Niagara has some noir-ish elements to it—femme fatale wife Marilyn Monroe stepping out on war veteran husband Joseph Cotten—but it’s not about the darkness, it’s about the light. And its location shooting. Niagara takes full advantage of the falls, not just for scenery but for multiple story read more
Born March 13, 1898 Director Henry Hathaway!
Henry Hathaway learned his directorial craft during the Silent Era working as an assistant to notable directors including Victor Fleming, Josef von Sternberg and Fred Niblo. He made his credited directorial debut in 1932 with Heritage of the Desert, starr read more
For a while it seems like the third act of Garden of Evil will make up for the rest of the film’s problems. Or at least give it somewhere to excel. Sadly, director Hathaway and screenwriter Frank Fention inexplicably tack on a terrible coda–tying into the title no less–and effecti read more
Diplomatic Courier starts a lot stronger than it finishes. For the first half or so, it’s a post-war variation of a thirties Hitchcock–a lot of unexplained, strange incidents and a protagonist trying to unravel them. Then it changes gear, becoming a Hollywood attempt at The Third Man. I read more
The majority of Sundown is excellent. Hathaway sort of mixes the Western and British colonial adventure genre with a World War II propaganda piece. New Mexico stands in for Kenya—it’s an interesting war film because there aren’t any Americans. Lead Bruce Cabot is playing a Canadian. Cabot does read more
