Niagara

Marilyn's first real starring vehicle, a steamily melodramatic thriller into which she fits a trifle uncomfortably: unbecomingly costumed, uneasy with dialogue, and exposed to acres of footage designed to ram her down the audience's throat as a heartless, lusting bitch, a sexpot honeymooner scheming to kill her husband (Cotten), a mentally disturbed war veteran who has his own ideas. Odd to realise (this was after all her eighteenth film) that Hollywood took so long to discover the vulnerability that became Monroe's distinctive quality. Worthseeing for Hathaway's superbly crafted direction, even if it needed a Hitchcock to merge the symbolism of the location (the falls, the belltower) with the themes of sexual domination and envy.