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Niagara (1953)

 

Posters ,

 

The Fox knew that Marilyn represented a significant "capital".

In "Niagara", Marilyn had, for the second time, the leading role. She played a woman within who the evil and the sexual temptation coexist, until the evil triumphs and she decides to kill her husband. She shared the bill with another nature phenomenon : the Niagara falls. During the preliminary work of the movie, Anne Baxter - who played the part of Polly Cutler - left the set : her part had been widely reduced not to offend the two stars of the movie, Marilyn and the waterfalls; Jean Peters obtained the part.

Marilyn's sensuality appears as soon as the movie begins when, in a red tight-fitting dress, she languorously lies,

singing "Kiss Me" (song written by Lionel Newman and Haven Gillespie)().

In "Niagara", Marilyn did what at that time was considered as the most longer walking scene of the cinema. 
On 35 meters, "the girl with the horizontal walk", as she was therefore nicknamed, moved away from the movie camera in a very tight-fitting black suit.

Many fans consider "Niagara" as the most sensual and attractive performance of Marilyn. When the movie was released, the opinion was apparently shared by the amateurs of the cinema of this era.
The earnings of the movie were 5 times higher than its cost, and this, despite the boycott threat of some groups, claiming that the movie was indecent. Marilyn turned out to be one of the biggest attractions of the whole country.

Despite all the critics "Niagara" had to put up with, and their obvious lack of nuance, Marilyn's playing makes its character remarkable among the others, much more dull, notably the one of her husband, though played by the excellent Joseph Cotten.

Production

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Wardrobe tests

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Hairdressing 

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Publicity pictures

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CREDIT

Twentieth Century-Fox, Tecnicolor

Runtime : 89 mn

Release date : January 21, 1953.

 

Director : Henry Hathaway

Producer : Charles Brackett

Screenplay: Charles Brackett, Richard L. Breen, Walter Reisch

Director of photography : Joseph MacDonald

Music : Sol Kaplan

Costumes : Dorothy Jeakins

Film editing : Barbara McLean.

 

CAST

Marilyn Monroe - Rose Loomis

Joseph Cotten - George Loomis

Jean Peters - Polly Cutler

Casey Adams - Ray Cutler

Denis O'Dea - inspecteur Starkey

Richard Allan - Ted Patrick

Don Wilson - Mr Kettering

Lurene Tuttle - Mrs Kettering

Russell Collins - Mr Qua

Will Wright - boatman

Lester Matthews - doctor

Carleton Young - policeman

Sean McClory - Sam

Minerva Urecal - Landlady of McGrand's Boarding House

Nina Varela - wife

Tom Reynolds - husband

Neil Fitzgerald - customs officer

Norman McKay - Morris

Gene Wesson - guide

George Ives - carillon tower guide

Patrick O'Moore - detective

Arch Johnson - taxi driver

Harry Carey Jr -  taxi driver

Henry Beckman - motorcycle cop

Willard Sage - motorcycle cop

Bill Coontze - young man

Robert Ellis - young man

Gloria Gordon - dancer

Marjorie Rambeau - bit part.

 

TECHNICAL CREW

Leonard Doss - color consultant

W.D. Flick - sound

Roger Heman - sound

Ray Kellogg - special effects

Charles LeMaire - wardrobe director

Lionel Newman - musical director

Ben Nye - make up

Gerd Oswald - assistant director

Edward B. Powell - orchestrator

Maurice Ransford - art director

Stuart A. Reiss - set decorator

Lyle R. Wheeler - art director.

 

SYNOPSIS

As in "Don't Bother to Knock" (1952), the plot takes place in a bungalows hotel where notably, 2 couples stay : on one hand, newlyweds in honeymoon, Ray Cutler (Casey Adams) and Polly (Jean Peters), and on the other hand, a Korean war veteran, George Loomis (Joseph Cotten), accompanied with his wife Rose (Marilyn Monroe). The whole action takes place in the grandiose setting of the Niagara falls. Polly surprises Rose kissing Ted Patrick (Richard Allan), who isn't her husband, but she doesn't talk about it to anybody, even when George Loomis is complaining in front of her about Rose behavior, who he suspects to have an affair.

George Loomis dispappears, after Rose and Ted have set about killing him. Rose admirably feigns innocence face to the police, until she discovers that the corpse showed to her at the morgue isn't the one of her husband but her lover's one. She faints under the shock and is hospitalized. It turns at that Loomis has killed Ted in a self-defense gesture. Rose manages to escape from the hospital. Her husband finds her and chases her, up to the belfry of the carillon, where he strangles her.

The police seeks him, he escapes and to cross the Canada-USA border, takes a motorboat on which unfortunately Polly is. He tries to disembark the young woman, but, giddy by the struggle, she stays on board.

From then on, their destinies are linked. They run out of fuel and drift in the rapids. Before reaching the abyss, Loomis manages to push Polly on a rock, just before the craft and himself topple over the dreadful waterfall. Polly is saved by a police helicopter, and safe and sound, she joins her husband.

BIBILIOGRAPHY

"Falling For Marilyn : the Lost Niagara Collection", with pictures of Jock Carroll, New York, Michael Friedman Publishing, 1996.

"Marilyn Monroe and the Making Of Niagara", George Bailey; local publisher, in sale in the Niagara falls area.

 

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