Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Artivels Undescribable Perfection

TinsHeadline Touches You

Manthast Absolutely amazing

gridoon2018 Though "Niagara" does not quite reach "classic" status (maybe because it doesn't have enough tension), it's still worthwhile for the imposing Niagara Falls (still an original setting for a movie), a startling plot twist in the middle, and a fine cast: Marilyn Monroe is excellent (and sizzling) as a bad girl, and the fit, shapely Jean Peters probably has the most athletic body of any actress of her era. An enjoyable film. *** out of 4.

weezeralfalfa 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"

George Redding 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.

Robert J. Maxwell Henry Hathaway has directed a melodrama involving a perfectly normal honeymooning couple (Peters and Showalter) trying to help a troubled couple (Cotton and Monroe) of the kind that marriage counselors call unstable and unsatisfactory.Cotton has just been released from some kind of booby hatch and we take his obsessive paranoia about his wife's fidelity as symptomatic, but in fact he's quite right. Monroe has a lover. They plan to murder Cotton and take off for Chicago.Monroe and her paramour use a vapid pop song that they arrange to have played by the bells in the campanile as a signal for them to meet and fornicate like two aardvarks in heat. The insipid love song may have been meant for public release, maybe sung by Patti Page or someone, but it never leaves the ground. "It's the ONLY song," breathes Monroe. If that were the case the end of civilization would be at hand.But if the song flops, Monroe does not. Hathaway and the studio have lavished as much attention on her as her lover has. She's dressed in startling vermilion dresses, she's festooned with diamonds, and her lips are a glistening scarlet that might blind a companion in a dark room. When she delivers a line her upper lip droops for a second over her lower, as if getting ready to do something entirely on its own.She wears spaghetti shoes. She wears false eyelashes, make up, and that polished lipstick. She wears it in the shower. She wears it while lying unconscious on a hospital bed. And when she walks away from the camera, the shot lingers forever on her undulating rear.Peters and Showalter are anxious to help the tortured couple but Peters discovers some shadowy nooks in the others' marriage and when she tries to tell her husband she dissolves into hysterical gibberish so that an irritated Max tells her to "Stop it now; it was all just a bad dream!" The last third of the picture is more kinetic. There are lots of pursuits, always upward. Frightened people climb rickety wooden staircases that seem to meander through the dripping rocks. People are trapped in stone grottoes, left hanging to small rocks in the St. Lawrence River. And way high up in the campanile, the bells provide silent witness to murder.It's Marilyn Monroe's picture all the way.