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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:16:32 GMT
Tea for two.
Rose: "All the sudden I feel so sleepy. I can hardly keep my eyes open."
Margaret: "Stop trying then. Come, into bed..."
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:18:56 GMT
Lady Margaret would like to learn what prayer Rose's mother taught her.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 20:21:28 GMT
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's got a wonderful charm with outstanding characters.
Great choice, Topbilled.
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Post by Andrea Doria on Oct 15, 2023 20:23:55 GMT
Yes! I loved it!
I can't understand why it wasn't a big hit.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 20:24:52 GMT
Lady Margaret would like to learn what prayer Rose's mother taught her.
It's a crazy connect (there's a big Bible in both movies), but we should do "Lilies of the Field" one Sunday.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 20:25:33 GMT
Yes! I loved it!
I can't understand why it wasn't a big hit. I know. What was the 1947 movie-going public thinking!
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:26:38 GMT
I haven't seen LILIES OF THE FIELD in ages.
One thing about re-watching MOSS ROSE today...I had forgotten about the secret room with the boat. And I had forgotten that Rose was on a train in Canada, to meet up with Michael again. I like how it ends with her all hopeful on the train.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 20:29:37 GMT
I haven't seen LILIES OF THE FIELD in ages.
One thing about re-watching MOSS ROSE today...I had forgotten about the secret room with the boat. And I had forgotten that Rose was on a train in Canada, to meet up with Michael again. I like how it ends with her all hopeful on the train. I think we'd enjoy "Lilies of the Field" as a Sunday Live one. It's not full-on melodrama, but has some great interpersonal relationships.
Re happy endings, I love them, I don't care if that makes me just another idiot movie goer.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:31:02 GMT
It only clocks in at 82 minutes. So it all moves rather fast.
I think if I was remaking it, I'd expand on some scenes with Michael and his mother. Like the audience needs to learn exactly how much he is aware about his mother's killing sprees. Since he knew he was innocent in the beginning, there is obviously a reason why he lets Belle/Rose blackmail him. He wants to keep the family's name out of the newspapers, yes. But does he also suspect his mother is the culprit, since the murders involve women he's seeing?
Later, when they get the visit at the estate from the two detectives, I think Michael should have been a bit more jittery...afraid his mother would be found out (if indeed, he knew his mother was guilty). So there is a bit more fleshing out in the relationship between Michael and his mother, that I'd like to see play out. My guess is that because of the production code, some of that had to be muted, or else Michael would be an accomplice to Lady Margaret's crimes and that would prevent a happy ending for him and Rose.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:35:12 GMT
Incidentally, the author of the novel Moss Rose is British writer Joseph Shearing (a pseudonym for Marjorie Bowen)...the same person who also wrote the novel Blanche Fury...we will be watching the motion picture adaptation of BLANCHE FURY later this month.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 20:38:42 GMT
I'd also have like to have seen a scene, as was alluded to, of Mature "training" Cummins to be a lady before her visit to the Manor House. Very "Pygmalion," but it could have been fun.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 20:46:37 GMT
I'd also have like to have seen a scene, as was alluded to, of Mature "training" Cummins to be a lady before her visit to the Manor House. Very "Pygmalion," but it could have been fun. Yeah there are a few things that could have been added to enhance the story.
I might also have included parents for Audrey, who come to the manor before she's killed...like they are there as guests for the impending nuptials. This would better illustrate how different Audrey is from Rose, if we see that she's from stuffy old money, with completely the opposite background of Rose. The parents could question Audrey about Rose's presence, which unnerves Audrey and is what prompts Audrey to have that confrontation scene with Rose outside, away from the others.
When Michael breaks up with Audrey, Audrey doesn't tell her parents the engagement is called off...because she thinks she can get Michael to change his mind.
Then after Audrey dies, the parents are present at the inquest scene demanding justice, demanding Michael's arrest, since they erroneously think he murdered their daughter...which would have further obscured Lady Margaret's role in the killings.
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Post by topbilled on Oct 15, 2023 21:33:36 GMT
Now I lay me down to sleep
When I first viewed MOSS ROSE a few years ago, I enjoyed it but couldn’t quite accept Fox contract player Victor Mature in a Victorian setting. Perhaps because I tend to associate him with Betty Grable musicals and SAMSON AND DELILAH.
When I watched MOSS ROSE this time around, I found Mature to be more than adequate…in fact, it made sense they had cast him as a half-Italian, half-British man that had been raised in Canada. After all, Mature whose family name is Maturi, was second generation Italian-American.
Another item I originally questioned was Mature playing Ethel Barrymore’s son, since she seems considerably more refined. Though the story does explain how his father took him away from her as a small boy, so he technically wasn’t reared by her.
Off camera, Victor Mature’s agent was Myron Selznick, brother of producer David Selznick who had Miss Barrymore under contract and had loaned her to Fox for this production. That may explain why Barrymore and Mature seem to get on so well in this story, as they were probably familiar with each other before working together.
I do like how prominent Barrymore is in this picture. Often she’s assigned supporting roles with limited screen time, typically as an invalid at this phase of her career. But in MOSS ROSE she plays an active role, and she is quite villainous…she may look like a kind old lady, but cross this gal at your own peril!
The top-billed star of the picture is Welsh import Peggy Cummins. What I’ve always liked about Miss Cummins in all her movies is how she’s a real beauty but has a natural flair for character roles. She gives a very spirited and engaging performance here as a chorus girl who discovers the death of her best friend, another chorine.
While the police are looking for the killer, Cummins spots wealthy Mature who had been dating the dead girl. It doesn’t take long for Cummins to decide to use this to her advantage, since she knows Mature would become a person of interest in the investigation, if not the main suspect. The scenes where she visits Mature at his hotel room and blackmails him are uproarious…she’s a novice at this sordid negotiating, but her scheme proves successful.
Cummins’ character does not want money to stay quiet. Instead, she will keep her mouth closed and not offer up incriminating testimony, if Mature will take her to his mother’s luxurious countryside estate. You see, Cummins has always wanted to be a lady of society. Hobnobbing with Mature’s mother (Barrymore), as well as Mature’s upper crust fiancee (Patricia Medina) will allow her to indulge in a fantasy.
The scene where Cummins arrives at the estate and Barrymore gets one look at her is even more hilarious than the blackmailing. This girl is in way over her head but somehow she charms everyone.
A short time later things turn sinister, when Medina’s character ends up dead…in much the same way that the murder of the chorine had occurred in London. When these women die, they have supposedly been praying and a moss rose (hence the title) is used to mark a certain passage in their bibles.
When the inspector (Vincent Price) and his assistant (Rhys Williams) investigate the strange deaths, they collect circumstantial evidence, as well as a bible and a rose. In an intriguing scene, Price learns Barrymore is very proud of her flowers. She has been growing a bunch of moss roses, even though they are out of season.
Eventually, the audience finds out that Barrymore is the bible killer who leaves the flowers behind as her ‘calling card’…but Price has arrested Mature, believing him to be the culprit. Meanwhile Mature realizes he loves Cummins, and though she’s scared and wants to leave, she decides to stick by his side.
Barrymore discovers that Cummins is in love with her son, and this causes her to snap again. She wants her son all to herself, and she quickly arranges to commit another murder.
Fortunately, Barrymore’s attempt to kill Cummins is foiled. This means Mature is off the hook, and he’s free to be with Cummins. The narrative wraps up rather quickly, but it is still nonetheless quite satisfying. Barrymore gives a first-rate performance, but they are all wonderful. I am looking forward to watching this film again.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 15, 2023 21:35:16 GMT
A copy of the novel "Moss Rose" is now ordered.
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Post by Fading Fast on Oct 16, 2023 2:32:17 GMT
Moss Rose from 1947 with Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, Ethel Barrymore, Vincent Price and Rhys Williams
One thing you don't expect to find in the middle of a Victorian murder mystery set between foggy London and an English manor house is a Cinderella story. Yet in Moss Rose, the Cinderella story, embodied by the female lead, elevates the picture above its routine plot.
When a gentleman, played by Victor Mature, is seen, by a chorus girl, played by Peggy Cummins, leaving the flat of a later-discovered murdered chorus girl, the story shapes up as a typical murder-blackmail tale. We don't, though, actually see Mature murder the girl.
Mature is questioned by two Scotland Yard inspectors, Vincent Price playing his usually aloof and creepy "intellectual" and Rhys Williams, a fantastic and under-appreciated character actor, playing the smarter-than-he-appears regular-guy deputy inspector.
On the dead chorus girl's nightstand was a moss rose pressed into a Bible. Price, an amateur horticulturist, focuses on the rose, noting it only grows in certain regions at certain times of the year. The rose and Bible are interesting clues, but they don't incriminate Mature.
When Cummins, who didn't tell the police what she knows about Mature, contacts Mature later, he assumes she'll want money in exchange for her silence. But instead, and just his luck, she's looking for something else: Cummins wants her Cinderella moment.
Having always been poor and "common," Cummins is willing to exchange her silence for a stay at Mature's family manor house, where she'll be treated as "a lady." Some plot devices, like this one, work so much better on screen than they sound on paper.
Mature, up against it, agrees. So he and Cummins head out to the family estate where he introduces his new "friend" Cummins to his mother, played by Ethel Barrymore and, get ready for it, his fiancee, played by Patricia Medina, as someone who did him a great favor.
Barrymore and Medina are a bit taken back, but Barrymore plays the perfect grande dame host, while Medina issues, in private, the expected "stay away from my man" warning. Meanwhile, Mature sweats as Cummins seems to hold his life in her hands.
The fun in this one is seeing Cummins, despite the awkwardness, genuinely enjoying her stay at the house. She's like the poor kid who had looked through the candy shop's window her entire life, but now can buy whatever she wants. Her enjoyment is infectious.
It's still a murder mystery, though, so all the usual things happen. Each character acts a bit odd at times, making him or her look marginally suspicious. Plus, Price and Rhys show up, with Price still carrying on about the moss rose, which is grown in Barrymore's greenhouse.
After several more twists and feints, with the Inspectors, as usual, annoyingly and persistently poking about, the movie climaxes, no spoilers coming, in an over-the-top scene. Still, there's enough acting talent here to pull it off.
Owing to its ordinary murder plot, this is an actors' movie as Barrymore, Price and Mature make the material better. Yet it is Cummins, easily holding her own with the acting heavyweights, who elevates the entire effort with her blend of tenacity and child-like wonder.
Without Cummins and the Cinderella story, Moss Rose would just be a run-of-the-mill English murder mystery with a strong cast. With Cummins and the Cinderella story, the movie has a special verve that makes it tremendously fun to watch.
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