Niagara

Joseph Cotten as a killer, Monroe as his adulterous wife slithering under the sheets and Jean Peters as the unfortunate witness in this taut Niagara Falls thriller. [09 Jun 2006, p.C7]

Hathaway draws splendid performances from his cast and maintains a taut, spicy tempo that grips the attention consistently. Miss Monroe turns in her finest acting performance yet, adding to her acting laurels by playing a sexy tart with a provocative abandon that has a powerful impact. Read full review

Everyone's honeymoon haven at one time, Niagara Falls, is the deceptive setting for this offbeat, absorbing film with bowstring-tight direction from Hathaway and superb performances from Cotten as a jealous husband and Monroe as his neurotic wife. Read full review

Directed by Henry Hathaway and co-written by Charles Brackett, the picture, about a femme fatale who wants to kill her husband, could be seen as a "House of Gucci" predecessor -- starring Marilyn Monroe as she was coming into herself as a performer and star, and featuring Joseph Cotten with his blend of the suave and the sleazy. [25 Nov 2021, p.E1]

The producers are making full use of both the grandeur of the Falls and its adjacent areas as well as the grandeur that is Marilyn Monroe. The scenic effects in both cases are superb. Read full review

An action director, Hathaway isn’t quite at home with this claustrophobic, motel-bound story of adultery and murder, but he gives it his all, most famously in the Freudian rampage that climaxes the film. Read full review

This gripping thriller, an early film noir in colour, features the Niagara Falls thundering grandly in the background and Marilyn Monroe wiggling sexily in the foreground as a treacherous wife whose scheme to murder her middle-aged husband (Joseph Cotten) goes fatally wrong. [27 Sep 2009, p.29]

Worth seeing for Hathaway's superbly crafted direction, even if it needed a Hitchcock to merge the symbolism of the location (the falls, the belltower) with the themes of sexual domination and envy. Read full review

Hitch would have played it for laughs; this is a little overwrought, but steamy enough. [22 Apr 2006, p.53]

This isn't a good movie but it's compellingly tawdry and nasty -- the only movie that explored the mean, unsavory potential of Marilyn Monroe's cuddly, infantile perversity.

Niagara is a morbid, cliched expedition into lust and murder. Read full review