Though Michael Parks made his mark on the big screen about a decade after James Dean, he is sometimes compared to him. Both actors had initially garnered attention doing roles on television while in the process of transitioning to more important work in feature films. Both were method actors sporting wholesome boy-next-door looks.
Yet both had a subversive quality in how they presented themselves with the characters they played. The subversiveness helps when Parks is portraying an insider-outsider like the title character in this mid-1960s offering from Universal.
Plenty of pictures had sought to capture the awkward readjustment period experienced by returning veterans. Harold Russell struggles to reacquaint himself with his previous domestic life after WWII in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. We also see the adjustments that Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra face after the war in SOME CAME RUNNING. These pictures are a bit more melodramatic and daresay glamorous than what we see with BUS RILEY. Bus is coming home after what was probably the Korean War...though things seem strangely updated to the Lyndon Johnson era.
Originally William Inge's screenplay, based on an early play of his, was much more brutal in its depiction of the readjustment phase. Parks' character has changed while he was away, and so has his high school sweetheart (Ann-Margret). The studio did extensive retakes before releasing the movie, to soften the harder aspects of the story, which angered Mr. Inge and annoyed Miss Margret. The actress was miffed because this was a chance to show off her acting chops alongside Parks, not to revisit the saccharine treatment she had endured in BYE BYE BIRDIE.
Despite the revisions, I think we still get a sense of dysfunctional American life. It helps that much of it is shot on the Universal backlot, meaning one of the houses in town is the same structure used for the Cleaver home in Leave It to Beaver. There is a pervading sense of honest-to-goodness nuclear family values, upset by unalterable changes that our two main characters have experienced. Margret's character did not wait for Parks to get back and she married a much wealthier man.
While Parks projects a clean-cut image, there is a sense that underneath the nice looking appearance lurks the soul of a scruffier guy. One gets the feeling he is somewhat uneven, wanting to let go of all the societal norms that surround him...that he'd like to escape any enforced morality and any prescribed outcome for his life.
In the 1980s, Parks returned to television in a regular role on the Aaron Spelling primetime soap The Colbys. In that series Parks plays a man who comes back from the dead, after supposedly being killed in Vietnam. He learns his sweetheart (Katharine Ross) has moved on and is set to marry a very powerful man (Charlton Heston). Episodes see Parks trying to reclaim what's his.
Yet both had a subversive quality in how they presented themselves with the characters they played. The subversiveness helps when Parks is portraying an insider-outsider like the title character in this mid-1960s offering from Universal.
Plenty of pictures had sought to capture the awkward readjustment period experienced by returning veterans. Harold Russell struggles to reacquaint himself with his previous domestic life after WWII in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. We also see the adjustments that Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra face after the war in SOME CAME RUNNING. These pictures are a bit more melodramatic and daresay glamorous than what we see with BUS RILEY. Bus is coming home after what was probably the Korean War...though things seem strangely updated to the Lyndon Johnson era.
Originally William Inge's screenplay, based on an early play of his, was much more brutal in its depiction of the readjustment phase. Parks' character has changed while he was away, and so has his high school sweetheart (Ann-Margret). The studio did extensive retakes before releasing the movie, to soften the harder aspects of the story, which angered Mr. Inge and annoyed Miss Margret. The actress was miffed because this was a chance to show off her acting chops alongside Parks, not to revisit the saccharine treatment she had endured in BYE BYE BIRDIE.
Despite the revisions, I think we still get a sense of dysfunctional American life. It helps that much of it is shot on the Universal backlot, meaning one of the houses in town is the same structure used for the Cleaver home in Leave It to Beaver. There is a pervading sense of honest-to-goodness nuclear family values, upset by unalterable changes that our two main characters have experienced. Margret's character did not wait for Parks to get back and she married a much wealthier man.
While Parks projects a clean-cut image, there is a sense that underneath the nice looking appearance lurks the soul of a scruffier guy. One gets the feeling he is somewhat uneven, wanting to let go of all the societal norms that surround him...that he'd like to escape any enforced morality and any prescribed outcome for his life.
In the 1980s, Parks returned to television in a regular role on the Aaron Spelling primetime soap The Colbys. In that series Parks plays a man who comes back from the dead, after supposedly being killed in Vietnam. He learns his sweetheart (Katharine Ross) has moved on and is set to marry a very powerful man (Charlton Heston). Episodes see Parks trying to reclaim what's his.