ABSTRACT
Is it a coincidence or part of a plan, or simply my imagination at work in anticipation of the near future? Whatever the case, it seems as if the American cinema, before it dies in its present condition, wants to demon strate by its choice of subjects and locales the superiority of CinemaScope. One can’t help thinking this when one sees Henry Hathaway’s Niagara (1952), in which the two protagonists are the famous falls and Marilyn Monroe. Indeed, it’s much too obvious that at least one of the two would benefit enormously from an enlargement of our field of vision (the other would benefit from the use of 3-D, but that’s another story).
