Niagara (1963) – 3/5

Falls pretense

„Niagara“ is a pretty short title for this rather short movie we have here as it stays under the 1.5-hour mark, even if not by a lot. The film is from 1953, which means that it has its 70th anniversary this year in 2023 and which sadly also means that nobody working on it is with us anymore. I guess nobody who knows a bit about movie is surprised that here we have a sound movie and not a silent film anymore, but this being a color film and not black-and-white is something that may surprise some. In the early/mid-1950s color films were still far from common and usually it was films from the comedy genre that had color and this one here is of course a drama movie with virtually no comedic elements altogether. The director is Henry Hathaway and he is remembered for the Oscar nomination he scored almost 20 years before this one and also for directing the film „True Grit“ that remade (excellently) by the Coens a few years ago and Hathaway’s old version was also of course the film that got western legend John Wayne the Oscar. At that point, Wayne was already over the age of 60, but Hathaway was even 70 or slightly over as he was still born in the previous century, which means he was in his mid50s for this one here. So let’s get back to „Niagara“: The three writers are Brackett, Reisch and Breen and these three did not only come up with the screenplay for this film we have here in terms of 1953 releases, but they also came up with the script for „Titanic“ and that one them the Oscar, which was definitely the biggest career success for all three of them, even if with Brackett and his long history with the Academy Awards, including two more wins, say that there are other contenders for his most glorious work as well, certainly the script for the film „Sunset Boulevard“ from a few years earlier. With Breen, it is not such a close call and „Titanic“ is probably his most known work, but with Reisch, who is also interesting to me because of his origins, you will also find „Ninotcka“ (Lubitsch, Garbo), a film I really, really liked, and „Gaslight“ and „Journey to the Center of the Earth“ (another collaboration with Brackett) in his body of work and it is tougher to choose his most known. „Niagara“ it certainly is not despite the inclusion or Marilyn Monroe, but we will get to her later.

But yeah, I have to stay with Reisch a little longer because he originates from German-speaking territory and so do I and he has over 100 credits in his body of work although he has almost no credits in the last 25 years of his life, but yeah he worked on so many German films until 1933 and then he had to leave the country and continued his successes in America, so in a way what happened in Germany in the 1930s was bad for him, but also good at the same time. In any case, it is very interesting that this trio of writers worked on two films that had such strong focus on invincible water masses in the same year. „Niagara“ was the less successful from the two films. There is no awards recognition listed here for this one at all. And also don’t be confused by the black-and-white screen photos on imdb, as I stated earlier it is a color film. I watched this of course on the occasion of a Marilyn Monroe retrospective and she was in her mid-20s here and thus still almost a decade away from her untimely death. In 1953 she had already slowly transformed into lead actress material, even if her glory years were still a bit away. She is also first credit here apparently, which is a bit difficult to believe as there were at least two other characters here that were more at the center of the story than her character, who seemed more on the supporting side. Big supporting admittedly, but still. She is also out of the picture quite some time before it ends. The two I am talking about are Joseph Cotton who has been in at least two pretty iconic Hollywood films from the old days and also has a star on the Hollywood Boulevard with his name and Jean Peters who also had a decent body of work, but is maybe more remembered today for being married for almost 15 years to Howard Hughes, who was of course portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in „The Aviator“, even if Peters, or I should say her character, was not a major factor in this film and instead there was more focus on the big-name females in Hughes‘ life. Maybe she should have been. Anyway, this film here is among her most known and this is also thanks to Monroe mostly of course that the movie is not forgotten so many decades later.

As for the rest of the cast, maybe the biggest fans of the old Hollywood days will recognize one or two or more actors, but they are not really stars by any means. Still acted in a handful of projects back then, but aside from Monroe and maybe Cotton, the big names here were the writers and perhaps the director. If you look at everybody who Monroe worked with in the 1950s, then you will also still find much bigger names behind and in front of the camera though. She was quickly beyond the people she was working with here as her stardom reached new dimensions. But the role here fits her nicely. She already has the men wrapped around her finger. This includes her lover who she convinces to kill her husband, but it also includes said husband who is pretty going crazy because of her and it is some kind of hate-love relationship. He despises her indeed, but during one scene we are also told from another character that it is just impossible for him to move on from her. Well, he manages pretty nicely I guess when he kills her then a little later, but at that point he may not be seen as total evil still because he was the first target and also managed to kill the guy who was initially coming for him. I still wonder how he knew about the bell-ringing that the two love birds agreed on that they would follow up on. The melody you hear there pretty much, even if I would not have recognized said melody if it hadn’t said so in the subtitles. But it did and the more memorable scene is of course before that when the song is played or selected by Monroe when she and a few others are partying in the evening and it makes her husband also pretty angry and crazy almost.

The moment when she then arrives to identify the corpse of her husband was maybe the most interesting moment of the film. There you still believe she was pretending to mourn and lose consciousness because you do not see who she was looking at and that it was really the other man, so her reaction was not staged, but actual grief and sadness there which even gave her a great alibi. Too bad her husband was out there knowing the truth or she could not know if he really knew, just that he was alive and probably had a hunch who the man was that tried to kill him. It was all about the crime element here and the suspense. I am also glad that the writers did not shy away from having Monroe killed in this scene that was more memorable than most others when her man is coming for her. No unrealistic rescue there. I will just keep going now with some brainstorming for the rest of the film in terms of what stayed in my mind here. The visual beauty was of course undeniable and I would have been totally fine with the movie scoring an Oscar nomination for the waterfall scenes. They Niagara depictions really made me wanna go there and see them live. Who knows, maybe it can happen one day. But let’s not make this about me. The moment when the other woman, the actual female protagonist I would say runs into this huge coincidence there to see Monroe’s character kiss her lover was perhaps not super realistic, but it was also not bad and kinda memorable from the perspective that it made Monroe’s character look suspicious when she says she has nobody else to look out for her a little later when the news about her missing husband spreads.

As for Peters, the aforementioned female protagonist, she gave an alright performance, but also had it easier than (the man who played) her husband if we look at how he was really only depicted as somebody who does not have a clue at all if we ignore his final comment about how the boat needs to sink. He was intended to be overshadowed by the villain protagonist the longer the film went. At the very beginning, you could still think that Max Showalter would be a lead here. How they thanked the police inspector who was portrayed by Denis O’Dea was also a bit exaggerated. I mean he did almost nothing. It is a crime suspense thriller, but the police are never a vital factor. They still had to include them for realism purposes I suppose and they did, so it is all good. As I am approaching the end of my review now, I would say that the ending there in the Niagara Falls was among the most memorable the film had to offer too, also how the bad guy makes sure the woman is alright. He is not evil. He killed the one who did all this to him, but an innocent woman he does not want to die. By the way, I must say I really, really adored Peters outfit, what she was wearing (not sure I can call it a dress, in this long final sequence from the moment onwards when she was stepping on the boat. I know there was talk about a Monroe outfit much earlier that was fairly spectacular, but I would prefer Peters‘ from the end anytime over that one. But yeah, the Monroe outfit, especially the metaphoric comment there about how hot it is was Monroe in a nutshell during that time and for almost all her career. Sadly, mostly reduced to her looks. I did not find her as hot and desirable here as she seemed in some of her later, actually final acting performances I must say though. Others might disagree. But they will also maybe disagree with me giving this film here a thumbs-up and positive recommendation. It is not as smart as it wants to be a times, but makes for a solid watch from beginning to end. Give it a chance I’d say and even if you don’t like it, then maybe at least it will make you want to travel to Canada to see the Falls yourself.