Rose Marie (1954)

Tomboy Rose Marie Lemaitre, the orphaned ward of Mountie Mike Malone, falls in love with him, and he with her. But when she goes to "learn to be a lady", she meets outlaw trapper James ... See full summary »

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Ronald Millar (screenplay), George Froeschel (screenplay),

Stars:

Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ann Blyth	...	Rose Marie Lemaitre
Howard Keel	...	Capt. Mike Malone
Fernando Lamas	...	James Severn Duval
Bert Lahr	...	Barney McCorkle
Marjorie Main	...	Lady Jane Dunstock
Joan Taylor	...	Wanda
Ray Collins	...	Insp. Appleby
Chief Yowlachie	...	Black Eagle

Storyline

Tomboy Rose Marie Lemaitre, the orphaned ward of Mountie Mike Malone, falls in love with him, and he with her. But when she goes to "learn to be a lady", she meets outlaw trapper James Duval, who also falls in love with her. But Duval is in a dispute with the local Native American chief Black Eagle, and soon Black Eagle is murdered.

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Plot Keywords:

love | native american | tomboy | hold up | drummer | 

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Taglines:

M-G-M presents the first great musical in Cinemascope! In Color Glory!

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Genres:

Musical | Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Romance | Western

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 September 1954 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Rose-Marie

Filming Locations:

Mammoth Lakes, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Sound System) (35 mm magnetic prints) Mono (35 mm optical prints)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Adapted from a Broadway play that opened on September 2, 1924 at the Imperial Theatre in New York and ran for 557 performances.

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Connections

Referenced in The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show: George and Gracie Going to Rose Marie Premiere (1953)

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Soundtracks

"Mounties"
Music by Rudolf Friml
Lyrics by Otto A. Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II
Performed by Howard Keel

User Reviews

The great outdoors

MGM's first CinemaScope musical is pictorially splendid, with what looks like on-location shooting of the Canadian wilderness, or a very good faking thereof. The lake and mountain vistas must have been spectacular on the big screen; even on a TV screen they're impressive. Also, the screenwriters dump the pretensions that marred the 1936 Nelson-Jeannette version and return closer to the 1924 stage story, streamlining it nicely and removing some of the clunkiness in the dialog. Only a handful of the original Friml-Harbach-Hammerstein-Stothart songs survive, but several of the new ones are by Friml, too (with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster), and one, "I Have the Love," is quite nice. Ann Blyth, while not credibly a backwoods French-Canadian, is lovely and with a fine set of soprano pipes, and Howard Keel reminds us again of how Hollywood underrated him--one of our most masculine musical leading men, with an easy understated acting style to back up his booming vocals. Fernando Lamas hasn't that much to do, and it feels unfair that one of Ms. Blyth's leading men has to be a good sport and just step back and let her love the other. And Bert Lahr may be a comic genius, but his and Marjorie Main's material is so rotten that you tend to forget it. Still, a couple of soundstage scenes aside, it's a gorgeous big-screen production, and not as dramatically inert as many other operetta-derived musicals. A very pleasant 107 minutes.