Trailer
Plot summary
In 1875, Matt Calder comes out of prison and goes looking for Mark, his nine-year-old son, whom the man he paid to deliver the boy abandoned in the care of Kay, a dance hall singer. Matt brings Mark to their homestead, where he promises the boy hunting, fishing and farm work. Kay's fiancé Harry Weston, a gambler, wins ownership of a gold mine at cards and travels with her by raft to Council City to register the claim. Near the Calder farm the raft is caught in rapids, and Matt and Mark pull the two of them from the water. Harry wants Matt's rifle and horse for the trip; Matt refuses, so Harry strikes him down and rides off with both, leaving Kay to tend him. A raid by hostile Indians forces the three onto Harry's raft.
Cast
- Claire Andreas Surrey Driver (uncredited)
- Buck Buckoas Council City Barfly (uncredited)
Show all 20 cast
- Roy Buckoas Prospector (uncredited)
- Cecil Combsas Prospector (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about River of No Return (1954)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Marilyn Monroe nearly drowned during the shoot. She had put on chest-high hip waders at a rehearsal to protect her costume, slipped on a rock and could not get up once they filled with water; Robert Mitchum and others jumped into the river after her, and she sprained her ankle.
- Otto Preminger fought Monroe's acting coach Natasha Lytess, who took her client aside with direction contrary to his and had her enunciating every syllable with exaggerated emphasis. Preminger had Rubin ban the coach from the set, whereupon Monroe telephoned Zanuck and said she could not continue unless Lytess returned.
- The experience left Otto Preminger determined never to work as a studio employee again, and he paid Fox $150,000 out of his own pocket to cancel the remainder of his contract.
- It was the first film ever shot in CinemaScope in Canada, and the first Fox release to carry the "CinemaScope Extension" fanfare, Alfred Newman's 1933 theme with extra bars added. Fox dropped the fanfare after switching to Panavision in 1967, and it was not heard again until George Lucas revived it in front of Star Wars.
- Robert Mitchum did not tangle with the cougar himself: the veteran circus animal trainer Pat Anthony stood in for his character during the cougar attack scene.
