Good 50's Films: Niagara

1953 Film Noir
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Henry Hathaway

Starring
Marilyn Monroe
Joseph Cotten
Jean Peters
Casey Adams
Denis O'Dea
Richard Allan
Don Wilson
Lurene Tuttle

This film still stands as one of my top favorites from the 50's and definitely the one that began my life-long fascination with Marilyn Monroe.  And it was all enhanced by the fact that around the time of the film's release I visited Niagara Falls for the first time.  Scenes were shot at or on the site's famous attractions... on the Maid of the Mist which nudges closer and closer to the thundering falls, in the tunnel under the Horseshoe Falls and at the exciting Cave of the Winds.  I'd visited them all and my thrill at seeing them was escalated at knowing Monroe and/or Jean Peters filmed there.  It was pretty heady stuff back then and having just watched the movie again, I see not much has changed.

One of the distinguishing aspects of Niagara is that it is a film noir made in color rather than the signature black and white.  It is the story of two couples staying at the same motel overlooking the falls... a wholesome Midwestern couple expecting to enjoy a delayed honeymoon who gets caught up in the unsavory antics of the other.  Monroe, of course, is the main attraction and has top billing but Peters has more screen time and is the one featured in the film's exciting climax.

As with most film noirs, this is a tale of lust and murder.  When Peters and Adams arrive at the guest cabins they find their room still occupied by Monroe and Cotten.  He has recently been released from a military hospital and is still not quite right in the head.  He also suffers from an uncontrollable jealousy regarding his wife... and with good reason.  He strongly senses that she is cheating on him at the falls but is unaware that she and her lover are planning to kill him.

What happens, however, is that in an off screen tussle Cotten kills the boyfriend instead.  Through a false clue it is assumed that Cotten has been killed and the truth is not discovered (by Peters) until he returns to his cabin which Peters and Adams are now occupying.  After her fright, she pleads with him to give himself up, trying to convince him that it may be judged as what it really was, self-defense.

But Cotten will have none of it and he is bent on killing his wife.  Monroe's strangulation death in the famed bell tower is noir at its very best.  From then on, he's on the run.  With all exits swarming with cops, he takes to the water by hot wiring a boat with Peters aboard.   When it runs out of fuel, it is pulled into the main current, heading for the top of the falls.  Cotten tries everything he can to stop the boat or slow it down and as that fails, he comes upon an island and safely deposits Peters and he and the boat go over the falls.

Anne Baxter was hired to play the role eventually taken by her friend Peters.  The part of the faithless wife, while central to the plot, was a small role because she was killed at the beginning.  But  Fox honcho Darryl Zanuck realized that Monroe was among his contract players and he'd heard she was eyeing the role.  Not only was she hired but because of her presence and the feeling that this film would turn her into a major screen presence, the role was beefed up to include showcasing her most alluring aspects.  She was top-billed for the first time in her career.

On her part, Monroe wanted a dramatic role, something she could sink her teeth into.  She had already appeared in 20 films (far more than she had left to make) but most everything was just a sparsity of scenes, using her generally for decoration.  Starting around 1950 she was used to better advantage in films that gathered fame... The Asphalt Jungle, All About Eve and Monkey Business.  Then she was loaned to RKO for a decent dramatic role in the noir, Clash by Night, which caught her fancy.  And she had just finished making another drama, Don't Bother to Knock, as an unhinged babysitter.  She was rarin' to go when she took aim at Niagara.  

Niagara brought Marilyn Monroe worldwide fame and it's what she wanted more than anything.  After reading at least 30 books on her, I've come to the conclusion that one reason she was so difficult on film sets is because acting scared her to death.  She never truly wanted to be an actress.  She just wanted to be seen.  She was the voyeur's dream girl.  It's why she loved modeling so much and why there are trillions of photos of her.  

Monroe's walk in this film is famous.  Her walk...!!!  In a long tracking shot she is dressed in a black skirt and a red jacket and we're watching her backside (not so much the ankles or shoulders) as she sashays across the street.  There are, however, countless scenes of Monroe walking and the best is not the most famous.  Black conceals bodies while powder blue reveals every curve... check her out in the early part of the movie walking away in this outfit, a suit, no less, but wow.

We first see her in bed in a darkened motel room.  A cigarette is dangling in the middle of the wettest, reddest lips one is likely to ever see.  The hair is tossed like a salad.  She's propped up slightly.  Everything about her screams seduction.  The bed sheet is covering all  but her bare shoulders.  The film doesn't address whether she's naked under the sheet but the actress was careful to tell us she was.  She loved nudity.  She loved to be filmed in the nude.   She would have been so pleased that I've told you.

In Niagara she hit me like the force of nature that she was.  While I certainly thought she had a beautiful face (in a flash it could go from angelic to seductive), there was an inner, luminous beauty that I saw for the first time.  Didn't Gable's character in The Misfits say that a light shined from within her?  There has truly never been another quite like her although many tried.

Another famous scene involves the song Kiss.  She seductively sings along to it like no one else ever could.  But it is at the beginning of the scene when she opens her cabin door... all Marilynized in that off-the shoulder tight, tight dress and the white shawl that is simply unforgettable. 

When she walks out of her cabin, Adams and Peters are sitting nearby, watching her.  Why don't you ever wear a dress like that, he says to her.  Listen, to wear a dress like that, she says, you've got to start laying plans when you're about 13.

And how was that acting in Niagara... how did MM do?  She was fine, just fine  There were some scenes where her on-set coach must have looked away, but overall, no one could have played a femme fatale better.  It was the last time we would experience her without the breathy voice and the undulating lips, that is, until The Misfits.  

The only thing I found puzzling was the casting of Joseph Cotten.  Don't get me wrong, old Joe was a good actor, even in this, but it made about as much sense that his type would be with a Monroe as it was with her and Donald O'Connor in There's No Business Like Show Business.  The producers wanted James Mason and he would have been ideal.  He didn't accept because his daughter didn't want to see him die in another movie.  Too bad.

Unlike a lot of costarring actresses, Monroe and Peters got on well.  They had worked together before and were studio pals.  The contrast between their characters and the characters' marriages was apparent and Peters nailed her sunny role well.  Her brunette beauty was far different from her costar's but a beauty she certainly was.

The only other large role was played by Adams (he made some movies as Casey Adams and later used his real name, Max Showalter).  He needed to be sunny, too. and Adams fit that well.

When one takes a good look at Richard Allan (in about four scenes) one says no doubt why Monroe's character would want to be with him.  That kiss under the Horseshoe Falls is just plain hot.  But as I pointed out in an earlier piece on him, why a man with these beautiful looks didn't make it big in Hollywood is a mystery... and a shame.

Henry Hathaway seemed somewhat of an odd choice to direct a Monroe film.  One associates him with westerns, war films, John Wayne, lotsa butch. Those who knew him knew he wasn't easy on actors.   But he, too, was under contract to Fox and did as he was told.  In contrast to many of Monroe's directors, he found working with her to be an enjoyable experience (she was in the blush of a romance with Joe DiMaggio whom the director said kept her happy).  Hathaway said shortly after production wrapped... she never had any confidence... never sure she was a good actress.  The tragedy was that she was never allowed to be.  But she was the best natural actress I ever directed.

I would be remiss to not mention the look of this film.  It did not hurt its noir status a single bit that it was filmed in color... a brilliant, 3-strip color that was being phased out for the advent of the studio's new Cinemascope.  Monroe is a sight to behold in color, I promise you, but so is the grandeur of the location.  This may be a murder story but the falls are presented so arrestingly that one may think it feels like a travelogue from the local Chamber of Commerce. Also in full view is the noir lighting, shadows, the use of window blinds that I love.  Bravo to cinematographer Joe MacDonald.

Fans of Monroe (and Peters) and those who love noir and Niagara Falls, trust me, this is the film for you.

Here's a preview... oddly in black and white.

Next posting:
Movie review