NIAGARA (Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1953)

Knowing a little about the history of film, particularly when it comes to each specific period, it is always striking to me when I watch a film from the early fifties. Fresh from the Paramount decision and struggling mightily to regain audience to combat television, the methods used by the studios around this time are always quite apparent. With a film like NIAGARA (Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1953) you see this methodology right from the start of the film.

As television got started it had two major drawbacks when compared to film. The screen was minuscule by comparison and what was viewed on that screen was black and white. So the studios came up with technologies like Technicolor and CinemaScope and they slowly wore down walls of censorship that had existed for years. Within the first ten minutes of NIAGARA we see all three methods in use. The colors provided by Technicolor are rich and striking, vibrant and full. And while the film did not use a technique like CinemaScope, the cinematography for the film is vast and expansive, taking in incredible shots of Niagara Falls and it's attendant beauty. And soon thereafter we are treated to a lush and beautiful Marilyn Monroe, always sultry and seductive but in this opening shot, inviting as she has ever been seen onscreen.

And Marilyn, if she is anything, is pure sex. The opening shot of her in the film finds her in bed (albeit in a twin bed, a fifties signature) with a very obvious "nothing" between her and the bedsheets. Still not quite the icon she would become or even the feminine ideal of her time, her sex during this films release had to blow standards away. And Hathaway does a remarkable job in balancing decency (battling censors) and displaying her in a way which is provocatively suggestive. And her character belies one of the films major themes, which is that underlying sexuality in fifties America. I have written before on this topic but the sexual subtext for America during this decade was palpable in every piece of culture we examine today.

Forgotten in today's disposable world is the great Joseph Cotten. Not suave and debonair like Cary Grant, never the grandfatherly Jimmy Stewart, not even the everyman that Bogie represented, Cotten still is a tremendous actor. He has this ability in his roles to be that average Joe yet to still be able to infuse his portrayals with a menacing foreboding. He portrays that darker side of us, the one we all pretend doesn't exist. If you get the chance try to catch some of his films, particularly SHADOW OF A DOUBT (Alfred Hitchcock, Universal, 1943) or THE THIRD MAN (Carol Reed, Selznick Pictures, 1949) and you will not be disappointed. Spend a day of it, watch all three films I mentioned in this post. You won't regret it!