The Screen in Review; New 'Rose Marie' Bows At the Music Hall
The New York Times Bosley Crowther
Mountie loves tomboy. Tedious remake with precious little music. Jeanette and Nelson, come back!
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IN its third time around as a movie, the old operetta, "Rose Marie," has been given a pictorial face-lifting with color and CinemaScope. On a screen that stretches almost the width of the Music Hall's stage, where the "Glory of Easter" pageant went on with it yesterday, the venerable Canadian Mountie romance has scenic magnificence and size. It also has several of the old songs and Ann Blyth in the title role.The scenery and songs are its salvation, for the story now being told is an antique and mannered contemplation of love blooming primly in the woods. A minor but interesting aspect of these versions of "Rose Marie" is that the scripts of them all have been different—from each other and from the original.This time, a script by Ronald Millar and George Froeschel has the porcelain-like Miss Blyth appearing as a French-Canadian tom-boy who is ardently loved by two men. One is a fine Canadian Mountie, robustly played by Howard Keel. The other, performed by Fernando Lamas, is a gallant woods-roving Robin Hood. Fate plays its hand when Mr. Lamas is almost hanged on an unjust murder rap and Mr. Keel saves his hide at the last minute so he can ride into the sunset with Miss Blyth.That is the general situation, and it slowly develops on the screen with a fearfully fixed deliberation under the direction of Mervyn LeRoy. The dialogue is long, the plot is ponderous and the occasional intrusions of Bert Lahr and Marjorie Main as comic relief (in small doses) are disappointly brief.However, the principals do manage, now and again, to catch hold of a cue, take a firm stand on a piece of the scenery and then let go with a song. Mr. Keel booms the loudest and the longest with the memorable "Rose Marie," but Miss Blyth and Mr. Lamas carry the farthest with the echoing "Indian Love Call." They also do very nicely with a couple of other songs, whipped up especially by Rudolf Friml, one of the original composers, assisted by Herbert Baker and George Stoll.Mr. LeRoy, who produced the operetta for its three-time sponsor, M-G-M, has also worked up something special in the way of an Indian dance to "Totem Tom-Tom." A vast swarm of Culver City red-men stomp about and point spears in the air while Joan Taylor as a jilted Indian maiden squirms and thrashes to the wild beat of the drums. It isn't particularly novel, but it fills out the CinemaScope screen.In addition to the ever-popular pageant of the "Glory of Easter," the stage show presents the Arnaut Brothers, Alan Howard, Delia Destinian, the Amin Brothers, Jacqueline Langee, the "Bunny Sisters" the Choral Ensemble, Corps de Ballet and Rockettes.

ROSE MARIE, screen play by Ronald Millar and George Froeschel, based on the operetta by Otto A. Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein 2d; directed by Mervyn LeRoy, A Mervyn LeRoy Production presented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At the Music Hall.Rose Marie Lemaitre . . . . . Ann BirthMike Malone . . . . . Howard KeelJames Severn Duval . . . . . Fernando LamasBarney McCorkle . . . . . Bert LahrLady Jane Dunstock . . . . . Marjorie MainWanda . . . . . Joan TaylorInspector Appleby . . . . . Ray CollinsBlack Eagle . . . . . Chief Yowlachle