Darryl F. Zanuck assigned Otto Preminger to direct The River of No Return as part of his contract with the studio.
Based on his previous experience with Westerns, producer Stanley Rubin had wished William Wellman, Raoul Walsh, or Henry King to helm the film.
The film was made in CinemaScope, which increased the budget. Much of it was shot in Banff, Jasper National Parks, Lake Louise in Alberta and the Salmon River in Idaho where the story actually takes place.
Rubin scheduled 12 weeks of preproduction, during which Monroe rehearsed and recorded the musical numbers (written by Ken Darby and Lionel Newman) and a shoot of 45 days.
Despite disagreements with Rubin, Preminger showed efficient professionalism, and completed the film on September 29, on schedule and within the budget.
Monroe’s Insecurities: Acting Coach in the Set
Monroe was accompanied by Natasha Lytess, her acting coach, with whom Preminger clashed from the very start. She insisted on taking her client aside and giving her direction contrary to that of Preminger, and she had the actress enunciating each syllable of every word of dialogue with exaggerated emphasis.
Preminger insisted thar Lytess be banned from the set, but when the producer complied with his demand, Monroe asserted that she couldn’t continue unless Lytess returned. Feeling that Monroe was a major box office draw, he reinstated Lytess.
During a difficult shoot, Preminger had to contend with frequent rain, Mitchum’s heavy drinking, and injury to Monroe’s ankle that kept her off the set for days and ultimately put her in a cast. Monroe nearly drowned while filming. She had donned chest-high hip waders during rehearsal to protect her costume. She slipped on a rock, the waders filled with water, and she was unable to rise. Mitchum and others jumped in the river to rescue her but her ankle was sprained.
Young Tommy Rettig seemed to be the director’s sole source of solace. He respected Rettig’s hard work and appreciated the rapport that he developed with Monroe.
In September, filming shifted to Los Angeles for interior scenes and close-ups for a river sequence, which was shot in a tank, where stunt doubles were used in the long shots, on location in Idaho in the actual Salmon River.
River of No Return was the first film released by 20th Century-Fox in the “CinemaScope extension” fanfare before the opening credits. Written by Alfred Newman, it’s a rerecording of his original 1933 fanfare, with the extra few bars that play under the credit “20th Century-Fox presents A CinemaScope Production.”
It was also one of the first films to use a blood squib to simulate realistic bullet impact, manifest in the scene in whichHarry (Rory Calhoun) is shot in the climax.
Preminger proved to be the wrong choice for the project, failing to capture the Western aura. He had ignored key elements in the plot, and had perfunctorily directed the action sequences, making them look static.
Preminger’s bad experience on the film motivated him to pay Fox $150,000 in order to cancel the remainder of his contract.
River of No Return had its world premiere in Denver, Colorado on April 29, 1954. It was released theatrically in New York on April 30, 1954 and in Los Angeles on May 5.
