Niagara (1953 film)

Niagara
Theatrical release poster
Directed byHenry Hathaway
Written by
Produced byCharles Brackett
Starring
CinematographyJoe MacDonald
Edited byBarbara McLean
Music bySol Kaplan
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
  • January 21, 1953 (1953-01-21) (United States)
Running time
88 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.7 million[1]
Box office$2.5 million[2]

Niagara is a 1953 American noir[3][4] thriller film[5] directed by Henry Hathaway, produced by Charles Brackett, and written by Brackett, Richard L. Breen and Walter Reisch. The film stars Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, and Max Showalter (credited as Casey Adams). It was one of 20th Century Fox's biggest box-office hits that year.

Unlike other films noir of the time, which were typically black-and-white,[3] Niagara was filmed in "three-strip" Technicolor (one of the last films to be made at Fox in that format, as a few months later Fox began converting to CinemaScope, which had compatibility problems with three-strip but not with Eastmancolor).

Monroe was given top billing in Niagara, which elevated her to star status. Her next two films, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), were even bigger successes.

  1. ^ Solomon, Aubrey (1989). Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History. The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1.
  2. ^ "The Top Box Office Hits of 1953". Variety. January 13, 1954. ISSN 0042-2738.
  3. ^ a b Life Film Noir: 75 Years of the Greatest Crime Films. Time Inc. Books. 2016. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-6833-0249-0.
  4. ^ Miklitsch, Robert (2016). The Red and the Black: American Film Noir in the 1950s. University of Illinois Press. p. 311. ISBN 978-0-2520-9912-0.
  5. ^ "Niagara". National Gallery of Victoria. Archived from the original on December 24, 2015. A film noir thriller directed by Henry Hathaway