Niagara is featured in ‘Vacation Noir,’ a sultry collection on the Criterion Channel, streaming through August (US only.)
“Unlucky vacationers discover that crime doesn’t take a holiday in these deceptively sunny, seductively dark thrillers set amid scenic beaches, luxury resorts, and picture-postcard locales. Honeymooners find themselves caught up in a disturbing domestic drama in the lurid, Technicolor Marilyn Monroe sizzler NIAGARA.
Marilyn Monroe dazzles in her star-making turn as a devious femme fatale in this sultry tale of seduction and murder. While on vacation at Niagara Falls, Rose Loomis (Monroe) plots to murder her troubled husband (Joseph Cotten), arousing the suspicion of a young newlywed (Jean Peters) on her honeymoon. Stunningly shot on location, this rare color noir makes expressively lurid use of the Technicolor format.”
“The seamy, steamy Niagara sets its drama of marital betrayal at an iconic site, and stars an iconic actress: Marilyn Monroe, for whom the movie proved an early hit. (Critic Dave Kehr called it a ‘hypnotic contemplation of two American monuments.’) When a pair of innocent young lovers arrives at their rented cabin by the falls for a belated honeymoon, they discover that it’s already occupied by a mysterious, mercurial couple, George (Joseph Cotten) and Rose (Monroe). While director Henry Hathaway wasn’t among the great artists of the studio system, he does his best Hitchcock impression behind the camera, bringing genuine style and psychosexual force to a murder plot unfurled in view of one of the country’s oldest vacation destinations.” – Zachary Barnes, Wall Street Journal
“Tangled attractions stretching from coast to coast posit something like the opposite of a love story; these affairs fueled by self-interest instead model the worst the human soul can muster … Niagara (1953) leaves a bitter taste in spite of its postcard-ready backdrop, with Marilyn Monroe hoist with her own petard as her ruse goes horribly awry … The willingness to transgress in the name of lust signals a wider malignancy in the world, forever resounding in the final note of hardened disgust at how low humanity can sink. Without necessarily invoking the war that marred the 20th century’s innocence, these films cast a despairing gaze on the general state of things even as cameras pan across their lush, ravishing locations.” – Charles Bramesco, The Guardian
The Marilyn Report 
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