Page 44 - Sports Energy News, Cornwall, Issue No 139

44 Issue 139 August 2024 www.sportsenergynews.com

In Reel Time

River Rafting

By Nikolai Adams
ong before the wilderness of
LAlberta awed and amazed
in Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s 2015
frontiersman epic The Revenant, it
was widely featured in an impressive
Technicolor CinemaScope picture,
Otto Preminger’s 1954 western
River of No Return.
Shot in the beauty of Banff and Photo Submitted
Jasper National Parks (though
some of the river scenes are shot
at Salmon River in Idaho – where
the actual story takes place), the
scrumptious background is matched
by the glorious foreground. . . which
a nightclub singer (or should I say there. Being the good Samaritans only treated the boy with kindness
held two Hollywood greats – the
night-tent singer – as nearly no they are, the father and son haul and motherly love). Making for an
chiseled features of Robert Mitchum
solid edifices have been built yet) them in, saving their lives. With intriguing combination of man vs.
and a woman whose looks need
keeping an eye out for him. Kay Matt warning Harry that the river nature, as well as man vs. man, will
no descriptors, Marilyn Monroe
Weston (Monroe) is a down on her is too dangerous to traverse farther this so-called ragtag team be able
(a rather intriguing historical note
luck dame, a woman who sings downstream, the desperate man to traverse these dangerous lands
finds the actress causing a pile-up
to drunk men to make a buck. In bashes the father on the head with (dodging Indians, deadly animals,
on the main street of Jasper while
love with a grifting drifter, Harry his own gun. . . stealing his rifle and and equally desperate prospectors)
walking down the street in her
Weston (Rory Calhoun), this card horse to continue on his way. to reach Council City? If so, what
tight-fitting jeans that she wears
playing cheat has swindled (maybe) will they find there? Might a city
throughout most of the movie). Unwilling to leave the boy with
a chump out of his gold claim. his unconscious father, Kay stays. named council provide some sort of
Mitchum plays Matt Calder, a These two storylines meet once Now without the two most important peaceful reconciliation between the
man whose back story could have again when Matt and his son, now things in the wild west, the Indians two men?
been something found in a Johnny working the land near the titular attack. Forced to escape the only With a back story as interesting
Cash song (I shot a man in the river (perhaps the only farmers in way they can, the triumvirate brave as the film itself, Preminger, a
back, just to save my friend, now this gold obsessed land – not too bad the unruly river – Matt now turning man who was infamously not easy
I’m stuck in prison, doing five to of a job when you see the fantastic his meanly focused eyes on revenge. to work for (when I interviewed
ten). Not having the chance to see Rocky Mountain vista off in the Creating a rather precarious Keir Dullea, who worked with
his child, Mark (Tommy Rettig), distance. . . though there is reason allegiance amongst the three, Matt the director on Bunny Lake is
grow up, upon being released (and to be wary, as Indians constantly steams constant fury at Kay, while Missing, he literally called him “a
hearing that the boy’s mother has sit atop the nearby mountains – she tries to mediate some sort of terrible man to work for. . . a real
recently passed), he organizes for watching them), spot Kay and peaceful solution on behalf of her bully”, furthering this vision by
him to be transported to a gold Harry struggling to flee the town beau and the bloodthirsty man. referencing his Colonel character
rush boomtown that he himself is upon a raft through the wild rapids With the kindly boy stuck in the – who runs the prisoner of war
making his way to.
– the card player fears the man he middle, he too tries to understand camp in Stalag 17, as him on a nice
Arriving before his father, the cheated may try to stake the gold why his father (who he idolizes), day), he clashed constantly with his
nine year old is fortunate to have claim in Council City before he gets seems to hate the woman (who has Contined on page 45