Beau (21) is a rustic, but honest cowboy who lives on a ranch in Montana. Upon taking a bus to Arizona for a rodeo, his friend Virgil encourages Beau to find a girl to marry, because "it is time". To Virgil's shock, Beau falls in love with a local bar singer, Cherie, and proposes her. Beau's and Cherie's relationship flip-flops back and forth, since they argue and she is unwilling to marry him. They take a bus to Montana, but Cherie secretly leaves, hiding in a diner covered by snow. Beau finds her and gets into a fight with the bus driver, who thinks he is abusing Cherie. Beau appologizes and abandones his dream of marrying her. However, this pleases Cherie, who now accepts his marriage proposal, and they thus leave for Montana.
The first film Marilyn Monroe made under a new contract, producing it under her own company, "Bus Stop" is an attempt of the actress to show her more dramatic side, but the storyline is rather underwhelming and thin. The concept where the honest "hillbilly" cowboy Beau tries a 'forced seduction' of bar singer Cherie throughout the movie seems strangely dated in the post-"MeeToo" era: back in the day, it may have seemed charming and amusing, but today it is rather closer to harassment, which makes the constant argument of the couple not quite suitable for a romantic comedy. Their first encounter is rather hard to accept: Beau spots Cherie singing on the stage, and then proceeds to talk to her backstage, in a full bar. Wouldn't the security stop him from doing that? Or wouldn't one of the men from the audience also get the same idea, and leave to talk to Cherie? Leaving these plot holes aside, this at least leads to a great little energetic moment, when Cherie tells Beau she likes him, and he immediately jumps and does a salto on a pole above him from all the excitement. Beau acts as a symbol of rural people who feel lost in the modern urban-dominated world, where more polite manners are now required. The viewers do not quite buy what or why suddenly makes Cherie change her mind and embrace Beau in the end, leaving that part of the film lacking, yet it does offer a nice little moment when he admits his love for her: "I like you the way you are, so what do I care how you got that way?"
Grade:++
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