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| Publicity still from Niagara (Photo by Gene Korman). |
“Marilyn Monroe and Niagara Falls, a raging torrent of emotion that even nature can’t control.” – Boisterous but accurate publicity poster for the film’s release.“I only stop when I’m done.” – Equally accurate self-analysis from Marilyn herself.
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Niagara, though some friends prefer to refer to my ardor for it in other ways: obsession, fixation compulsion, fetish. They’re quite right, of course. Maybe it evokes the frequent family road trips I took as a youngster from Toronto to Niagara Falls, or perhaps it was the obvious increase in temperature provoked in a ten-year-old boy caught in the torrential environment of Marilyn Monroe. Guilty as charged. I also enjoy reminding such friends that all those states of mind they teasingly attribute to my passion for this film are essentially the core features of the film noir genre itself.
I can’t count the number of times an argument, or let’s call it a heated disagreement, ensued between myself and other viewers or reviewers who took the noir genre more literally in its black and white, dark urban streets, femme fatale and psycho-thriller overtones. Some friends were underwhelmed by the splashy aura of the falls motif in Niagara, the nearly rural touristy setting, and of course the palette, even if they were mutually taken with Marilyn’s Rose and her sinister appeal. I’m a huge fan of all of those nourish aspects too, but I’m also a huge defender of Niagara as a late-blooming and innovative exponent of the genre that becomes all the more obvious if you simply watch it in black and white as a viewing experiment.
So I’m delighted to report that Richard Shmelter, author of the thoroughly readable and charmingly obsessive Tales from the Making of Niagara, 1953, published by Malibu Sunset Media, not only shares my sense of its brilliantly noirish sunlit darkness, but also acclaims it as the film that first put Monroe on the stellar star map and also made her what she clearly was, has been and I suppose always will be: what he calls an iconic influencer. The fact is that, in the absence of a historical context back then in the 50’s for the very postmodern social media concept of what an influencer is and does, Shmelter demonstrates that the impact of her persona and gravitas makes it not only acceptable to call her that, but almost imperative. I guess that kind of makes her a posthumous influencer.
Shmelter, the author of several previous books on Hollywood history, is also a member of the North American Crime Writers Association and the American Crime Writers League, so he comes by his passion for noir honestly. And his passion for Miss Monroe is attested to by the fact that this book, the first in his projected series on the superstar exploring all her films individually, from 1953 to 1962, is chock full of behind-the-scenes details, prior to filming, post-production and after the film was received by a stunned world of goddess worshippers. Though the groundwork was laid by her earlier dark outings, in The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Clash by Night and Don’t Bother to Knock (both 1952), it was Niagara that put her on the charts as a serious and bankable actress. As Shmelter puts it, “Any film star in Hollywood history had that one defining moment on the silver screen that catapulted them on a path to stardom. In the case of Marilyn Monroe, it was the smoldering femme fatale Rose Loomis that started her on the way to legendary status, and also made her an iconic influencer.” Indeed, as Shmelter points out, it’s difficult to imagine this promiscuous role being undertaken by some of the earlier actresses under consideration, like Anne Baxter or Maureen Stapleton.
His hope that readers will not only acquire ample background on the film and star but also enhance their viewing experience, before, during and after watching this sizzling performance, is a well-founded one. His research is also well grounded, as he proceeds through a variety of ‘tales’: examining the cast, the film before filming (May 26, 1952 to mid-July); critics’ reviews and the industry and public reception after completion; detailed biographies of her co-stars and the film’s creators; and rounding out his in-depth study with his appreciation of what made her what he quite rightly calls an iconic influencer. His opening passages capture some of the admiring vibe of his entire contextual cinematic study:
Water and Women. Two undeniable forces of nature with many of the same characteristics. Bearers of life, fluid in motion, beautiful and serene, and lovely to gaze at. Though the ugliness on the dark side of the spectrum shows both entities as untamed and dangerous forces that can quickly bring havoc just as fast as delivering pleasure. Truly, the allure of both is too strong to ignore. Throughout the mythology, history of literature and motion pictures, water and women have been forged together with a mixture of emotions, both bright and dark. However, there was never a combination of forces quite like Niagara Falls and brazen Rose Loomis. Even the majestic power and awe of Niagara Falls was no match for the provocative femme fatale that Marilyn created in this Technicolor noir classic.
Sounds like a match made in noir heaven, and it was.
Yet despite this apparent alignment of seemingly ideal opportunities to plumb the depths of despair and heights of passion inherent in the metaphor, Hollywood films had never deigned to approach the renowned tourism and honeymoon location as subject matter and thematic backdrop. Perhaps that very fame made it untouchable somehow. Until, that is, the well-known screenwriter and producer Charles Brackett, fresh off his notable Oscar-winning success with his then-partner Billy Wilder in their masterpiece Sunset Boulevard (1950), decided to turn the romantic myths of both marriage, tourism and scenic grandeur on their heads. For his first-post-Wilde production, he chose, perhaps audaciously, to make a colour noir film with classic Hollywood auteur Henry Hathaway that presented us with the honeymoon from hell. It was Brackett who dreamed up the concept immediately after Boulevard, choosing to do another noir film, but one unlike any of us noir lovers had ever seen before. Brackett sent a memo to 20th Century-Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck, sharing his idea as early as 1951, and Zanuck immediately grabbed it up, wanting Niagara Falls, in the author’s words, “to serve as a high class tour for viewing audiences coupled with the suspense created by dark souls mingling with other tourists.” That very paradoxical twist, often puzzling to some noir aficionados, was at the heart of the tale that Shmelter shares with his readers.
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| Photo by Gene Korman; Twentieth Century-Fox Studios, 1953. |
Niagara was released January 21, 1953 by 20th Century-Fox. Directed by Henry Hathaway. Produced by Charles Brackett. Written by Charles Brackett, Richard Breen and Walter Reisch. Narrated by Joseph Cotten. Cinematography by Joseph MacDonald. Edited by Barbara McLean. Music by Sol Kaplan. Featuring Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, and Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams). 88 minutes. Historically now properly identified as an American film noir, at the time it was a surprising shift into colour (or at least three-strip Technicolor, prior to Cinemascope) in a format with so many key dark features thematically I would still call it daylight noir. This was one of 20th Century-Fox’s biggest box office smashes of the year. Most notably, Marilyn was give top billing for this film, a designation which elevated her into the star status that would be crystallized by the two other amazing ’53 films she released, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire.
Niagara should have been taken far more seriously as a late noir classic but it was easily misunderstood, partly because of the stunningly distracting Monroe and partly because it was shot in such lush tones. Also notable, to me at least, is the fact that ten years later, Andy Warhol would borrow one of Brackett’s publicity shots of Marilyn sitting on a wall before Niagara Falls for his important silkscreen painting of the star, Marilyn Diptych, shortly after her demise. Here she embodies the femme fatale persona quite literally as she encounters a honeymooning couple at the Falls and they become enmeshed in her troubled marriage with the Cotten character, whom she plans to murder with the help of her lover Richard Allan. Instead, her husband kills the lover and subsequently strangles her, before attempting to escape in a small boat which is dragged over the falls to his doom. A techie friend of mine created a black-and-white version of Niagara for me in order to absorb all of the salient noir overtones that become slightly wayward in the colour realm.
Zanuck was also extra pleased that his studio scored Monroe as the star for Brackett’s film, and Brackett no doubt was just as pleased that he got to bask in Marilyn’s unique aura two years before his irascible ex-partner Wilder would avail himself of her talents in The Seven Year Itch and four years later again for Some Like It Hot. It slightly irked the Niagara writers, however, that this fresh new star was being touted as the murderous villain in the storyline, rather than focusing on her more obviously appealing features. But Marilyn was delighted to undertake a role that toyed with her image so dramatically, and proved that she had something inside of her which, as the blues musician Peter Green once sang, “just had to come out.” And come out it did, with a blonde roar few actresses since blowtorch bombshell Jean Harlow had quite been able to marshal so effortlessly.
Variety took exception with Hathaway (best known for shooting classic westerns with John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Gary Cooper) making such an ominous dark turn, although audiences loved the whole scenario, especially Miss Monroe as Rose, as well as its late and nasty noir flavours. Niagara, Variety Magazine opined, “is a morbid, expedition into lust and murder. The atmosphere throughout taxes the nerves with a feeling of impending disaster.” Maybe exactly what nervous audiences needed to distract them from then ominous current events like the Korean War and our potential nuclear annihilation. But I guess we all made it through that gauntlet challenge, again, and so far. And heavy-duty melodramas such as Niagara helped us do it.
Noirs like this one, which Shmelter so thoroughly navigates, seemed to serve, and maybe they still do serve, as a kind of homeopathic medicine: tiny doses of an ailment, fear or dread, rage or greed, for instance, are dispensed so skillfully in the claustrophobic honeymoon of Jean Peters and her hapless hubby (Max Showalter) that their sordid saga protects us from what most terrifies us. We slowly discover that the depressed war vet portrayed so unnervingly by Cotten is hopelessly jealous of his younger and vivacious wife Rose, so effectively embodied by Monroe as a femme fatale. Both couples are struggling but each in different ways. Or so we tell ourselves anyway. “Suffering, with style”: that was the succinct and totally apt way that Turner Classic Movies curator Eddie Muller chose to characterize this unique mode of film noir storytelling. “The men and women of this sinister cinematic world are driven by greed, lust, jealousy and revenge, which leads inexorably to existential torment, soul crushing despair and a few last gasping breaths in a rain soaked gutter. But damned if these lost souls don’t look sensational riding the Hades Express. If you’re going straight to hell, you might as well travel with some style to burn.” And Marilyn’s Rose character had plenty to burn.
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| Photo by Gene Korman, 1953.; Andy Warhol Foundation. |
From the moment the term film noir, dark film, was first conceived by French critics in the post-World War Two global culture, there was also an instant debate about what it encapsulated so vividly. Muller, who like Shmelter is also an author of crime fiction, further defines the concept as one about certain kinds of people, a protagonist who, driven to act our of some desperate desire, does some that he or she knows to be wrong but does it anyway, even knowing what dire consequences will follow. Karma always looms large in noir. And in the end, likely no surprise to people who have yet to experience the pleasure of watching Rose ignite the scenery around her with such heat that she all but extinguishes The Falls: she’s the one who ends up falling into the grip of her own deceitful fate. Never has the term femme fatale had such a literal embodiment.
In addition to showcasing literally every detail of the making of Niagara and the people behind it, Shmelter also emphasizes just how significant the enigmatic allure of the vulnerable yet cunning actress was and continues to be to this day: “The name Marilyn Monroe stands as a symbol of Hollywood royalty, and she remains an influencer in the most iconic manner, long after her untimely departure. Maybe it was because she passed away at such a young age, or her struggles from squalid beginnings to rise up to the Hollywood elite, or the way she changed society by flaunting her sexuality in such a devil may care way, yet still hanging on to a girl next door sweetness and innocence. Look at her role in Niagara, a vulgar tramp hell-bent on destroying lives without a care. Then in The Seven Year Itch two years later, where Marilyn’s character of ‘The Girl’ was totally oblivious to her sexual prowess.”
Shmelter succeeds in capturing something almost too elusive to even grasp, since it, and she, was practically more of an idea than an actual person, real as she may have been. And he’s right to acclaim her as “a brand that never seems to cool down. In fact, she just keeps on heating up.” The film noir vamp Rose Loomis was precisely that kind of elusive character, a drastic enigma, and the shy but commanding actress Marilyn Monroe was exactly the right emblem for that enigma. In a strangely worshipful tribute of his own, pop artist Any Warhol, himself quite the iconic influencer, creatively managed to capture some of her lightning in a bottle when he used the film’s publicity still as the basis for an equally iconic silkscreen portrait. His innovative spotlight on the work of art, or even people, in the age of mechanical reproduction was completed only weeks after the actress’s death in August 1962.
Appropriately, perhaps, the master appropriator Warhol also produced a gold version of the same publicity still and included it in his exhibition at the Stable Gallery in November of 1962. It was later donated to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where it remains a testament to the heady collision of art and celebrity. Most tellingly for me, as an observer of both art history and popular culture history, is the fact that when one studies both the publicity still of the person herself next to the gaudy homage of her goddess persona, it’s impossible to tell which one is more authentic. That very transformation is the haunting paradox of both the magic of cinema and the weirdness of celebrity, and Marilyn’s 1953 noir Niagara is still the ideal personification of it.
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