Mystery of Marie Roget

This cast of B actors carries off a well-written murder mystery by Edgar Allan Poe. The sister of a woman about to inherit a large fortune plots her murder. But then she herself disappears. Who killed her? Her boyfriend (who was also courting the sister), her grandmother, her estate manager. Or her sister, to protect herself?

The events unfold with a number of false leads and dead ends, and with a few red herrings. However, due to the brilliant detective work of Dr. Dupin, who plays a Sherlock Holmes-type character to the local police chief's Watson-type character. The formula works to a degree, and we have an entertaining mystery.

This was among the very few remaining vintage Universal Horror titles, a genuine 'B' movie but a surprisingly effective one nonetheless – if only tenuously related to the genre (being based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale, the presence of an ostensibly dangerous animal i.e. a leopard, thus anticipating the Val Lewton chiller THE LEOPARD MAN {1943}, and its utilizing a steel-claw for a murder weapon that literally obliterates the victims' faces…which, apart from the latter film itself, would subsequently see service in at least 2 more of the studio's efforts, namely the Sherlock Holmes adventure THE SCARLET CLAW {1944} and the maligned SHE-WOLF OF London {1946}!).

Incidentally, this can be considered an unofficial sequel to one of the earliest Universal horror classics, MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932), since it is not only set in much the same surroundings as that more popular Poe story but it actually features one of the protagonists, forensic expert Pierre Dupin (here played by stiff-upper-lipped but likable Patric Knowles, who around this same time would co-star in two higher-profile genre efforts for the studio in THE WOLF MAN {1941} and its direct successor in the Larry Talbot franchise FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN {1943}!). For the record, MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET managed to rope in another cast member of those very pictures, Maria Ouspenskaya…who is at her most outspoken here, constantly belittling Prefect of Police and Knowles' long-suffering sidekick Lloyd Corrigan (who indeed has no easier time with the doctor, in view of the fact that the latter never bothers to fully explain his schemes in entrapping criminals to his understandably flustered superior!).

Which brings us to nominal lead Maria Montez though, given the brevity of her appearance in an already tight 61-minute film, this cannot be deemed a star vehicle for her (as it happens, I currently have 7 of those in my "To Watch" pile!). Anyway, while heavily-accented, she does get to warble a song in French (to the evident delight of Corrigan) and, in any case, her character is established as being wicked…which Knowles goes to extreme lengths to prove (by stealthily extracting the brain from her corpse in the morgue – the scene evoking FRANKENSTEIN {1931} in conception and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM {1933} in execution – and, under advise from some eminent authority on the workings of the criminal mind, carrying out experiments on it off-screen!).

Despite watching this via a worn-out VHS print, where the detail is so far gone one can hardly discern the actors' facial features(!), the unmistakable atmosphere of a good old Universal horror movie is well in evidence, thus making this a blast (if clearly a minor entry in the field). For what it is worth, we are also treated to a horse-and-carriage chase along the cobbled streets of a studio-built Paris and, while I was sure I had figured out the culprit's true identity, the script (which is surprisingly complex and eminently engaging) went on to prove me wrong by making him out to be the guilty party the Police had fingered all along!

"Mystery of Marie Roget" is a sub-par B-movie from Universal. While the story purports to be from the Edgar Allan Poe story, it's really very different.

When the film begins, Marie has been reported missing and the police have so far found nothing. They do eventually find a corpse that MIGHT be her...but her face is missing. When they tell her family that they've found her, she then walks in the house...so the corpse obviously was NOT her. However, eventually Marie really is murdered and it's up to Poe's Dupin character (Patric Knowles) to solve the murder. As for Dupin, he's a know-it-all who acts a lot like the movie version of Sherlock Holmes and has a partner (Lloyd Corrigan) who is even stupider and more useless than the movie version of Watson. In fact, he's such a bumbling moron that it totally ruins the movie...as does Dupin's bizarre manner in which he investigates. Overall, just a silly and inconsequential B murder mystery--complete with all the usual clichés and plot problems. A time-passer at best...but you could easily do better.

Edgar Allan Poe's three tales of Paris crime-solver C. Auguste Dupin are considered the first detective stories. "The Mystery of Marie Roget" is the least known of the three, and by far the dullest, but it has the distinction of being the first "ripped from the headlines" whodunit. Based on the unsolved murder of a minor New York celebrity named Mary Rogers, "Marie Roget" was a thinly fictionalized essay on the facts of that case and the newspapers' theories about it. (How thinly fictionalized was it? Poe even added footnotes to remind readers that he was actually talking about Mary Rogers!) There are plenty of colorful theories about why Poe came up with such a vague, confusing solution to the mystery, but he probably just didn't want to be proved wrong if the real crime was ever solved.

Any "Marie Roget" movie true to the original material would attract mostly scholars, literary buffs and insomniacs, but fortunately this film throws in elements from other Poe stories to liven things up. It also has Dupin do something a bit more exciting than sit in an armchair and deliver a lecture. He's called "Paul Dupin" here, but as Marie Roget might say, "Just call me Mary."

Maria Montez is Marie Roget. She vanishes, then reappears, then vanishes again. Some people think she will reappear again, but not police chemist Patric Knowles, who wanders around annoying police prefect Lloyd Corrigan, because he's always right.

Poe's short story was based on a real murder in New York, which he moved to Paris and actually figured out. Nothing loath, the folks at Universal kept the title, Dupin's last name, and little else. Instead, Knowles plays Dupin as a variant of Holmes, but much more annoying because he saunters. Corrigan is intended to be his Watson. A key clue is kept out of the audience's sight until after everything is solved. With Maria Ouspenskaya, John Litel, Edward Norris, and Nell O'Day.