and completely understandable. An English Dolby Surround
and French stereo track are also provided on the DVD, as are English and
Spanish subtitles.
The
basic interactive menus provide access to the standard scene selection
and set up features, as well as a few extras. As with the other titles
in Fox’s Marilyn Monroe series, RIVER OF NO RETURN includes a comparison
of how the movie looked in previous video incarnations and how it now
looks now with both film and video restoration. Theatrical trailers for
DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK, MONKEY BUSINESS, NIAGRA, RIVER
OF NO RETURN and LET’S MAKE LOVE have also been provided on
the DVD. A still gallery closes out the DVD’s extras.
