Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Phil Rosen

Writers:

Michael Jacoby (writer)
Edgar Allan Poe (story)

Release Date:

23 April 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Tagline:

Beautiful beast! Maddening...with her soft caress! Murdering...with steel-clawed terror!

Plot Keywords:

Beautiful Woman | Theater | Character Name In Title

Cast

Maria Montez	...	Marie Roget
Patric Knowles	...	Dr. Paul Dupin
Maria Ouspenskaya	...	Madame Cecile Roget
John Litel	...	M. Henri Beauvais
Edward Norris	...	Marcel Vigneaux
Lloyd Corrigan	...	Prefect Gobelin
Nell O'Day	...	Camille Roget
Frank Reicher	...	Magistrate
Clyde Fillmore	...	M. De Luc
Paul E. Burns	...	Gardener (as Paul Burns)
Norma Drury Boleslavsky	...	Madame De Luc (as Norma Drury)
Charles Middleton	...	Curator at the zoo
William Ruhl	...	Detective (as Bill Ruhl)
Reed Hadley	...	Naval Officer

Also Known As:

Phantom of Paris

Runtime:

61 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:15

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

The 1842 Poe story was a follow up to his earlier "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Writer Michael Jacoby ditched almost everything except the Paris setting and the title. He changed the detective's name to Paul Dupin and moved up the clock 47 years (to 1889) than the time set in the book.

Excitement trumps fidelity

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."