Moss Rose (1947)

Memorable, crazy movie

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A distinguished cast (including a pre-horror stardom Vincent Price as a police inspector!), a clever "voice recognition test" sequence, and some plot surprises make "Moss Rose" worth your while, although it's quite slow-moving and somewhat derivative. The mystery resolution has some daring psychological implications. **1/2 out of 4.

Various internet sources state that the film "Moss Rose" was based on the Joseph Shearing novel, "The Crime of Laura Sarelle." This is simply not true as any reading of that novel will clearly show. The 1947 film "Moss Rose" was based on the 1934 Joseph Shearing Novel, "Moss Rose." And although the film plot varies greatly from the novel, the basic story is quite similar and many of the same character names were used in the film. The novel was based on the 1872 murder of a London prostitute, well before Jack the Ripper appeared on the scene.Incidentally, Joseph Shearing was one of many pen names used by Marjorie Bowen (another pen name) who was born Gabrielle Margaret Vere Campbell and later married Arthur L. Long. She wrote many thrillers, romances, and novels of the supernatural, all under various pen names.In any event, the film "Moss Rose" exudes Victorian/Edwardian atmosphere and suspense and is well worth watching. Truly, they don't make them like this any more.

For his second film following service in the Coast Guard during World War II, Victor Mature takes the male lead role in a Victorian Gothic murder mystery Moss Rose. In this English setting Americans Victor Mature, Vincent Price and Ethel Barrymore are cast. Only Mature fell back on that old standby to make Americans players Canadian to explain the lack of British accent.Mature's part calls on him to be properly menacing and romantic to social climbing Peggy Cummins who suspects he murdered her friend to get out of an embarrassing entanglement as he is set to wed the socially prominent Patricia Medina. But Cummins is also intrigued by his upper class living and she a chorus girl in a music hall show as was her late friend decided to impose herself on Mature and mother Ethel Barrymore on their country estate where the Moss Rose seems to flourish with the tender loving care of Barrymore and the estate gardener. Vincent Price and Rhys Williams are the Scotland Yard detectives on the homicide case and they have another before the film is over and almost a third. Mature was the box office for this film and it was why he was cast in the male lead, but truly Price would have been a lot better in the role. Moss Rose does maintain a nice brooding atmosphere throughout and the best performance in the film is that of Ethel Barrymore. But I can't say more.

It's amazing the degree of professionalism Hollywood reached in those early decades. The foggy London street scenes are superb, the mansion interiors impeccable, the costumes perfect, the women hairstyles... (are there hairdressers nowadays able to duplicate those Victorian hairstyles?). And of course the acting impeccable. Peggy Cummins off camera voice at the beginning, explaining the situation reveals a child speaking, such is her Betty Boopish voice.Eventually she appears and throughout the whole film mesmerizes us with her blond Lolita looks and startling acting ability. Precisely with all that Hollywood professionalism it's difficult to understand why, a cockney like Cummins character, that speaks like a regular Eliza Doolittle, all of a sudden loses her typical speaking mode and starts, very naturally, to speak in a normal intercontinental English.It took Eliza many months of extremely harsh study to get rid of her cockney intonation, but this character does it in a jiffy (without the help of a professor Higgins!!), and nobody questions that miraculous change! The movie is entertaining and very predictable; the end is rushed in, ruining everything previously done, but I imagine it was part of fitting the story within a certain length of time. I saw "Gun Crazy" before, where I "discovered" Peggy Cummins and found her (in a totally different rol) quite a trouvaille! sort of a Veronica Lake (as petite as her) and unusual, like a Gloria Graham. Lovely with her round mouth, sting lipped childish appeal (and voice!). Nice, cozy movie to watch (we are so familiar with the formula!) when it's raining and dark outside.