Film Forum

NIAGARA

Henry Hathaway · 1953 · U.S. · 88 min

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Marilyn Monroe married to Joseph Cotten? Even honeymooning couple Jean Peters and Casey Adams are taken aback—but then Joe’s back from a mental hospital. Yes, there’s a triangle there, and a murder looming—but which one is it going to be? Views of the Falls vie with views of Marilyn, in rare Technicolor Noir. “A film noir in lurid, three-strip Technicolor. As an adulterous wife unhappily married to a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress (Cotten), and first seen smoking in bed, her legs moving seductively under the sheets, Monroe exudes rough-and-ready sexuality. Her character is a force of (destructive) nature, and in ads for the film, an image of Monroe reclines over the Niagara Falls, her body melting into the cascading torrents... NIAGARA was a box-office winner, setting Monroe up to play a trainload of wicked women. But she never again appeared as a femme fatale. Instead, she is typically cast as an innocent, winsome, life-affirming woman who gives sex a good name. Perhaps this was the way an era of sexual repression could best accommodate a woman who projected sexual abundance.” – Foster Hirsch