Niagara

Noir has always been a genre I respected more than enjoyed, and I think it's been because the genre is dominated by the format of the hard-boiled gumshoe in too deep in the case of his life, and at the center of it some dame with gams up to the ceiling. That's not to say it can't be done well, but from what I've seen of the genre, there's little room for variety. So here comes Niagara and smashes all those preconceptions to bits. Niagara uses the atmosphere of a noir, but combines it with a Hitchcockian story of two couples whose lives end up dangerously intertwined in a simple but effective movie. Part of what makes a noir work is atmosphere. The atmosphere has to be as thick as caramel. Often, they were shot in black and white, so the use of light and shadow was heightened by the absence of color. But director Henry Hathaway somehow managed to shoot this in three-strip Technicolor and maintain that atmosphere perfectly. When this movie wants to use light and shadow, it does so with such a deft hand, I could scarcely believe it. But it never loses that atmosphere, even when the movie is drenched in Technicolor glory. And by God, is it glory, because the color in this movie is outstanding to behold. Movies nowadays, shot in digital 4K, may be crystal clear, but they don't have the warmth of old school movies like this. It's like a living painting. The cinematography and visual direction is also notable here, with the falls almost serving as a character of its own. The falls contain both a majestic beauty and a terrifying sense of danger. Just as beautiful as they are to behold, they're lethal if approached wrong, and the camera catches them in so many shots, underscoring the movie's themes about the power, and danger, of love and sex. While one woman got top billing, Niagara is really a movie about two women on opposite ends of the spectrum, both in the movie and in real life. One is Marilyn Monroe, who needs no introduction. This was her first major starring role, and it steers hard into the skid that was her looks. Her role as Rose takes the femme fatale to new levels; not just a pretty face in a skirt with a seductive smile, Rose uses her sexuality and charm as much as the movie does Monroe's. When she answers the door after a disturbance, she makes sure her bathrobe isn't fully closed, the gap in the two sides plunging deep, using her skimpy nightgown's cleavage underneath to distract the proprietor of the honeymoon cabins at which she's staying. Everything Rose does is calculated and filtered through as highly sexualized a filter as the movies would allow in 1953. Meanwhile, Jean Peters plays Polly, one half of a young couple on a deferred honeymoon. Polly is a far more girl-next-door type, and so was Jean Peters, who eschewed Hollywood's attempts at turning her into a sex symbol in favor of playing roles that were of more down-to-Earth women. Polly is attractive, but she never leans into it; she dresses for comfort, and is smart enough to get by on her own wits without needing to flash cleavage to stupefy dumb men. Unfortunately, Niagara does start to sag in the middle, somehow making the movie feel longer than its sub-90 minute run time. I wasn't bored, but I could feel the movie struggling to maintain its own momentum and tension as it tied off certain plot threads so it could move on to others. And for as much as Monroe's Rose is pushed as this predatory person who uses sex as a weapon, she only really flirts. I know, 1953, they couldn't have her sleeping with everyone she sees and flashing her boobs, but it felt like there was more intent to make her this sexually charged predator than there was actual results. And Monroe is not exactly a world class actress, but she wasn't given a whole to do besides be sexy and devious, so, I guess that's a push. If you're the kind of person who likes noir, or old dramas with that lush Technicolor palate, Niagara is well worth a watch. Sure, it may be dime-store Hitchcock, but he didn't always hit home runs. With the way this breaks from a lot of noir tropes but uses the aesthetic far better than I'd expect for a movie this colorful, it's a fun, somewhat sexy, but safe classic thriller.