Marilyn’s first leading role in a major motion picture, Niagara was released in January 1953. It was also the first of three Monroe films that have reached their 70th anniversary this year, but while Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire softened her image, Marilyn was in ‘femme fatale’ mode for this classic film noir – showing at 2:30 pm this Saturday, December 2, and again on Sunday, December 3, at the historic Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon.
“Marilyn plays Rose as a simultaneous fantasy, symbol, and human being. She is paradoxical—a femme fatale and a victim. She also feels like a representation of the sublimated desires of the film’s heroine, the sweet but darkly curious Jean Peters, who is enduring a rather disappointing vacation (and, apparently, marriage) with her husband. Peters is enthralled by the toxic Loomis marriage (Joseph Cotten plays Marilyn’s husband, George), pulled in first by Marilyn’s unearthly gorgeousness and sexuality and then by Cotten’s corrosive jealousy and unhappiness. When you see Rose emerge from her cabin in that radiating pink dress to play her favorite record, ‘Kiss‘—a song that becomes the film’s haunted refrain—she’s beautiful but eerie, nearly a conjuring of Peters’s fascination.” – Kim Morgan, Current
The Marilyn Report 