THE WAYWARD BUS (1957)

In California, Johnny drives a ramshackle bus on a once-a-day trip from the small town of Rebel Corners to Sun Juan. His wife Alice runs a small roadside diner and drinks too much. They seem disgruntled with each other, but not enough for either one to force a crisis. But Alice seems to have it in for Norma, the young waitress who works for them. She has dreams of being in show business and thinks that Alice is jealous of her for wanting a better life. The two have a physical confrontation which leads Norma to leave on the bus to San Juan, and drives Johnny into saying that he's leaving Alice. Among the other passengers: the sexy adult entertainer Camille (who longs for domestic tranquility), traveling businessman Ernest (who, though quite a bit older, is smitten with Camille until he discovers what her career is), Van Brunt (a cranky old bastard who lets everyone know he has an important reason to be in San Juan by 3:00), and a bickering couple with a wayward daughter named Mildred, who starts to flirt with Johnny. The bulk of the film is the bus trip which should only take a couple of hours but is held up by bad weather and later, a landslide which blocks the road. By the time they reach San Juan that evening, relationships are forged or broken and people’s lives are changed, mostly for the better.

This is based on a John Steinbeck novel; except for The Grapes of Wrath, I haven't read much Steinbeck, but this feels a lot like the 1940s movie of his novel Tortilla Flat and the 1980s film of his Cannery Row, stories about a diverse group of people held together by a central character. Tortilla had Spencer Tracy and Cannery had Nick Nolte, both giving slightly larger-than-life performances to anchor their films. This has Rick Jason playing Johnny; he's not bad, but he doesn't have the age or feel of authority that Tracy and Nolte had. I kept hoping he'd get better, but at the beginning, he's as good as he gets. When his circle consists of just his wife and employees, he commands attention, but he has a hard time holding it when other more colorful folks are around him. Somewhat surprisingly, the two sex kittens, Joan Collins (Alice) and Jayne Mansfield (Camille), give the best performances here, and their characters are the most interesting, whether due to the writing or acting, I'm not sure. Dan Dailey (Ernest) and Delores Michaels (Mildred) are the only other acting standouts here. All the characters, even the most annoying ones, are ultimately treated humanely by the screenplay, and the conflicts that arise all feel predestined to get smoothed out by the end. The mudslide scene is handled well. Watchable, but a hard movie to truly like. Pictured on the bus: Jason driving with Mansfield and Collins on the left. [Criterion Channel]