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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 6706
Released: May 14, 2002 |
| Our Price: $7.71 |
| Used Price: $5.80 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Set against the dramatic backdrop of Niagara Falls, Marilyn Monroe portrays Rose, a femme fatale possessing two of the most powerful weapons: an erotic body and an evil mind. Planning to murder her troubled husband (Joseph Cotton), rose first uses her double edged sword to drive him t the brink of total insanity. Then she seductively torments a series of stranger while her mysterious lover waits in the shadows. Vastily different from her often comedic roles. Marilyn's classic dramatic performance as this diabolical and scheming woman is at once fascination and frightening, painting a powerful portrait of human sexuality and passion.
Description of Niagara:
A neatly enjoyable thriller in the pseudo-Hitchcock mode, Niagara offers great fun on a variety of levels. It has film noir themes (albeit in Technicolor), oodles of location shooting, and Freudian symbolism run amok. And, of course, it has Marilyn Monroe as an unbelievably ripe femme fatale: married to unstable hubby Joseph Cotten and stuck in a cabin at Niagara Falls, she plots a watery escape. Jean Peters (a future Mrs. Howard Hughes) and froggy husband Casey Adams are dragged into the intrigue during their delayed honeymoon. Veteran open-air director Henry Hathaway squeezes the most out of the spectacular scenery and the nail-biting climax, slowing down only for traveloguey interludes; the dialogue, pretty racy for 1953, comes from the civilized pen of producer-writer Charles Brackett (Billy Wilder's longtime partner). The baby-doll murmuring and lazy lounging in motel bed sheets is, well, all Marilyn. --Robert Horton
Niagara Reviews:
56 YEAR OLD FILM STILL ENTERTAINS! 
2009-05-14 - Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten do a good job holding our interest in this Hitchcock-style thriller.
Fun, Fifties Technicolor Noir
2009-03-11 - I liked this film but I'm not sure it was for good reasons. I went to Niagara Falls with my parents sometime in the fifties or sixties and this brought back happy memories. The shots of the Falls and the sound of the pounding water are wonderful. I loved all the tourist stuff--the log cabins, the yellow slickers and boots, the trip underneath the falls, and the gift shop!
As for a more "objective" review of the film: Marilyn Monroe does her sexy thing here. I noticed that a lot of the reviews by men were more flattering than the ones by women. Marilyn was a beautiful woman and a beautiful person, I think, but her pseudo-sexy routine was sort of pathetic, in my humble, female opinion. However this was what passed for hot sexy stuff in the USA at the time, so she became famous and played the role again and again until she finally managed to move out of it, towards the end of her career. As for raw sexuality, I think the noir heroines of the 40's did the job much better---eg. Lana Turner.
However we are in the fifties, moving into the post war prosperous Eisenhower years and this film is in sunny technicolor. Still, there is a clear line of distinction between good girls, like Polly, (Jean Peters) who is happilly married to a really dopey cereal salesman, and wears sensible shirtwaist dresses and Keds; and the bad ones like Rose (Monroe) who wears indelible glossy red lipstick that never wears off and tight cocktail dresses and stilletto heels around the campground. Her walk, which I guess drives some men wild just strikes me as silly and I wonder if it's because she really thinks it's sexy or if her feet just hurt.
Anyway her husband is one of the guys who is driven wild by Rose, so wild that his judgment is a little impaired and he does some unwise stuff. He did do a stint in a veterans' hospital for the mentally ill (named "Letterman" which I found sort of funny,) so his instability is not all Rose's fault. Joseph Cotten's performance, as Loomis, Rose's husband, is quite wonderful and brings the film to a higher level---or tries to. The relationship between Loomis and Polly would have made a much more interesting story, but the film doesn't go there. We're stuck in the stereotypes of the era and although there are a few little plot turns, basically you know how it's going to end.
The use of the Falls is quite wonderful and make the film worth seeing. It reminds me of Hitchcock's use of Mt. Rushmore in North by Northwest, but this is even better. The contrast of the "normal, nice folks" and the wierd, sexy, interesting, crazy folks is a sign of the times. If you love Marilyn Monroe and/or films noir, you'll probably love this. Or if you enjoy memorabilia from the 50's, you'might find this enjoyable too.
'Retains an Undiminished Popularity Throughout the Years' 
2008-11-18 - Henry Hathaway's 'Niagara' captures the the feel of a really bad vacation. A vacation with someone who no longer loves; or particularly likes you, and is quite possibly whiling away the hours thinking of ways to kill you.
One can almost smell the mildew on the towels and the staleness of the ashtrays in the Motor Lodge where Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe) lounges in bed wearing red lipstick and not much else, while her battle-fatigued husband George (Joseph Cotten), wanders around Niagara Falls, looking for sharp rocks to smash his head on. George can't stand Rose, and he can't live without her. This renders him powerless to do much more than paint model cars,chain smoke and break vinyl records he suspects are love songs about the guys Rose is really fantasizing about. Going nowhere fast, the Loomis' have 'late checkout' written all over them.
Enter Polly and Ray Cuttler of Toledo, Ohio. Polly is sharp everywhere that Rose is curvy, and Ray is a hapless dope who has cleverly combined their delayed honeymoon with a trip to the Corporate Headquarters of the Nabisco Factory, where, in his own words: "Breakfast cereal has become a National Institution." There is a wonderful seen where Ray, upon seeing for the first time- not the Natural Wonder that is Niagara Falls, but the Nabisco Company, lets out a girlish squeal. One wonders what Polly is doing with Ray, and when will she fall for, and save, the dark and brooding George who is clearly more interesting, and more a man of the world. Myself and quite possibly the other 4 members of the' Joseph Cotten-Is -One-Sexy-Powerful -Under-Rated-Actor' Club will be disappointed. Not in Cotten's performance, but in the plot of 'Niagara'.
Filmed on location with a powerful opening and moody feel of too much water, cold wind, technicolor souvenier shops, and a sun that never gets warm enough, and set to the gloamy music of composer Sol Kaplan, 'Niagara' eventually meanders through too many wardrobe changes into black and yelllow raincoats, resulting in an emotionally miserable cat and mouse chase. There is a suspense-filled broken railing scene, which should lead to a much-needed kiss, but instead becomes merely a backdrop for a weird scolding about the ethical dilemma of faking one's death.
Monroe, at her best when she plays a woman with a gently deranged personality disorder (must see 'Don't Bother To Knock'), plays Rose Loomis as a Femme Fatale who plots murder the way one might decide to sleep in late- with a sloppy, scattered-sheet air of boredom. Even when everything falls apart her fear lacks an edge, and her plans lack the cunning intelligence of most deadly women. That, and the removal of one of the big stars too early in the movie, gives the top Shredded Wheat salesman too much camera time.
As metaphor for loud, all-consuming obsession that blocks rational thought of calmer waters, Niagara Falls is the perfect third character. Does someone go over? Perhaps Hathaway is telling us that noisy, torrential, and dangerous obsession is more exciting than floating around with a guy who sells cereal.
"Barrel (over the Falls) O' Fun" 
2008-10-08 - This is a wonderfully suspenseful movie, shot with the grandeur of Niagra Falls as a backdrop--along with the accompanying noise and mist. Great acting by all parties: Monroe, Cotten, Peters et. al. It is very Hitchcocky in nature. We all know that Joseph Cotten can play evil and diabolical. In later years it was his hallmark. How about Marilyn? If you view this beautiful movie, you won't be wondering for long.
Not bad, and with a strange, artificial creation of breasts, lipstick and sleepy eyelids to look at
2008-10-04 - Niagara, in my view, is a second-rate A movie struggling with only partial success to be a first-rate B movie. What it needs is Audrey Totter as Rose Loomis instead of Marilyn Monroe and Charles McGraw as George Loomis instead of Joseph Cotton. We'll keep Jean Peters but let's ditch her husband, especially when played by an actor named Casey Adams as an irritating clone of Robert Cummings. Rose Loomis is a tramp, and a dangerous one, but Monroe for my money is just giving us a caricature of a tramp, all self-conscious sex-pottedness with way too much lip action when she sings.
Just to recap: George Loomis (Cotton) is a loser, without the kind of lusty stamina that could keep happy his younger, lush and scheming wife, Rose (Monroe). They're staying at the Rainbow Cabins, right on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Then Polly and Ray Cutler (Peters and Adams) check in for a second honeymoon. It's not long before Polly and we realize Rose has a young, handsome lover. If Rose has her way, George Loomis might not be with us for much longer. And all the while a lot of water keeps crashing over the Falls. We're in for double crosses, murderous twists, desperate escapes and lots of what must be glue-on lipstick for Monroe's kisser. (It's bright red, thick and glossy, and she never gets a speck on her teeth or a smear on her pillow.) Of course, there's a reason the movie was named after Niagara Falls and it just might be that George Loomis has better survival instincts that we were led to believe. There are bits and pieces of interesting scenes, but bits and pieces of old Hitchcock do not a Hitchcock movie make.
For me, Monroe has almost always been little more than a collection of curves and breathy sighs, a style-less singer and an extremely limited actress. Her great talent was in having that rare ability to reach an audience through the camera and make us forget there's a camera at all. She was one of Hollywood's great artificial creations, who was blessed mysteriously with genuine star dazzle. In Niagara, however, she's scarcely more than an Eagle Scout's naughty dream. She's not a good enough actress (or even a bad enough one) to be a first-rate femme fatale.
It's Jean Peters who lends Niagara what quality and fascination it carries. After the set-up of the scheme, in fact, the less we see of Monroe the better the story becomes. For the last third of the movie, we don't see her at all, and that's when the movie starts developing some real B-movie quality. Niagara was made as a vehicle for Monroe, but, for me, she hasn't the skills to bring it off. The oddness of Monroe dominating her scenes and Peters dominating hers makes for a discombobulating story balance.
Let's not forget Denis O'Dea as Inspector Starkey. He was an Irish actor with a fine stage reputation who made a number of British and Hollywood films, usually as smart, reserved police detectives. One of his best roles was in Carol Reed's Odd Man Out. O'Dea played a police inspector who was relentless in his pursuit of the wounded Johnny McQueen (James Mason), but sympathetic toward Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan), the woman who loves McQueen and is determined to help him escape. It's a fine movie with one of Mason's great performances.
Niagara is sort of fun to watch. The twists of fate, jealousy and retribution are almost always satisfying. Jean Peters gives a smart, sympathetic performance, and there's this strange, artificial creation of breasts, lipstick and sleepy eyelids to look at. Niagara's DVD color transfer looks good. There are two or three inconsequential extras.
