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| Bus Stop | 
 enlarge | Director: Joshua Logan
Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, Arthur O'connell, Betty Field, Eileen Heckart
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $7.56
You Save: $7.42 (50%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  55 reviews
Sales Rank: 11605
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 96
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.4
MPN: D2001448D
UPC: 024543014485
EAN: 0024543014485
ASIN: B000059GEJ
Theatrical Release Date: August 31, 1956
Release Date: May 14, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW, Factory Sealed items direct from the Studios. 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee. Quick International Airmail!
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| Customer Reviews:
A comedy-drama very well done! December 22, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Alternately puzzled, lost, desperate, lonely, confused and unexpectedly radiant with happiness, Marilyn Monroe, with a mixture of humor and pain scores her greatest triumph in Joshua Logan's "Bus Stop" creating a complete and deeply touching character...
Singing 'That Old Black Magic' to a noisy crowd of cowpokes who couldn't care less about her efforts to entertain them, Cherie is pleased to discover a fan in Bo, a young and innocent cowboy who has come to make his fortune at the Rodeo and finds himself an Angel to take back to his Montana ranch...The kiss she gives him in appreciation, determines him then and there to be his beloved wife...
Logan gives Don Murray his first and best-remembered screen role, as the gauche simple-thinking cowboy who romances the glamorous 'chantoose'... Marilyn succeeds in making him say "please" which is the point of the whole thing... Murray was Oscar-nominated for his performance...
There are other fine performances in the movie: Arthur O'Connell, delightful as the cowboy's pal who big-brothers him with loving patience; Eileen Heckart amusing as the old time friend; Betty Field, strong enough as the bus stop owner; Robert Bray, firm as the driver of the bus and Hope Lange, so auspicious in her screen debut whom Cherie reveals details of her past...
With a modern Western background and rodeo atmosphere, and with panoramic long shot and overwhelming close-ups in color and CinemaScope, "Bus Stop" is a comedy-drama very well done, and a modest entertainment in familiar American vein...
 Incredibly bad December 21, 2006
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
I watched this yesterday and I'm still in shock. Monroe began to ripen as a dramatic actress just mere days (it seems) before she died. For sheer hilarity and dramatic weight, she never surpassed her role in "Some like it hot". For dramatic power she was very impressive and powerful in "The Misfits". This film, earlier in her career has been hailed as an early dramatic performace.
I am not familiar with the play from whence this film came from. I just watched it and took it for what it appeared. I found Don Murray's characterization of the cowboy to be a negative distraction, largely because instead of a real person he came across as a living comic-book character. There was not a moment when he was on the screen except for his quiet moments of remorse at the end, when he was not sounding like a lunatic. Other commentators have noted that this over the top performance was supposed to be this way, deliberatly to be funny. Well, in my time, at the end of 2006, this type of behaviour looks stupid, ridiculous and unbelievable. Further, Murray spends almost every second in the film shouting at the top of his lungs as if this is the way most cowboys fresh off the farm act when hitting the big city for the first time. Ahhhhh, no: I don't think so. The director (Logan) must have encouraged him to act this way and for me it makes him look like an imbecile. Honestly, his acting just made me so uncomfortable from the beginning to the end I wish I could have stopped the film.
Then we have Monroe. She looked as she always does, beautiful. But, I did notice that she kept changing the inflection of her voice, as if not quite yet sure of how to morph from a blonde-bombshell-dimwit into a real person, a dramatic presence. She just comes in and out of the "place" and it strikes me now as quite a fascinating moment in her career, almost at the cusp of breaking out into better acting. Her attempts at an accent come and go and if we were not so distracted by what she looked like we'd take closer note of it. Her skin looked so white next to the cowboy that she almost looked sickly. The best moments were when she was staring into a mirror (very well set up shot) and the doubts and fears that crossed her face felt every bit as real as one could imagine.
All in all I was shocked at how bad the film looked, given the age in which we live. The cartoonish characterization that Murray gives just looks ridiculous and hence hard to relate to. I just could not imagine any cowboy acting like a wild baboon on steroids. Sorry, but this just made me cringe. You compare a great dramatic effort like "The Misfits" and the contrast makes everything clear. If Joshua Logan wanted to make a drama here then he destroyed it with the creation of a character right out of the comic "Bizarro". This film just does not age well.
A Poignant, Funny Marilyn Hits a Career Peak in a Rambunctious Comedy October 11, 2006
A year after his success with "Picnic", director Joshua Logan held the reins for another film adaptation of a William Inge play this time adapted by comedy veteran George Axelrod. The 1956 result is a far more rambunctious and comic story than "Picnic" but no less dependent on rural stereotypes to inhabit it. The slight story focuses on a dim-bulb, no-talent singer named Cherie (pronounced by her as Share-REE) who tries to avoid the advances of horny rodeo cowboys in a cheap Phoenix dance hall. However, Cherie is hardly an innocent as she is not above hustling unsuspecting cowboys out of their money to fulfill her dream of getting to Hollywood. Enter Beauregard Decker, "Bo" for short, a loudly energetic, self-confident but thoroughly naive young buck. He is in town to not only win the big rodeo competition but also find himself an "angel". Once he sets his eyes on Cherie, he is convinced she is his angel and manhandles her to marry him. The rest of the story is really about his pursuit as Cherie tries unsuccessfully to escape from Bo's persistent efforts, and it all ends up in a snowbound diner on the way back to Bo's Montana ranch.
Kim Stanley played Cherie to great acclaim on Broadway, but it's safe to say Marilyn Monroe makes the role her own. After a brief break from the screen when she went to New York to study at the Actor's Studio, Monroe threw herself into the part with raw vulnerability and instinctive flair, something she would not replicate fully until her last film, John Huston's "The Misfits". It's sometimes a bit studied, but her work here is among her best. Monroe manages a poignant scene with a very young Hope Lange on a bus where she talks about what kind of man she wants, and her faux-pathetic, self-lit version of "That Old Black Magic" is classic. Don Murray does well as Bo, though the character gets so obstinate as to throw off the balance of the story. "Picnic" veterans Arthur O'Connell and Betty Field lend fine support as Bo's mentor Virgil and sassy diner owner Grace. Eileen Heckart is also terrific as Cherie's only friend Vera. The 2002 DVD, released as part of the Marilyn Monroe Diamond Collection, offers a stills gallery as its one extra.
Marilyn Monroe's magic makes this film work. She sure was something special! September 3, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
There's one wonderful thing about this 1956 film. It's Marilyn Monroe. I have forgotten how special she was and how she dominated every scene she was in. This was one of her lesser films. And yet, her magic is there.
The plot is a bit hokey but it works. Don Murray is cast as an innocent cowboy without any experience with women. When he leaves Montana to compete in a rodeo, he meets Marilyn Monroe. She's singing in a bar and has obviously had a shady past. This doesn't matter to him, though. He falls in love with her. And, much to the distress of his sidekick, brilliantly played by Arthur O'Connell, he kidnaps his lady love and puts her on the bus with him going back to Montana. She protests of course. And when the bus is stranded in a snowstorm and everyone must spend the night in a roadside diner, the plot thickens. It all ends happily, though. And it looks like Marilyn and Don will live happily ever after.
There is nothing special about this film except for the nostalgia. The screenplay is old fashioned and stilted. The situations are predicable. Also, once the theme was developed, we didn't need a dozen ways to develop it. That said, I must say I enjoyed the film. I had almost forgotten what 1956 was like. Now I remember.
 Bus Stop April 2, 2005
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
The story is corny, but that's what makes it so funny. Marilyn over plays the character as a lot of little things happen around her that aren't really part of the story, but would be typical in a similar situation; like for example when Marilyn is trying to change clothes in the bus full of sleeping passenger. She contends with the little boy who is set to watch by placing her hand on the top of his head and turning it to the side. At the time the bus driver almost runs off the road and turns the bus over trying to get a peek too. Marilyn is just too perfect at being Marilyn!
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