Part 1: A few words concerning Marilyn Monroe

I studiously avoided Monroe films for years after seeing Some Like It Hot because it was easier for me to blame my lack of appreciation for Billy Wilder's classic on Monroe's acting than it was to anger everybody in the entire world by confessing that I found the film to be witless and dull. Don't get me wrong: Monroe's acting definitely leaves something to be desired (something other than the urge to sleep with her, I mean). But the fact of the matter is that I was unfair to Monroe for more than a decade simply because I failed (and continue to fail) to see what's so funny about Jack Lemmon wearing a wig.

Recently, however, I watched The Prince and the Showgirl and was surprised to find myself obliged to give a Monroe movie a rather enthusiastic recommendation. Having just seen Niagara, I'm now convinced that my zero tolerance policy concerning Monroe was absolutely indefensible. I have realized that even though all the things I used to say about her continue to hold true, they were never sufficient objections to her cinematic performances.

I used to say, for instance, that Monroe was never anywhere near as attractive as the other leading ladies of her generation. I would rather ogle Liz Taylor or Sophia Loren any moment of any day. Frankly, I think Monroe's head is blockish and unattractive. Moreover, I used to contend that the difference between an actress like Taylor and a zutsy chippy like Monroe was that Taylor couldn't help making you aware of how beautiful she was, whereas Monroe couldn't help intimating how beautiful she imagined herself to be. There was always modesty in Taylor's seductiveness, always a vulnerable urgency that was aware of the possibility of rejection. A Monroe seduction, on the other hand, is rarely anything more than a simple, "Kiss me, you fool," uttered with the confidence that no one would be fool enough to pass up an opportunity to kiss a blonde bombshell such as Monroe.

As it turns out, however, directors seem to have understood how to exploit the very vanity in Monroe that I was so quick to dismiss. The fact that she constantly and calculatedly defied any male looking at her not to want to sleep with her made her capable of portraying a kind of archetypal femininity that is just as familiar (and probably as rare) as the tight-lipped and anti-histrionic masculinity of John Wayne (who was rarely called upon to do anything more sophisticated in his roles than Monroe was in hers). A woman who eagerly--even zealously--turns herself into a porcelain doll in order to attract the male gaze (even after being married again and again and again) is a woman capable of wreaking havoc on the very men who feel most compelled to mark her as private territory.

I don't believe such women are as common as we imagine them to be, but I believe that they are important and that they can be incorporated into interesting stories. I'm beginning to think that Monroe's inimitable self-awareness of her own sex appeal was put to effective use more often than not in her film career. If you've sworn her off for the same misguided reasons that I once did, it might be time to reevaluate your stance.

Part 2: The film

As Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe) dances in a dress supported only by her own extraordinary curvaceousness, Ray Cutler (Max Showalter) can't help turning to his wife Polly (Jean Peters) to ask, "Hey, why don't you ever wear a dress like that?" Polly blushes and replies, "Listen, for a dress like that you need to start laying the plans when you're about thirteen."

The more Ray sees of Rose, the more he wants his wife Polly to resemble her. But Polly doesn't know how to exude Monrovian sexuality. When Ray whips out his camera to take a picture of her in her bathing suit, she simply doesn't know how to pose for him. All that she knows to do is smile, but Ray wants her to turn on her side, to give us the three-quarter pose that accentuates bosoms and buttocks--precisely the kind of pose that would come naturally to a woman like Rose.

But even if Polly isn't as exciting as Rose, she is an attractively philosophical woman. In a discussion with Rose's husband George (Joseph Cotten), she is told that the water tumbling over Niagara Falls only becomes agitated as it approaches the falls. Further up the river, George says, the water is fairly calm. A log could simply fall in and float in circles without getting swept into the current. "I'm like that log," Polly says. She finds the river of life to be interesting enough without treacherous currents and precipitate falls. Her own unassertive sexuality is perfectly satisfying to her. She might want to be Rose Loomis for a night, but certainly not for a lifetime. (The fact that Jean Peters is a stunningly attractive woman helps to demonstrate that Monroe's sex appeal is less a function of body type than of attitude.)

As unassuming as Polly is, she is the real story here. After Rose's boyfriend Patrick (Richard Allan) fails in his attempt to kill George Loomis (and ends up killed himself), Polly is the only person apart from George and Rose to know that George is still alive. Perhaps because of the extremely awkward scene in which George introduces himself to Polly by telling her entirely too much concerning his marital history, Polly does not feel at all duty-bound to keep his secret a secret. George feels entitled to exploit the fact that the authorities think he is dead by murdering Rose, who has it coming (at least from a certain pre-civilized perspective) since she A) was unfaithful to him, and B) conspired to murder him.

But Polly is a woman fully committed to the project of civilization. In her place, many of us might have felt obliged to let George get away with murder. But Polly's demure sexuality isn't the only part of her that exists in opposition to Rose Loomis. Her decision to alert the authorities to the fact that George is still prowling about is an act designed to protect Rose--more than Rose would ever have done for her. Unlike both Loomises, Polly is committed to playing by the rules. Interestingly, George never becomes violent with Polly (though he somewhat accidentally knocks her unconscious on a boat). He tries to persuade her that he is behaving in a respectable and reasonable fashion. Even as he explains that he has murdered his own wife, he seems to expect Polly to understand. And he never threatens her or considers eliminating her in order to keep her from talking.

It's difficult to say whether the film comes down on Polly's side or not. Childless though she is, she stands as a sort of quietly determined maternal figure upholding civilization. And what does she get for her self-effacing contentment? A prig of a husband who wins an advertising job in a contest run by a bourgeois moron. The Cutlers have come to Niagara not for a honeymoon (they were married three years earlier), but for a job opportunity. And instead of the danger and excitement and infidelity and insanity that characterize the Loomis marriage, she can look forward to picnics with Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Kettering. Mr. Kettering (whose initials are those of Jesus Christ, the bedrock of civilization in Christendom) is a boob who blurts out such inanities as, "Olive oil [instead of au revoir], as the French say."

George Loomis, the cuckold, the murderer, the man who stands for the problems that tend to destabilize a civilization, actually helps to save Polly's life at the end (even if he was the one who endangered it to begin with). As she is rescued from a slippery rock by a helicopter crew, we see that she has gotten a taste of what life for the Loomises must have been like. We're left to wonder whether her own brush with death frightened her enough to enable her to be content to picnic with the Ketterings for the rest of her life.

It's a credit to Jean Peters' performance that the question is not at all easy to answer. Max Showalter is excellent as the priggishly ambitious young husband. Marilyn Monroe is perfect as a woman who seeks to get rid of her husband. And Joseph Cotten, apart from that scene in which he establishes a rather precipitate rapport with Polly, is superb. As he lurks behind bushes and boats with his facial scars, he appears to model his character on Frankenstein, another being created by a civilization whose rules he does not understand and cannot bring himself to live by.

I'm not much of a fan of thrillers (particularly female-in-jeopardy thrillers), but Niagara is as good a thriller as I've ever seen.




Recommended: Yes