The Cinematheque

“Marilyn Monroe’s eroticism [in Niagara] is an act of violence, a distortion of the natural and expected heterosexual order so extreme as to appear destructive.”

Philippa Snow, Artforum

Marilyn Monroe and Joseph Cotten are a maniacally mismatched couple vacationing on the Ontario side of Niagara Falls in Henry Hathaway’s delectably tawdry thriller, a lurid Technicolor noir brimming with dark deeds and ​“a raging torrent of emotion,” per the tagline. Monroe, in a rare bad-girl role, is slip-clad Rose, a scheming vamp with murder on the mind. Cotten is her jealous older husband George, a shell-shocked war vet. Jean Peter and Max Showalter are the honeymooners next door. Niagara, as one contemporary review duly noted, makes full use ​“of both the grandeur of the Falls and the grandeur that is Marilyn Monroe!” Frequent Billy Wilder collaborator Charles Brackett co-wrote the script. The film’s runaway success helped propel Monroe, here in her first top billing for a major studio, to bonafide stardom. 2026 marks her centenary—count this as a tip of the hat to her juiciest noir performance.

Tickets for the opening-night screening of Niagara (July 30) include admittance to the courtyard shindig at 6:00 pm.

“Ravishingly shot by Joseph MacDonald in eye-popping Technicolor … Elevated by Hathaway’s distinctive aesthetic choices and exemplary use of the eponymous location.”

Matthew Thrift, BFI

“Hathaway’s hypnotic contemplation of two American monuments … He gives it his all, most famously in the Freudian rampage that climaxes the film … [The] Technicolor photography makes a key contribution to the general tone of hysteria.”

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader