If Rose didn't really love George, why didn't she just divorce him? I mean she had put herself at the risk of being thrown in jail for plotting with her lover in the attempted murder of her husband. Of course, her plan didn't work and it backfired on both of them.
shareBecause she was a sociopath. It looked like she enjoyed planning to kill him. Also this was the 50' it was harder to get a divorce for no reason. Remember he was a war veteren and was ill. I would think it had to almost impossible to get a divorce back then , plus she was fooling around. I remember seening this movie called The Hours and one of the main characters was ready to commit suicide to get out of a marraige. It just illustrated how a lot of women were stuck in marraiges it was impossible to get out of other then just getting up and leaving. Also Rose's husband kind of hinted she was bad news.
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Well, yeah, the 50's have something to do with it... but I can't see that as a huge reason here. There were plenty of divorces in the 50's. It just wasn't as easy as to get as now. There would have been many ramifications for her, as another poster has pointed out. Plus... heck... it's one of those things... you just accept... because without it, there would be no movie. As another said... she's having an affair, and she's a sociopath.
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A better question might be why she married him in the first place. Why would an on-the-town gal get mixed up with a sheep farmer?
That's a big Twinkie
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I think he would have been more of a rancher, owning thousands of acres and thousands of sheep. Such a man could have been pretty prosperous. He doesn't get to see very many women. He goes into town every once in a while and he meets this tramp at some bar and she ends up sinking her claws into him. Now that he's broke she's scared of leaving him because he's pathologically jealous
shareGood points made by all.
I was thinking this over while I watched the movie.
Why did she marry George and why didn't she just divorce him?
Because, like Sherry Peatty in The Killing, she's a loser, despite her drop dead sex appeal.
Is anybody with me on this?
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."
I agree!
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that same force, though it's never explained in the film, that makes George besotted with her and therefore not willing to divorce her so she has to kill him to get away.
I've read that she has several other scenes, perhaps ones that would have established some motive, but Darryl Zanuck cut them. You can see Zanuck was still unsure of her--the movie is just as much a vehicle for the excellent Jean Peters as it is for MM. There is simply NO motive for murder as the movie exists now. George has no money, he's very jealous, he's older. Rose has a hot boyfriend on her hands; just get out. There's some indication that George can be violent--the record!--but it might have helped had he displayed that streak toward Rose. So then at least it would have been a fear thing--he'll track me and down and kill me if I leave!
No matter, it's a cult fave because it is MM's only bad girl and her only death scene. And despite drama couch Natasha Lytess and the over-enuciated speaking, MM manages to get off some good, rough dialoge: "He'll get right down and dig if you give him a rocking chair and a corny old tune like 'In the Glomy.'"
I would love to have seen some of those deleted scenes. I think this movie is great, but a bit of back story about the Loomis's would have been nice, and explained their motivations a bit more, particularly Rose's.
shareI agree with Denis-38: there is absolutely no motive for Rose to kill George. I don't know what scenes may have been deleted prior to release (this always happens), but if they did provide information as to her motive they should never have been cut out.
We know George is a rancher, but nothing is said about whether he's wealthy or not, though the inference is he's not -- certainly not enough to risk killing him (though he's clearly not poor). Another poster said it was ridiculous for her to kill him and end up in prison for life (or very possibly executed), and I agree.
Contrary to what some have said, however, it wasn't hard for a woman to get a divorce in the 50s -- remember the term "going to Reno?" The law was stacked against men, for whom a divorce was extremely difficult if not impossible unless the wife consented. But while not as "easy" (is it ever?) as today, a woman could get a divorce without too much trouble -- not to mention that the community property and alimony laws were also heavily slanted in women's favor, which meant Rose would have gotten a hefty portion of George's assets (at least 50%), plus a monthly allowance and alimony until she remarried. (And the husband paid the wife's attorney.) So Rose could have made out like the bandit she is, at no risk and a lot of profit.
There's nothing to indicate she wanted to kill George simply for the sake of killing him, though she was clearly a scheming, heartless tramp. The problem, and the plot hole, is that, while she obviously wasn't above killing him, there was absolutely no need for her (and her lover) to do so. It seems they were just too greedy and stupid to let her simply divorce the guy, make some money out of it, and go away free and clear.
Compare their lack of motive with the solid one Rhonda Fleming and her lover, William Lundigan, had in another excellent (and overlooked) thriller from Fox in 1953, Inferno. There, they left her very wealthy and arrogant husband (Robert Ryan) to die in the desert after an accident (they didn't kill him outright). The plot made it clear that if she divorced him, their early version of a pre-nup would have cut her off from any more money, thus giving them a motive for their act -- which was spur-of-the-moment, not premeditated. This was a much more developed and logical story line than in Niagara.
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A mix of the difficulty for couples getting divorced then; the type of person Rose was; and, the sort of person George was, coupled with his mental health problems post-WW2.
I'm a fountain of bloodshare
In the shape of a girl
I think she feared that George wouldn't simply let her go. He is clinging to her desperately. Yes, she provokes him and manipulates his jealousy, but the very fact that he murdered her in the end, goes to show that she had reason to fear him. It doesn't matter whether this was because of innate violence or because he was ill and his condition aggravated, deliberately, by her behaviour--just the fact that it could happen. If he had gone to the police after the boyfriend's murder attempt, he could have landed Rose in jail, been rid of her, and gone on with his life. Instead, he'd rather see her dead.
shareWell, it wouldn't be much of a movie if she just divorced him. Trying to knock him off is much more entertaining. Personally, I would have like to have seen the Casey Adams character get killed off after about 30 seconds of screen time.
shareCasey Adams ? Don't you mean Max Showalter ? Or was it Rock Strongo, Handsome B. Wonderful or Max Power ?
Rescue the damsel in distress, whip the bad guy, save the world.
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