Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

dfwesley Oh my,I have only a vivid mental image of Robert Taylor as a suave, debonair, romantic lead which is hard to shake. To see and hear him as a Kentucky frontiersman was too much for me. The clothes don't make the man in this case. Cover this tomato with a coonskin cap and buckskins and it still is a tomato. Miscast is not stretching it a bit.Eleanor Parker surely should have passed his one up. She does her best in this unusual role, but can't save this picture. What is it? A comedy drama evidently. However, there are too many ho hums and not enough chuckles. Hooray for the Indians who provide a modicum of drama and looked realistic enough with scalp locks and fierce grimaces.

SimonJack "Many Rivers to Cross" is just plain old-fashioned movie entertainment. Robert Taylor and Eleanor Parker play beautifully off one another, with a great comedy supporting cast. It includes Victor McLaglen, Sig Ruman, Rhys Williams, Alan Hale Jr., and James Arness. The pioneer plot seems a fresh setting for a comedy – now, if not also when this film came out in 1955. The script is very well written and directed. I think the actors were enjoying themselves in the making of this film. The often wooden and low-energy Robert Taylor seems to have relaxed some in his role as Bushrod Gentry. Eleanor Power is perfect as Mary Stuart Cherne. Although some of the outdoor scenes clearly are on a set, that doesn't detract too much because of the action. And, there's plenty of that. This film moves nicely from one skirmish or squabble to another humorous sequence. It isn't a loud laughter film, but one that brings many smiles and chuckles.An opening prologue dedicates the movie to the pioneer women of yore who stood by their men and helped settle the frontier (then Kentucky). It says, without them, most of we viewers wouldn't be here today watching this movie. So, one knows to expect the humor that follows. And, it delivers it in some clever and witty lines, and in rollicking scenes. At the opening, Mary Stuart is returning to her home from hunting game. She has an injured Bushrod in tow. Cadmus Cherne (Victor McLaglen) says, "Oh, she goes out for game for the larder, and brings back another mouth to feed."The movie has one of the funniest fist fights ever put on film. Bushrod and Luke Radford (Alan Hale Jr.) must lay out a dozen other men in their fight. There's an interesting sequence that shows a "nail shoot." Contestants vie by shooting at nails in trees, to pound them all the way in. Another very funny sequence occurs toward the end. Bushrod and Mary Stuart have a skirmish with Indians in a cave. Three of the Indians are done in, and only one is left outside the cave. But, he has a rifle. Bushrod says, "He ain't gonna leave the mouth of the cave unless we can draw him in here somehow. I'll tell you what – If he thought I was dead, he might come in here looking for you. Probably wants you alive to take home with him. Serve him right too." Mary Stuart says, "I might not look so bad in a tepee." The rest of that scene is hilarious.This is a fun, entertaining movie that the whole family should enjoy.

loydmooney-1 Played absolutely over the top, to the hilt, right down to the final scene. Perhaps the only false note in the entire film is where Taylor saves the child. Somehow its out of kilter with the rest of the antics in its pacing, otherwise this is always played for laughs, beginning to end.As someone noted the two principles are way too old for the parts, unless everybody in those days just LOOKED worse for the wear early, which they did of course. It would have been better to have made this ten years earlier then most of it would not have seemed so outlandish, but still its a better comedy than most. The trick is taking it on its own terms and its pure D old fashioned fun. Yet another example of MGMs notion of Disneyland. The final scene of Parker moaning over Taylor to attract the Indians to the scene and kill them, very funny and neatly done, easily worth the price of the ticket, or what must have been for those that saw it in the theater.

Bob-45 What a crosscurrent of styles! Alan Hale appears to already on "Gilligan's Island," McLaughlan is still doing "The Quiet Man," Tamblynn and Richards appear borrowed from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (as do some of the sets; of course "Seven ..." was made the same year). Parker is nearly a decade too old for the part (In seven years, she'd play George Hamilton's mother!), Taylor about two decades (his adult movie debut was in 1936!). Still, this movie is fun enough. This movie would have been better with more outdoor scenes, and a story that doesn't turn so serious toward the end. However, it is certainly worthwhile and not as predictable as I first thought it would be. With a little better pacing (and more humor) in the second half, "Many Rivers to Cross" would have been first rate. Still, it is a pretty good "near miss".