Cheap Niagara (DVD) (Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten) (Henry Hathaway) Price

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Customer Reviews of Niagara

"There IS no other song!"
So says Marilyn Monroe of "Kiss", the record she's brung out for the college kids to play on their portable record player. She lounges around sexily in her clinging red dress with a gauzy wrap carelessly falling over her shoulders, turning Niagara Falls boiling hot as she purrs along with the record. Then, out of a nearby cabin storms husband Joseph Cotten, who grabs the disk off the turntable and busts it up in his bare hands.

oops!

But Marilyn doesn't really care, because Joe's histrionics play right into her hands. See, she and her lover have their own plans for Joe, and let's just say roundtrip isn't in the offing.

"Niagara" is a pretty entertaining movie, until The Real Climax between Marilyn and Joe. Then, the movie inexplicably continues for what seems an eternity involving Jean Peters, one-time wife of Howard Hughes. She's a lovely woman, but really, this isn't going to work. Part of the movie's problem concerns point of view. Ostensibly, it's about a vacationing newlywed couple--the distaff half of which is Peters--who witness the collapsing marriage of Monroe and Cotten. After Monroe exits the story line, Jean has her own adventures with Joe. In order for the movie to continue on like this after that Climax between Marilyn and Joe, Jean must clearly be the protagonist. That's why we have to follow what happens to her on Niagara Falls. But this cannot be achieved if the better known and more charismatic actress is the one who leaves the movie first. It's unfair to think anyone could follow Marilyn Monroe. So, "Niagara" is doomed to bore its viewers and make them forget about that they liked the first part.

And the first part is good! Joseph Cotten has lost any semblance of confidence so evident in the rest of his movies as he shows us the prototype of the Viet Nam Vet; he's a shellshocked Korean Conflict vet who can't make a go of anything. Marilyn is his trollop of a wife, not too far removed from the good-time gal Virginia Mayo played in "The Best Years of Our Life". MM is tired of her loser spouse and is looking for a new life with a younger, more virile man. Many reviewers pan the newlywed husband, but I thought he was well cast as a real jerk, a jerk who doesn't understand the drama unfolding at the nearby bungalow. Peters does a nice job as the newlywed bride, but as stated before, cannot carry the movie after Monroe's exit. If it weren't for that mistake of the movie plotters', I'd have no problem giving "Niagara" 4 or maybe even 5 stars. But tedium is tedious, so with reluctance I award this movie only 3 stars. "Niagara" falls down, on the job.

Marilyn Monroe in her first Technicolor starring role!
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This is Marilyn Monroe's first starring role in a glorious Technicolor production. The technicolor film process seems a perfect match for Monroe; her ruby red lips and golden blonde hair are dazzling, and her skin tones are magnificent.

The plot puts Monroe in a dramatic role that allows her to chew up every scene. It's also the only film in her career (fortunately!) in which Monroe's character dies.

Niagara Falls are the spendiforous background in this drama, and Marilyn Monroe proves that she is probably the only star in cinema history that can eclipse such a natural phenomenon.

Marilyn absolutely sizzles on the screen when she performs her sensual rendition of the siren song "Kiss", wearing a dress "cut so low in front you can see her kneecaps" (as stated in the script). Indeed, "a girl has to start making plans when she's thirteen to wear a dress like that!" (Also from the script.)

Enjoy the magic of Marilyn Monroe in dazzling Technicolor in this great movie.

MMMmmmmmmarvelous Marilyn!