Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 12-December-04
Spoiler Rating: High

Bus Stop (1956)

Grouchy says ...

At the halfway point of "Bus Stop," it was touch-and-go whether I was going to make it through the movie. The screenplay appears to have been written by a Bible-thumping, 30-year-old virgin, desperately horny, whose only acquaintance with the human race comes from popular magazines. (It was in fact penned by George Axelrod from a play by William Inge, and I cannot vouch for the beliefs or personal life of either.) The cast in this tale of hick-meets-girl doesn't attempt to embody actual feeling, thinking people; its purpose is to represent broad stereotypes of gender and culture. As such, the players and their story border on disgusting.

"Bus Stop" spans two and a half days in the life of Beauregard Decker (Don Murray), a young Montana rancher who travels to Phoenix with his older friend and guardian (Arthur O'Connell). Shortly after his arrival, Bo spots a lounge singer named Cherie (Marilyn Monroe) and decides they will marry even before she grants him his first-ever kiss. Bo's inability to take No for an answer both attracts and repels Cherie, and matters come to a head when he abducts her and forces her onto the bus back north. At a snowed-in depot along the way, he finally learns a much-needed lesson about maturity, relationships, and other things a fella oughta know, while Cherie leaves behind her sordid past and succumbs to his mellowing boyish charm.

The message of "Bus Stop" is crude and obvious. Man is a brute animal that needs to be humbled and refined by society and the fairer sex, while Woman is a creature laden with Original Sin that needs to have someone look past that defect to see an angel. The moral of the story constricts the characters into such narrow roles that they are almost entirely unsympathetic, especially bo-hunk Bo, who is nothing but a retarded Neanderthal. (The charmless Murray is in part to blame.) Even taking the era of the film into account, his journey is a hard road to take.

Grinny says ...

It's true that most of the characters (especially Bo) are aggravating clichés, but there is one who transcends the confines of the script and becomes a real, and really tender, person. "Bus Stop" is often regarded as the movie that defined Monroe as an actress instead of a sexpot, and with good reason. Her almost impossible combination of sweetness and va-va-va-voom makes Cherie so irresistible that she deserves to get what she wants ... even if it is a revolting yahoo.

Boarding the bus for her sake, it's possible to view Cherie's longing for purity and acceptance as no less idiosyncratic than her Ozark twang. She represents Woman, as Marilyn somehow always does, but also a human being searching for things we all hope to find. Her presence softens the idea of innocence meeting worldliness which seems so vulgar in Murray's hands. Only through Cherie's eyes can we understand the virtue of a secluded Montana ranch (and its clueless master) and take comfort that a lucky soul might escape a world in which a diner proprietress (Betty Field) and a bus driver (Robert Bray) are left to navigate the disillusionment and loneliness of middle age. "Bus Stop" may be gratingly old-fashioned, but Monroe gives it a timeless quality as well.

All text copyright © 2004 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.