When Polly and Ray Cutler (Jean Peters and Max Showalter) head to Niagara Falls for their belated honeymoon, all they’re expecting is a relaxing vacation and maybe a little bit of business networking for Ray. The last thing they expect is to find themselves mixed up in a murder plot. When they arrive at their cabin, they find the previous occupants, Rose and George Loomis (Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotton), haven’t left yet. Rose explains that her husband isn’t well, so Polly and Ray agree to stay in another cabin instead.
Just before Ray and Polly head out to do some sightseeing, Rose says she’s going to go grocery shopping. But when the Polly sees Rose kissing another man, the Cutlers write her off as an unfaithful wife, but don’t really dwell on it. Later, after Rose returns to the cabin, George finds a ticket stub in her coat pocket that proves she didn’t just go shopping like she said and starts to suspect she’s been seeing someone else. His jealousy reaches a breaking point that night when Rose goes to a social wearing a very tight dress and requests a romantic song be played. George storms out of the cabin and smashes the record.
The next morning, Rose and George are set to leave for Chicago. But when Rose says she wants to go to the bus station for tickets, George gets suspicious again and this time for a good reason. She and her boyfriend Patrick have come up with a scheme to kill him and run away together. When she goes to a gift shop to meet up with Patrick, George follows her and, thinking they’ve gone to some caves, buys a ticket for the caves. The plan is for Patrick to follow George into the caves, kill him, and when he’s dead, let her know by having the bell tower play their special song. So while Patrick goes to take care of George, Rose goes back to the cabin and puts on her act about her husband being missing. When a body is recovered from the falls, Rose is called to identify it, but faints after seeing it. The authorities take her fainting to mean the body found was indeed George. However, Polly soon discovers that Rose and Patrick’s plan didn’t go exactly as planned.
Of all of Marlyn Monroe’s movies, I’ve always thought Niagara was one of her most under-appreciated. I love Marilyn’s comedies, but she was fabulous as a film noir femme fatale. It’s too bad she didn’t make more noir films because she was a natural in Niagara. As good as Marilyn is in it, Joseph Cotton is pretty outstanding as well. He really nailed it as the mentally unstable, jealous George. I also can’t neglect to mention Jean Peters and Max Showalter, who were perfect for the naive, innocent couple who got dragged into this whole mess. They really seemed so completely Midwestern.
There are some scenes in it that are genuinely terrifying. I’m always on the edge of my seat for that scene on the wooden stairs by the Falls. It makes me nervous enough just to see people walking on those things normally, but having Joseph Cotton chasing Jean Peters on them? Yeah, I was pretty horrified, but in just the right way. All in all, Niagara is a pretty good thriller that doesn’t really get as much recognition as it deserves.
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