La rose du crime

From 1947, "Moss Rose" stars Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, and Ethyl Barrymore.

Cummings plays Belle Adair, a dance-hall girl who sees a strange man (Mature) leave the room of one of her friends. The woman has been murdered, a moss rose sitting in an open Bible next to her. Belle sets out to find the man, one Michael Drego.

Once she does, she blackmails him. He refuses to give in, so she nearly identifies him when asked by the police chief (Vincent Price) which man she saw. Drego is able to signal her that she wins.

Belle is a little like Eliza in Pygmalion - turns out it's not money this petite Cockney wants. She wants to be a lady, and asks Drego to take her to his country home for a visit. Not sure how he will explain her presence - since he has a fiancee - Drego gives in, says she helped him with something, and is stopping by for a few days.

Michael's mother (Ethel Barrymore) is obsessive about her son, from whom she was separated while he lived with his father in Canada, but she likes Belle. Michael's fiancee feels a bit threatened by her. While Belle is at the house, there is another murder, with another moss rose in an open Bible.

Pretty good, with a vivacious performance by Peggy Cummins. You never for one minute think of her as an evil blackmailer. Mature for me wasn't aristocratic and smooth enough for the character of Michael. He gave a low-key performance, so he was aware his persona had to change from his street-wise roles. However, you can take a man off the street, but you can't take the street out of a man. Ethel Barrymore gives a strong performance.

Nice Victorian atmosphere and lovely costumes. And yes, Peggy Cummins is the same actress from "Gun Crazy!"

Chirpy cabbies and fake fog abound in this Victorian murder mystery which ticks all of the boxes.

Daisy Arrow, a showgirl, is murdered in her room, but her friend Rose (Peggy Cummins) sees a well-dressed man leaving hurriedly. She discovers he is Michael Drego (Victor Mature), an aristocrat, and reports him to Inspector Clinner (Vincent Price). However, at the last moment she deliberately fails to identify him, choosing to use the situation to her own advantage which is - going to his country estate and experiencing the high life. Amazingly he agrees and takes her with him, explaining that she had helped him with a police matter. His mother Lady Margaret (Ethel Barrymore) takes to her, but fiancee Audrey (Patricia Medina) is suspicious of Rose's motives. Suddenly Inspector Clinner turns up. He is investigating the significance of a Bible and a Moss Rose which were found at Daisy's murder scene. The Drego's gardens are known for growing the flowers out of season and, the Bible is a new edition which could have been purchased at the local village book store. Rose tries to keep out of sight but is seen by Clinner who later sends for her. She is about to leave when Michael reveals he has fallen for her and wants to break off his engagement to Audrey. Rose is confused, but later when Audrey finds out she threatens to ruin Rose. Attempting leave again she finds Audrey, dead with a Bible and rose by her. This time Michael is arrested and the distraught Rose is looked after by Lady Margaret.......

The audience will probably have guessed the ending by this stage, but it has to be admitted that the film is entertaining. As others have mentioned, Vincent Price would probably have been better cast as Michael Drego. His distant,dreamy air would have suited the equivocal nature of the character better than Mature's brash approach. This is another of Hollywood's "British" films, but most of the cast manage a passable English accent, with the exception of Mature who goes for the spent-his-childhood-in-Canada cop out. Acting honours however go to the incomparable Ethel Barrymore who portrays Lady Margaret in every guise, from imperious matriarch to blubbering hysteric. The only fly in the ointment is Cummins. Her Cockney accent is the worst, most irritating I've ever heard, and that includes Dick Van Dyke in "Mairy Paw-puns!" For a Brit, Cummins sounds more like an American actress making a very poor attempt at the dialect. Fortunately she doesn't resort to "Strike a light!" or "Yer can't do that there 'ere!" That apart, if you can immerse yourself in the atmosphere, you will enjoy it.

... from 20th Century Fox and director Gregory Ratoff. In turn-of-the-century London, showgirl Belle (Peggy Cummins) is horrified when her best friend and roommate is found murdered. Belle forces herself inside the case, trying to track down the mystery man whom she saw her roommate with the night if her death. Belle finds the man, a wealthy Canadian named Michael (Victor Mature). Belle accompanies Michael back to his family estate in order to solve the mystery, but Michael's disapproving mother (Ethel Barrymore) resents the girl's presence.

Cummins takes some getting used to with her hyper personality and high-pitched cockney accent. Mature is a sleepy-eyed oaf, but his lack of character is necessary for the story's suspense, I suppose. I liked seeing Vincent Price as a quick-witted Scotland Yard inspector. Ethel Barrymore has the most fun, though, and the less said about her here the better. This needs to be shown on Turner Classic Movies (it apparently never has) and in a quality print.

It's that smudge of fog called London under the reign of Victoria. When a music-hall dancer is murdered, a moss rose marks the page of a Bible next to her body. Luckily, another chorus girl (Peggy Cummins) saw a gentleman (Victor Mature) leaving the lodgings. She approaches him directly, saying she'll go to the police if he doesn't meet her demands, but he brushes her off contemptuously. When he learns she's dead serious, he tries to buy her off with a thick wad of pound notes. But it's not money she's after; all she wants is two weeks at his country estate, living the life of a `lady.'

And here Moss Rose, which has taken its time working up a head of steam, branches off onto a new siding. The estate contains not only Mature, his fiancée (Patricia Medina) and his formidable old dowager mother (Ethel Barrymore), but also a greenhouse where out-of-season moss roses bloom.

Apart from a few Eliza-Doolittle faux pas, the classes do not clash. Barrymore, in fact, extends Cummins a matey welcome; even Medina tries to put aside her understandable jealousy. The only apple of discord falls when Cummins strays innocently into Mature's boyhood rooms, which Barrymore preserves as a secret shrine.

Cummins finds the pastoral scene (`You'd expect to see a calendar pasted under it!' she exclaims) lives up to all her expectations. Thrown together, Mature has thawed markedly towards Cummins, and she towards him. But their idyll comes under siege with the arrival from London of bumbling Scotland Yard detective and amateur horticulturist Vincent Price, still investigating that pesky homicide. Soon there's another murder, another Bible, and another moss rose....

An old-dark-house costume drama akin to My Name Is Julia Ross or The Spiral Staircase, Moss Rose finds its strength in its actors rather than its direction (by Gregory Ratoff). While Mature stays four-square and Price unctuously fey, Barrymore predictably grande-dames it to the hilt. Cummins is lovely and quite good as a Cockney diamond-in-the-rough, but leaves nothing like the impression she would two years later as Annie Laurie Starr in Gun Crazy. An air of the contrived lingers after Moss Rose, more faded than pungent, but it's cozy and reassuring, too.

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.