Niagara

Perhaps the most vividly and spectacularly filmed of all the color noirs, Henry Hathaway’s Niagara offers a sweeping panorama of North America’s most powerful waterfall and its surrounding tourist attractions, homing in on two married couples — one starry-eyed and one dysfunctional — who intersect by chance. Honeymooners Polly (Jean Peters) and Ray Cutler (Max Showalter) arrive at their hotel and immediately encounter the beautiful, buxom Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe), who is not only cheating on her mentally unstable husband George (Joseph Cotten) but may be plotting with her boyfriend to eliminate him entirely. The best laid plans, however, often go awry, especially when the wrong person ends up dead. With top billing and a villainous role for the first time in her career, Monroe dominates every scene, of course, each tight-fitting skirt or suit hugging her curves in all new ways, her sex appeal roaring almost as loudly as the nearby falls. Hathaway makes extensive use of window blinds, which isn’t unusual for noir, but in color and at different times of day each blind creates a distinct mood, from romance to solitude to fear. Pealing seemingly nonstop throughout the day, the bell tower in the center of town conveys a kind of code for the lovers but also serves as a breathtaking backdrop for a second murder, MacDonald’s camera peering down from above the bells, pools of fire engine red glowing behind the laid-out corpse.