Niagra (1986)

As part of  my recent vacation I went with my tour group to a first generation IMAX theater in Niagara Falls, Ontario to watch this 41 "docu-drama" about the famous falls. Basically Niagara is a bunch of little vinyets about highlight moments in the history of the falls, including an Indian legend about its origin, the journey of a former tour boat down the river, a guy who tight rope walked half way across the falls, a middle age lady who went over the falls in a barrel with her cat, and a young boy who survived going over the falls after a boat accident on a family outing in the 1960's. Now the quality of the acting, the costuming (except for the last sequence when they didn't even try to make it look like the 60's), and the style of the music and cinematography kept making me think of the early 1990's church film Legacy, and when the first title card came up in the credits I knew why, 'Directed by Keith Merrill'.

Now my mom grew up with the Merrill family in the San Jose area of California in the 1960's, so I'm more aware of Keith's work then I might otherwise be, though growing up LDS and visiting the Legacy Theater in SLC several times I couldn't help but encounter his work. Keith Merrill was long the go to director for LDS Church produced features, they probably got the idea because this Mormon filmmaker did short touristy films for places like Niagara Falls and the Alamo. As Legacy and later The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepard would be the tourist oriented films shown at Church venues like Temple Square, the choice must have felt right. Anyway Merrill has a style that's readily identifiable, its hooky and idealistic, of a best face forward temperament. I've long been curious to see the film that won Keith Merrill his first Oscar early in his career, the 1973 documentary The Great American Cowboy (he later won a second Oscar, in this case for best documentary short for Amazon in 1997), but this early film is surprisingly hard to find.

Niagara is fine for the kind of movie it is, though since they've been showing it at the falls for almost thirty years it might be time for the local tourist board to think about updating it, Keith Merrill's probably available. **