Niagara (1953)

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

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I saw this first when it was released. I was just a kid, and it was quite scary to me. I've remembered many of the details over the years, just having watched it again to refresh my memory on some details. First, it's visually spectacular, with many shots of the falls in the background in Technicolor. CinemaScope was just about ready to be introduced, obviating the long used awkward and expensive three strip Technicolor filming process. It has a very memorable suspenseful screenplay. In these attributes combined, it stands out among the film noire type of screenplays of this period.The plot is fairly simple, although the details are quite convoluted.Slutty wife is dissatisfied with psychologically-damaged hubby, who is 20 years older than wify. She has found a handsome young sport she hopes will replace hubby by knocking him into the lower part of the falls as an apparent suicide, compatible with his psychological problems. Unfortunately, hubby wins the tussle, as wify finds out when she gazes upon the corpse fished out of the river below the falls. She faints and is hospitalized, as she remains incoherent. Meanwhile, hubby has gone to their cabin, hoping wify is there, so that he can stab her with a kitchen knife. Unfortunately, she's still in the hospital, and he finds their neighbor, who has been moved into their cabin. Nobody believes her when she claims she saw hubby alive. Eventually, wify recovers enough to escape from the hospital(poor security). She hopes to escape from this area before hubby can find her, but there is a search of all vehicles leaving the Canadian side. So, she wants to try walking across the bridge, but hubby blocks her way, and gives chase. I leave the rest of the story for you to discover.There some details I wonder about: 1) Presumably, George(hubby) requested that the bell tower play the song("Kiss") that Rose's(wify) boyfriend was supposed to request to signal his success in sending George to his watery grave. How did George know about this arrangement? Presumably, he just guessed it might be so, knowing that that song seemed to have special meaning to Rose. This was an essential part of fooling the audience into thinking that George was the one who died, this in combination with the discovery of George's shoes left on the shoe racket at the falls(exchanged for boots).(George had put on boyfriend's shoes to add to the charade that he had died.) Later, he is seen submitting a paper to the song suggestion box, after which the same song is played again, to taunt Rose. 2) Why did George get in the elevator(with Rose's boyfriend, it turned out) for another close encounter with the falls? Did he guess they were planning to knock him into the falls and he wanted to duel with the boyfriend now, if possible. It would have been nice to have seen the fight. I think it could have been staged away from the falls. Obviously, you wouldn't want to do it at the falls.I think all the actors did an excellent job. Joseph Cotton probably had the most important role. He looked mighty sinister with his fedora on.1953 was a breakout year for Marilyn. She costarred in 3 of the most popular films that year, changing from a husband killer into a gold digger for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", and "How to Marry a Millionaire"

Niagara Falls was beautiful in this movie, and the movie had an attention-holding plot, but the actors simply did little more than say their lines. Marilyn Monroe was the same sex symbol she always was, but her acting was not outstanding. Jean Peters herself was low-keyed. And while you were not impressed with the type character Joseph Cotton portrayed, at least he did put himself into his role. Henry Hathaway was always a superb director, but this would not rank among his top movies I dare say. Still, the scenery, which included Niagara Falls and the surroundings on the Canadian side, were definitely what pulled people to see it. Again, beautiful scenery, tense story, but not-so-great acting.

Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe) takes a trip to Niagara Falls with her husband George Loomis (Joseph Cotton) as part of their honeymoon. Rose hatches a plan to murder her husband with her lover's help, but things don't go according to plan.This really should have worked as it has a very simple 'Hitchcock type' plot, but sadly it always feels much less than the sum of its parts. The first problem with this film lies with the screenplay which is very basic and never offers anything in the way of surprises or suspense at any point in the film (and believe me there were lots of missed opportunities in this respect). The film also takes an awful long time to get going (why it does this when the plot is simple and straight-forward is anyone's guess).The characterisation here is rather poor and motivation is also rather weak - this ultimately results in a story and characters that I didn't particularly care about. The narrative involves Polly & Ray Cutler as the concerned fellow holidaymakers who both come across as very twee and fake in the early stages (Polly develops and improves somewhat in the second half of the film), but Ray remains the same throughout the film and felt to me more like a caricature than a real person. One thing I will concede is that the Cutler's romance was convincing, but in a sort of nauseating way.The performances are variable with only Joseph Cotton and Jean Peters making any real impression on the film; Marilyn Monroe looks great, but isn't particularly convincing and the less said about Max Showalter the better.Aside from a couple of good performances the only other thing that I liked about this film was the on-set locations and cinematography, but in all honesty Niagara just isn't very good and after watching it I just kept thinking to myself 'What would this film have been like if Hitchcock was at the helm?'

. . . John Wayne told NIAGARA's Cabbie, Harry Carey, Jr., on the set of BIG JAKE. Co-starring in a Wayne vehicle was NOT like driving around with Jerry Seinfeld, or even NIAGARA's Marilyn Monroe. Movie buff Leonard Maltin elicits this anecdote from the gray-bearded actor during an eight-minute-long 2005 interview entitled, THE JOHN WAYNE STOCK COMPANY: HARRY CAREY, JR. Of course, the problem with Wayne's comment is fairly obvious. He and Carey were NOT co-starring in a summer stock revival of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Instead, Carey had let his hair grow out all scraggly to play the doomed bad guy in BIG JAKE, Junior's first villainous movie part (after a career of playing Cabbies--as in NIAGARA--or other minor functions). That makes Wayne's dig tantamount to Dennis Rodman yelling out "Airball!" as his teammate Michael Jordan is about to release a free throw that could clinch Game Seven of the NBA Finals for their Chicago Bulls squad. Or Jordan Spieth shouting "Mashed Potatoes!" as Tiger Woods addresses the ceremonial first tee shot at the Masters. Or Condominium Rice screaming "You lie!" as George W. Bush spins a web around Yellow Uranium during an Address to a Joint Session of Congress. Or Butch Cassidy commanding "Jump!" as the Sundance Kid nears the edge of a cliff. The point that Matlin's highlighting in his editing of this interview is that normally a movie cast views themselves as teammates--NOT hecklers, trying to goad their cast mates over NIAGARA Falls without a barrel!