River Of No Return is showing at Le Connétable Cinéma in Grenoble, France on Thursday, March 5, at 8 pm. The screening will be introduced by Nicolas Blondel, concluding a series of classic Westerns.
“It is said that Marilyn Monroe never had much affection for the role of Kay Weston, the heroine of River of No Return. Yet the beautiful saloon singer helped to give the star a more understated and human image than the ultra-sophisticated one presented in her previous films. But above all, River of No Return allowed Marilyn to explore the Western, territory still uncharted for someone who had previously only acted in contemporary films. At the time, the ‘cowboy and Indian movie’ was practically a rite of passage for any self-respecting star. Like Grace Kelly in High Noon, Janet Leigh in The Naked Spur, Marlene Dietrich in Rancho Notorious, or Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar, Marilyn would thus appear in what constituted the quintessential genre of Hollywood cinema. By embodying, with the character of Kay, one of the nation’s legendary pioneers, the star takes the final step that will allow her to enter forever into the collective imagination of America …”
– Eric Quéméré, Mon Cinéma et Moi
The Marilyn Report 