Joseph Shearing who is credited here as the author of the source novel "The Crime of Laura Sauelle" was actually a British woman born Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long, née Campbell who also wrote under the names Marjorie Bowen and George Praedy among many other pseudonyms.
Also the source novel is not "The Crime of Laura Sarelle" (1941) but "Moss Rose" (1935). Evidently the script was worked on by five different screenwriters including an uncredited contributions from James M. Cain. Darryl F. Zanuck fooled around with the screenplay and the editing post-production and much of the uneven tone and bewildering inconsistencies of characterization stem from the need to tone down the unsympathetic qualities of the heroine and censor the sordid background of the story.
One of Shearing/Bowen/Long's specialties was adapting true crime stories from the Victoiran era into thriller novels. One of these novels was "So Evil, My Love" which was released in 1948 and was based on the 1876 murder of Charles Bravo.
Shearing/Bowen te al. Publshed "Moss Rose" in 1935 and it was based on the murder of genteel prostitute Clara Bruton born Harriet Buswell who was murdered in her lodging house in No. 12 Great Coram Street near Russell Square early on Christmas morning 1872. Buswell was an educated woman from the lower classes who had some education and haunted the Alhambra looking for custumers. On Christmas Eve she picked up a customer who was observed by several witnesses to have a German accent and is described as a "gentleman" by Buswell. She was found the next morning in her bed with her throat slashed from ear to ear and an open bible beside her. One of the suspects who was identified by witnesses was a married German minister who was later exonerated when an alibi was provided. The case was never solved.
Shearing/Bowen adapted the unsolved murder into a novel where Belle Adair, a neighbor of the Harriet muder victim (now called Daisy Arrow) witnesses a German accented man leaving the victim's bedroom and decides to blackmail him. However, whereas Belle Adair/Rose Lynton in the 1947 movie is a cockney dancer who is not a prostitute but is capable of taking advantage of stage door Johnnies to get by while evading taking them home to her lodging house. In the novel, Belle Adair came from a middle class fairly genteel circumstances but fell into disrepute. A sometime dancer in pantos she has descended into indoor prostitution. No longer young, Adair is considering suicide on Christmas Eve but her neighbor Daisy confiscates her knife - the knife that is later used to kill her.
Whereas the Belle/Rose of the film is a lower class girl who dreams of being a lady, the novel's heroine is older and broken down by life and her own bad choices. She has been a lady or ladylike and can pass as genteel in society. Her need to escape her current life and remake herself is more desperately urgent and she is basically spiraling down the gutter. Hence when she finds the German minister who she suspects of being Daisy's killer she blackmails him and convinces him to take her to Germany to be the companion of his ailing mother.
Why did the film make the changes to Belle and the suspect? They couldn't have a prostitue be the heroine of the story due to the Hays Code so she was only a chorus girl. The character increasingly becomes less amoral and more helpless which is inconsistent with her behavior earlier in the film. She goes from scheming doxy to wide-eyed ingenue/victim.
Changing the German minister to a half-English country gentleman who was raised in Canada becomes necessary for several reasons - the Hays Code wouldn't approve a story of a minister consorting with and murdering prostitutes like Jack the Ripper. Also, in 1947 we had just come off of World War II and Germans were associated with Nazis and evil. Making our hero German (maybe played by Helmut Dantine or Francis Lederer?) would point to his villainy - so his nationality and religious vocation had to be changed. Victor Mature also couldn't do accents well, so the Canadian upbringing solves that problem.
Add in the too many cooks working on the screenplay and Zanuck's meddling and you have a recipe for disaster. As it is, the solid atmospheric direction by Gregory Ratoff, Peggy Cummins' charm and a fascinating supporting cast make for a diverting if obvious murder mystery that doesn't hold together well when analyzed after the fact but is very watchable as it unreels.
Also the source novel is not "The Crime of Laura Sarelle" (1941) but "Moss Rose" (1935). Evidently the script was worked on by five different screenwriters including an uncredited contributions from James M. Cain. Darryl F. Zanuck fooled around with the screenplay and the editing post-production and much of the uneven tone and bewildering inconsistencies of characterization stem from the need to tone down the unsympathetic qualities of the heroine and censor the sordid background of the story.
One of Shearing/Bowen/Long's specialties was adapting true crime stories from the Victoiran era into thriller novels. One of these novels was "So Evil, My Love" which was released in 1948 and was based on the 1876 murder of Charles Bravo.
Shearing/Bowen te al. Publshed "Moss Rose" in 1935 and it was based on the murder of genteel prostitute Clara Bruton born Harriet Buswell who was murdered in her lodging house in No. 12 Great Coram Street near Russell Square early on Christmas morning 1872. Buswell was an educated woman from the lower classes who had some education and haunted the Alhambra looking for custumers. On Christmas Eve she picked up a customer who was observed by several witnesses to have a German accent and is described as a "gentleman" by Buswell. She was found the next morning in her bed with her throat slashed from ear to ear and an open bible beside her. One of the suspects who was identified by witnesses was a married German minister who was later exonerated when an alibi was provided. The case was never solved.
Shearing/Bowen adapted the unsolved murder into a novel where Belle Adair, a neighbor of the Harriet muder victim (now called Daisy Arrow) witnesses a German accented man leaving the victim's bedroom and decides to blackmail him. However, whereas Belle Adair/Rose Lynton in the 1947 movie is a cockney dancer who is not a prostitute but is capable of taking advantage of stage door Johnnies to get by while evading taking them home to her lodging house. In the novel, Belle Adair came from a middle class fairly genteel circumstances but fell into disrepute. A sometime dancer in pantos she has descended into indoor prostitution. No longer young, Adair is considering suicide on Christmas Eve but her neighbor Daisy confiscates her knife - the knife that is later used to kill her.
Whereas the Belle/Rose of the film is a lower class girl who dreams of being a lady, the novel's heroine is older and broken down by life and her own bad choices. She has been a lady or ladylike and can pass as genteel in society. Her need to escape her current life and remake herself is more desperately urgent and she is basically spiraling down the gutter. Hence when she finds the German minister who she suspects of being Daisy's killer she blackmails him and convinces him to take her to Germany to be the companion of his ailing mother.
Why did the film make the changes to Belle and the suspect? They couldn't have a prostitue be the heroine of the story due to the Hays Code so she was only a chorus girl. The character increasingly becomes less amoral and more helpless which is inconsistent with her behavior earlier in the film. She goes from scheming doxy to wide-eyed ingenue/victim.
Changing the German minister to a half-English country gentleman who was raised in Canada becomes necessary for several reasons - the Hays Code wouldn't approve a story of a minister consorting with and murdering prostitutes like Jack the Ripper. Also, in 1947 we had just come off of World War II and Germans were associated with Nazis and evil. Making our hero German (maybe played by Helmut Dantine or Francis Lederer?) would point to his villainy - so his nationality and religious vocation had to be changed. Victor Mature also couldn't do accents well, so the Canadian upbringing solves that problem.
Add in the too many cooks working on the screenplay and Zanuck's meddling and you have a recipe for disaster. As it is, the solid atmospheric direction by Gregory Ratoff, Peggy Cummins' charm and a fascinating supporting cast make for a diverting if obvious murder mystery that doesn't hold together well when analyzed after the fact but is very watchable as it unreels.