Niagara Falls
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Gordon Douglas
Marjorie Woodworth
Tom Brown
Zasu Pitts
Slim Summerville
Chester Clute
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Distraught middle-aged honeymooner Sam Sawyer, dressed in his bathrobe and pajamas, is about to commit suicide at Suicide Point at Niagara Falls, New York, when a peanut vendor stops him and listens with sympathy as Sam tells him the circumstances that drove him to desperation: On the way to their honeymoon in Niagara Falls, Sam and his bride Emmy encounter a disabled vehicle on the road and believe they have happened upon a lovers quarrel between the young couple Margy Blake and Tom Wilson. In reality, Margy met Tom moments earlier when he mistook her for a thief rummaging through his trunk and struck her with a piece of wood. Margy, who was looking for a tire pump to borrow for her flat tire, responds angrily to Tom's attack. Although Tom tries to make amends by changing her tire for her, the two become embroiled in a bitter argument when Tom espouses the virtues of bachelorhood. Margy believes in commitment, and while watching Tom change her tire, she envisions him turning from a man to wolf. The two part in haste, but they are soon thrown together again when both of them have separate car accidents. By coincidence, Margy and Tom arrive at the same hotel at which Emmy and Sam are staying and immediately fight over the last available room. Noticing that the apparent couple are still fighting, Sam decides to help them reconcile their differences by insisting that the desk clerk put them in his and Emmy's room--the bridal suite. At first, Tom and Margy are unaware that they are sharing the same suite, but they eventually discover the unhappy situation and call the manager to complain. At dinnertime, Margy and Tom are nearly seated at the same table until Tom makes a last minute change for the table next to hers. The two continue their squabbling over dinner, but when a restaurant patron seated next to Tom overhears him maligning Margy, he takes a swing at Tom. The punch accidentally lands on Sam, though, propelling him backwards until he lands on top of Emmy. Later, when Tom and Margy try to check out of their suite, Sam, now more determined than ever to force them to make peace with each other, holds a gun on them and insists that they make up. After ordering Tom and Margy to kiss, Sam shoots out their phone line and locks them in their room. Tom makes repeated attempts to escape from the room, but Sam, whose room looks onto Tom and Margy's, foils all his attempts. Eventually, Tom softens towards Margy and becomes enamored of her, but she dashes his hope for an easy romance by insisting on marriage first. During Tom's final escape attempt, in which he exits the room via the window using a tied bedsheet, he passes by the room of a minister and gets an idea to bring the priest up to his suite with a witness to marry him and Margy. Margy and Tom kiss and are married, but the entire hotel is thrown into a panic when it is discovered that an unmarried couple are staying at the hotel. Sam and Emmy are mistaken for the unmarried couple and are ejected from the hotel, thus abruptly ending their honeymoon. Sam finishes telling the peanut vendor the story of his misfortunes, but as soon as he concedes that he has now overcome his depression, he accidentally falls off the cliff and lands in the water.
Director
Gordon Douglas
Cast
Marjorie Woodworth
Tom Brown
Zasu Pitts
Slim Summerville
Chester Clute
Edgar Dearing
Ed Gargan
Gladys Blake
Leon Belasco
Rand Brooks
Margaret Roach
Jack Rice
Tommy Mack
Dave Willock
Charles Hall
Irving Mitchell
Joe Depew
Jack Davidson
Gertrude Messinger
Jack Egan
Joe Hart
Robert Kent
Barry Norton
Carlyle Blackwell
Gwen Kenyon
Marjorie Deane
Ethelreda Leopold
Lois Lindsay
Patsy Mace
Crew
Eugene Conrad
Charles D. Hall
Bert Jordan
Eddie Montagne
Robert Pittack
William Randall
Hal Roach
Irene Saltern
Roy Seawright
Paul Gerard Smith
W. L. Stevens
Edward Ward
Hal Yates
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film features a brief animation sequence during the scene in which "Margy" imagines that "Tom" has turned into a wolf. Niagara Falls was one of Hal Roach's "streamlined features," a series of short comedies intended to fill the second half of a double bill. The first streamlined feature was the 1941 film Tanks a Million (see below).
