Bus Stop
1956
4.5/10
My DVR is programmed to record Marilyn Monroe films and it recorded this a couple weeks ago from TCM while I was on the road. I watched it last night at home. I have reviewed a few of her films earlier in this thread.
I recall watching it once back in the 1980s on network TV, good chance it was edited down for time so I doubt I saw the full movie.
It’s a Rom-Com and is considered one of Marilyn’s best films. She does her usual “Blonde Bimbo” routine for her character. She was in her prime in this film, but they had a covered up mostly in conservative outfits. The best scene is a song/dance scene early in the film with her in an ugly corset costume. So her body is not fully displayed like how she looks in other projects from the era.
It’s a slo-burn film. It looks clean cinematography. Not much to the story as it tries to play out more like a character drama.
Overall, it’s not her best film, but not her worst. Like all films of the era, it takes place in a fantasy world of “Whites Only”.
Synopsis
Cowboys Beauregard Decker (Don Murray) and Virgil Blessing (Arthur O'Connell) attend a rodeo in Phoenix, where Decker falls in love with beautiful cafe singer Cherie (Marilyn Monroe). He wants to take Cherie back to his native Montana and marry her, but she dreams of traveling to Hollywood and becoming famous. When she resists his advances, Decker forces Cherie onto the bus back to Montana with him, but, when the bus makes an unscheduled stop due to bad weather, the tables are turned.