Rose-Marie (1928, Joan Crawford, James Murray, House Peters) – Classic Movie Review 11,865

Writer-director Lucien Hubbard’s 1928 film Rose-Marie is the first of MGM’s three versions of the Broadway show. Alas, this film is believed lost. It stars Joan Crawford and James Murray, and features House Peters, Creighton Hale, Gibson Gowland, George Cooper, Lionel Belmore, William Orlamond, Harry Gribbon, Gertrude Astor, Ralph Yearsley, Sven Hugo Borg and Margaret Lee.

Silent first version of the 1924 Oscar Hammerstein-Otto Harbach operetta, which, without the songs, has to become a Mountie adventure melodrama plus romance in this movie, considered to be a lost film.

It is all a bit of a problem without the musical highlights, but the players form an attractive cast and the romance would have been well handled in the hands of Joan Crawford and James Murray. It is interesting as an early vehicle for upcoming star Joan Crawford in the role Jeanette MacDonald was to make her own as Rose-Marie de Flor, and it co-stars the much less well-known James Murray as Jim Kenyon, the Canadian Mountie she falls in love with.

The operetta’s tunes would have been played in cinemas by an orchestra or on the piano as an accompaniment, and MGM provided sheet music with the film for playing at the cinema.

Joan Crawford recalled: ‘Rose Marie was surprisingly good without the music, but I felt uneasy as a French Canadian, but the critics didn’t notice.’

MGM had a policy to destroy prints of the original film when a film was remade.

Rose-Marie was filmed starring Renee Adoree and William Nigh directing. But, after two weeks of location filming at Yosemite National Park, MGM shut the production, fired Nigh and brought in Hubbard to write a new screenplay and direct. Edmund Goulding re-cast the film with Joan Crawford.

James Murray (February 9, 1901 – July 11, 1936) is best known for starring in the 1928 film The Crowd. By 1930, Murray was afflicted by alcoholism and alcohol-related arrests. In August 1930, he was sentenced to six months in jail for appearing in court drunk on a previous drunk-driving charge and served four months of hard labour. He drowned in 1936 after falling or jumping from the North River pier in New York City, aged 35.

It is followed by Rose-Marie (936) and Rose-Marie (1954).

The cast were Joan Crawford as Rose-Marie, James Murray as Jim Kenyon, House Peters as Sergeant Malone, Creighton Hale as Etienne Doray, Gibson Gowland as Black Bastien, George Cooper as Fuzzy, Lionel Belmore as Henri Duray, William Orlamond as Emile La Flamme, Polly Moran as Lady Jane, Harry Gribbon as Trooper Gray, Gertrude Astor as Wanda, Ralph Yearsley as Jean, Sven Hugo Borg as Hudson, Lou Costello as Extra and Stunt Performer, and Margaret Lee as Extra.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,865

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