Niagara Falls (1941 film)

Niagara Falls
Directed by	Gordon Douglas
Produced by	Fred Guiol (producer) Hal Roach (executive producer)
Written by	Eugene Conrad (writer) Paul Girard Smith (writer) Hal Yates (writer)
Starring	See below
Cinematography	Robert Pittack
Editing by	Bert Jordan
Release date(s)	17 October 1941
Running time	43 minutes (USA original version) 86 minutes (TCM print)
Country	USA
Language	English

Niagara Falls is a 1941 American comedy of errors film directed by Gordon Douglas that was one of Hal Roach's Streamliners.

Plot summary

A peanut vendor sights a man named Sam Sawyer attempting suicide by jumping off a cliff into the waters below. The vendor offers a free bag of peanuts to hear Sam's story of what brought him to make such a decision.

Through flashback Sam relates that he and his wife Emily made their way to Niagara Falls for their honeymoon. On the way there Sam and Emily sight a bickering young couple named Tom and Margie who they later see at their hotel. Tom and Margie are two strangers who met through automobile accidents that have destroyed their cars, leaving them furious with each other. Unknown to each other, Tom and Margie hitch rides to the same hotel they both plan to stay at. Once at the hotel Sam sees Tom and Margie arguing and Sam wrongly assumes they are married but having a quarrel. He offers his and Emily's reserved bridal suite to the couple so they can be reconciled.

As the two are not keen on the idea, Sam marches them at gunpoint into the smaller room he and Emily had taken in exchange for the bridal suite, and locks them in. To the distress of Emily, Sam is so keen on bringing the couple together he stays up all night with his large revolver facing their room to prevent escape attempts.

During the night the young couple realise they are in love, and have a minister and a witness, who are hotel guests, marry them. In the morning Sam and the management of the hotel discover that the couple really were not married after all. The female guests of the hotel demand they all be evicted in shame.

Cast

• Marjorie Woodworth as Margie Blake
• Tom Brown as Tom Wilson
• ZaSu Pitts as Emmy Sawyer
• Slim Summerville as Sam Sawyer
• Chester Clute as Hotel Manager Potter
• Edgar Dearing as Motorcycle Cop
• Edward Gargan as Chuck
• Gladys Blake as Trixie
• Leon Belasco as Head Waiter
• Rand Brooks as Honeymooner
• Margaret Roach as Honeymooner
• Jack Rice as Hotel Desk Clerk

Notes

ZaSu Pitts and Slim Summerville had made a streamliner prequel Miss Polly playing the same characters. When some cinemas refused to accept double features, Hal Roach combined the two films into one standard length feature with the same title.

External links

• Niagara Falls at the Internet Movie Database
• Niagara Falls is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]