Niagara

As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.

Marilyn Monroe was given first billing in "Niagara" which elevated her to star status. Her following two films of that year, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", with Jane Russell, and "How to Marry a Millionaire", with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, were even bigger successes.

Films like this are what I really wish Monroe was remembered for. She is more often than not seen as the "dumb blonde" of "Seven Year Itch" and other such films. But "Niagara" and "The Misfits", for example, show she was actually a rather good actress and not just an object.

Marilyn hype aside, this is quite a good thriller. The sheer drama of the falls merge strikingly into the story as a whole. Some of the camera angles really showcase the waters in their crashing majesty, a sinister backdrop to the shadowy events. Then too, I hope TCF gave poor Jean Peters hazard pay for the way she gets doused around in that little boat. No glamour girl there.

I expect the movie's overall quality is due to director Hathaway, long one of Hollywood's most underrated movie makers. Catch, for example, that marvelous overhead shot in the bell tower of Marilyn lying dead. It's a composition worthy of the best of Welles. Also, I kept watching for process shots, Hollywood's usual expedient when dealing with difficult action set-ups. The only one I could spot in that long river sequence is Peters on the rock awaiting rescue. To me, that's quite a feat of expert movie-making.

Nothing special about the storyline itself. Faithless wife Monroe two-times her unbalanced husband Cotten who then stalks her amid the touristy Niagara setting. In fact, Cotten gets to do a lot of sinister lurking around. On the other hand, wholesome newly-weds Showalter and Peters make a charming, non-sappy contrast to the other couple-- and I'm not surprised that in real life, the notorious love-'em and leave-'em Howard Hughes ended up marrying the no-nonsense Peters. My only gripe is with the ever-exultant Don Wilson. He was such a good pitch-man on TV, but here it's like he's trying to sell us his glad-handing role instead of acting it out.

Anyway, the movie remains more than simply Marilyn's breakthrough role-- good as she is-- and can stand on its own as an expert scenic thriller.

Joseph Cotten was an outstanding actor whose talents have been terribly under-appreciated. He is great in this movie as an abusive husband. The very sexy Marilyn Monroe is his wife, who is having an affair with another man. They meet a pair of young newlyweds on their honeymoon. Max Showalter as the young husband is one of the most annoying characters I've ever seen. Jean Peters as his bride does the unthinkable, managing to look almost as beautiful as Marilyn herself.

This is a suspenseful and entertaining movie, which makes great use of the scenery surrounding Niagara Falls.

I like watching Niagara because it gives one a chance to see the place before it became a mini Las Vegas. No doubt that legalized gambling on the Canadian side has certainly given the place a prosperity it hadn't known before when it was just dependent on honeymoon tourism. Still both sides have a quaint look that sad to say is gone forever.

If the town has changed, Marilyn Monroe and one of the great natural wonders of the world remain the same. Marilyn is half of two couples vacationing at the Falls. Marilyn and Joseph Cotten are trying to regain some romance, at least that's Cotten's intention. In the meantime Casey Adams and Jean Peters have won a trip there from his company because he thought up a prize winning ad campaign to sell the breakfast cereal he works for.

Fate brings these two couples together, one a happy couple and one a most unhappy one. It seems that Marilyn has a whole other agenda involving Cotten and Peters becomes innocently involved when Marilyn's plan doesn't work.

If you remember how in Duel In The Sun Cotten and his brother Gregory Peck were both involved in competition for sex kitten Jennifer Jones. In Niagara, Cotten has won the sex kitten, the sexiest woman of the Fifties some say and it's certainly not brought him any happiness. His portrayal of a beaten man, married to a tramp ranks as some of his best work.

As for Marilyn Monroe, Darryl Zanuck brought her along quite carefully and she certainly attracted attention in All About Eve and The Asphalt Jungle. But no doubt that her role as the hard hearted stone goddess married to Joseph Cotten was her breakout role. There was nothing but star parts for her after this.

So for a chance to see an unglitzed Niagara Falls and the statuesque beauty that was Marilyn Monroe, don't miss Niagara.

This nifty thriller represented one of Hathaway's few forays into noir (he was largely known for Westerns). It was unusual for noir in being filmed in shimmering Technicolor rather than the pallet of grays, blacks, and whites more commonly associated with the genre, but then, given the resort setting, this was almost inescapable.

The storyline is straightforward: an amiable Midwestern couple, the Cutlers, Polly and Ray (Jean Peters and Max Showalter, billed as Casey Adams) arrive at the Falls to find the cabin they've reserved is occupied by another, more fractious couple: the Loomises. George (Joseph Cotten), the husband of the latter couple, could be nicknamed "Gloomy Loomy" given his downcast and cynical demeanor; we learn that he spent time in a psychiatric hospital for war veterans. His ravishing and none-too-faithful wife, Rose (Marilyn Monroe) provides ample reason for his suspicions. Turns out she's been two-timing George with a man who looks like the textbook illustration of a smooth gigolo (Richard Allan) and she and loverboy are planning something most foul for George.

But Polly, the distaff half of the Cutler twosome, has witnessed some of the hanky- panky, and when Rose and her lover's nefarious plans run into trouble, Polly finds herself caught between a vengeful husband and a scared-out-of-her-wits wife. The suspense arises from Polly-in-peril and her efforts to extricate herself from another couple's troubles.

Monroe is excellent in one of her few villainous roles in a non-comedy, and Cotten is riveting as the troubled, betrayed husband bent on revenge. His voice-over during an insomniac late-night/early-morning walk by the Falls at the start of the film is almost worth the price of admission alone. And the Falls? They never looked more beautiful- or deadly.