Plot
Ray and Polly Cutler (Showalter and Peters) on a delayed honeymoon at Niagara Falls, find their reserved cabin occupied by George and Rose Loomis (Cotten and Monroe). They politely accept another, less desirable cabin, and the two couples become acquainted.
George and Rose have a troubled marriage. She is younger and very attractive. He is jealous, depressed and irritable. It is implied that he may have recently been discharged from an Army mental hospital. While touring the falls the following day, Polly sees Rose passionately kissing a man, Patrick. That evening the Cutlers witness George's rage. Rose joins an impromptu party and George storms out and breaks a record playing a tune that he suspects has a secret meaning for Rose.
What George does not know is that Rose is planning his murder. The next day she lures him into following her to the dark tourist tunnel underneath the Falls. There Patrick has planned to kill him. Patrick is to request a nearby carillon to play a special song to let Rose know that George is dead. By chance, the tune is played and Rose concludes George is murdered.
In fact, George has killed Patrick, thrown his body into the falls and collected Patrick's shoes at the exit instead of his own. This leads the police to believe that George is the victim. The body is retrieved and the police bring Rose to identify George's body. When the cover is lifted from the face and she sees Patrick, she collapses and is admitted to a hospital.
The motel manager moves the Cutlers to the Loomises' cabin. George comes to kill Rose in revenge but finds Polly instead. She wakes and sees him before he runs away. She tells the police, who launch a dragnet.
During the Cutlers' second visit to the Falls, George finds Polly alone. Trying to escape, she slips and he saves her from falling into the Falls. He explains that he killed Patrick in self-defense and asks, "Let me stay dead." Polly leaves without answering.
A frightened Rose leaves the hospital intending to return to the U.S. Finding George waiting for her, she tries to hide in the carillon. George catches her and strangles her beneath the bells, which remain silent. Remorsefully he says, "I loved you, Rose. You know that."
The Cutlers go fishing with friends in a launch on a section of the Niagara River above the Falls. When the launch is moored to allow the party to go shopping, George steals the boat with Polly on board. The police are notified and set out in pursuit. The boat runs out of gas and drifts toward the Falls. Near the edge, George manages to place Polly on a rock before going over the Falls to his death. Polly is rescued by helicopter.
Read more about this topic: Niagara (1953 film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickens ... with the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)