The Wayward Bus (film)

Plot

Alice Chicoy (Collins) is the wife of driver Johnny (Jason). He owns a small and rundown little bus that makes side trips. Alice is the owner of a little restaurant and likes liquor a bit too much.

Unhappy with what has become of her life, she decides to "surprise" her husband midway through his bus trip. Among the passengers, Camille Oakes (Mansfield) is a shamed burlesque dancer on the way to a well-paying job in San Juan. Camille gets caught up in a flirtation with traveling salesman Ernest Horton (Dailey).

Most of the story takes place on the charter bus. Slowly making their way through a treacherous California mountain region, the passengers undergo a variety of life-altering experiences. The journey has its most profound effects upon the iconoclastic salesman and the lonely stripper.

Cast

Casting

Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney were the original stars. Henry Hathaway was meant to direct.

Mansfield was signed to the film because Fox was eager to capitalize on its new star. She had just made it big with The Girl Can't Help It. Fox was also waiting for the film script of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, Mansfield's Broadway hit that ran from October 1955 to May 1956 and starred Mansfield as Rita Marlowe and featuring Orson Bean. Waiting for Rock Hunter to be available for filming, Fox kept Mansfield busy. Wayward Bus was made shortly after Girl Can't Help It to keep Mansfield's name in the public's eye. In The Wayward Bus, however, Mansfield would play Camille Oakes seriously, rather than as the light-headed Jerri Jordan of The Girl Can't Help It.

Joanne Woodward was intended to play "Mildred Pritchard", but Woodward dropped out to star in The Three Faces of Eve, and the role went to Dolores Michaels, her first acting role.

Reception

The film received disappointing reviews. Fox had hoped to repeat the success of 1956's Bus Stop (starring Marilyn Monroe) film adaptation, but instead ended up crafting the Steinbeck novel into what one commentator called "the kind of lowbrow schlock the novel had satirized".

United Press International said in a review of the film that Michaels' "torrid" scene, a seduction scene in a hayloft where she makes a pass at the bus driver (Rick Jason), "manages to steal the sexiest scene in the picture," over better known actresses Jayne Mansfield and Joan Collins and said Hollywood had not had a scene like it since Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Director Victor Vicas shot two versions, an "A" scene and a "B" scene because of the censors.

Award nominations

The Wayward Bus was one of 33 films nominated for the Golden Berlin Bear Award at the 7th Berlin International Film Festival, but lost to Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men.

Home media

The film was released on Blu-ray in June 2012 by Twilight Time under license from 20th Century Fox.