Lack of good storyline.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This wonderful rollicking comedy set in the early days of the republic, roughly sometime in the Federalist era had to take its inspiration from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers from the year before. In fact two of the brothers, Jeff Richards and Russ Tamblyn are featured in Many Rivers to Cross.The surprise to me in this film is Robert Taylor. At the time he did this film Taylor had been doing dramatic parts for many years. He did some comedy roles in his early days at MGM, but they were the modern sophisticated sort of stuff. Robert Taylor is Bushrod Gentry, a frontier trapper who's a pretty fancy free and footloose sort of character very much like Adam Pontipee in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. But while it was Howard Keel who was looking for a wife in that film, here it's the woman who does the chasing and it's the woman who comes from a pretty frisky frontier family herself. Eleanor Parker is Federalist era Calamity Jane who takes a real shine to Taylor.Of course she pursues Taylor through out the film, try as he may to get back to his trapping. Their last escape from some pursuing Shawnee Indians is an absolute comic riot. Good as Taylor and Parker are, Many Rivers to Cross almost cries for a song or two other than the theme about the Berry Tree. In a musical I could have seen Howard Keel and Doris Day doing it easily.In any event I'm sure that when Taylor and Parker settle down and commence to having children that they were the ancestors a hundred years later of that Pontipee clan in the Pacific Northwest.

The wierdest thing about MANY RIVERS TO CROSS is that is contains 2/7ths of the cast of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND... although if you go to the can you'll miss Russell Johnson's input as one of the sons. Alan Hale Jr. has a particularly strange outburst where he compares himself to a range of angry animals before attempting to beat the snot out of a too-old Robert Taylor in a jealous rage. This is an odd mix of comedy and drama with the normal MGM cast of caucasian Indians. Worth seeing on a rainy day... 6.5/10

I have been searching for the theme song of this movie "The Berry Tree" since I saw it once as a 6 year-old kid in 1955 or 56. I've hummed the melody and sung the few lyrics I remembered since then. I finally got the VHS tape last week and what a pleasure. This is a fantastic frontier comedy and it brings back fond memories of me as a young kid wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin cap and singing the song. Here are the lyrics to the song if anyone else has wondered what they were for 45 years or so, as I had. From other comments here, this song made an indelible impression on almost everyone that has heard it.The higher up the berry tree the sweeter grows the berryThe more you hug and kiss a gal the more she wants to marryThe berry tree's a wise old tree the sweetest fruit is his'nBut marryin' up with any gal is just like goin' to prison(Bridge)Peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall Till I find the gal I want, a' gonna have none at allCause higher up.

higher up the berry tree" it stuck with me and so did the fun of the movie. i remember that robert taylor just looked out of place to me but the movie stayed with me all these years. I have enjoyed it over the years and have seen it on tv a couple of times and i always recommend it to my friends. good.