Monday 7 March 2016

Bus Stop (1956)



Thor is pretty much the only Marvel movie I consciously chose not to see at the cinema.  This is because I knew they were doing his origin story and that would require him to be a jerk for the first half of the film before finally getting his act together.  Now "A jerk learns to be a better person" is certainly a valid character arc (in real life even moreso than fiction!), but I find jerk-protagonists really heavy going.  So I figured I'd wait to see in a venue where I could pause it whenever I started to get annoyed and go blow off steam by playing a computer game for a while or something.

All of which is relevant to this film because my word the protagonist is insufferable: and for a good deal more than half the film.  Beauregard 'Bo' Decker is a 21-year old ranch owner making his first trip to the big city (Phoenix, Arizona).  He's going there to participate in a rodeo.  He also hopes to find love, though his plan for doing so is ... well, I'm not going to watch it again to get the quote exactly right, but from memory: "A steer don't want to be roped, but I rope him.  Why should a girl be any different?"

... yeah.

Just in case you think this is just talk, by the by, when he does meet the woman of his dreams (I expect you can guess who she is), he quite literally, this is not a euphemism or exaggeration, kidnaps her and forces her onto the bus back to the ranch.  This plan only comes unstuck because the bus driver and one of the other passengers (ironically, a friend of Bo's) physically force him to let her go.

Naturally, when Bo finally sees the error of his ways and apologises the young lady falls in love with him.  Because of course she does.

Oh well, at least it's not High Plains Drifter.

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