I’ve never read John Steinbeck’s novel The Wayward Bus and won’t be doing so. I did wish to see the 1957 film version of it and am glad I did. It is an entertaining piece about a driver and his passengers on a problematic, life-changing bus ride. The driver, Chicoy, for example, needs a better marriage to one who eventually becomes a passenger: his perturbed wife, Alice (Joan Collins). The bus ride is one of infatuation, growing or potential love, and reconciliation. Ably screenwritten by Ivan Moffat, the film is about when relationships represent hope—and it’s about waywardness.

Beautiful Collins is not quite beautiful, for some reason, until near the end of the flick. Her acting is a trifle too much on the surface, although the scene where she is at the door of her diner after her frustrated husband zips away in the bus is a poignant one. Rick Jason is pretty effective as Chicoy, and at least passable is gorgeous Jayne Mansfield as a stripper. Dan Dailey never disappoints as a traveling salesman who gets fresh for a while with Mansfield, and elderly Will Wright is a character actor par excellence. The Wayward Bus had an un-wayward, Russian-born director in Victor Vicus, whose work I don’t know.