Sat 10 Jul 2021
A Mystery Movie Review: ROSES ARE RED (1947).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[3] Comments
ROSES ARE RED. 20th Century Fox, 1947. Don Castle, Peggy Knudsen, Patricia Knight, Joe Sawyer, Edward Keane, Jeff Chandler, Charles McGraw, Charles Lane, Paul Guilfoyle, Doug Fowley), James Arness (as James Aurness). Director: James Tinling.
With a title such as this one, you could be excused for thinking that this particular film would be a romantic comedy/musical starring Doris Day or Betty Hutton. But no. “Ha!†on you. What this is instead is a snappy 60-minute crime mystery with a cast that’s totally in sync with the story all the way through. (Just take a look at the names. Fans of B-movie mysteries from the 40s will recognize them all.)
Not only is the cast picture perfect for this sort of thing, the plot has a twist added to a twist that I don’t remember seeing before. Finding a career criminal who looks exactly like the newly elected district attorney and arranging it so the former is ready to step in to impersonate the latter, that’s twist number one. What was new to me was to carry the twist one step further (trying to be clear as I can without revealing all).
I’m not exactly sure why they came up with the title they did. The movie does open with police lieutenant Joe Sawyer on the scene of a murder of a girl in whose hand is found a red rose, but there’s no real reason for the rose nor, in fact, does the killing have much to do with rest of the story. (See above.)
One other thing that I found amusing, in a trivia-of-the-day sense, was seeing both Jeff Chandler and James Arness in the same movie, both in important but rather minor roles, both in the early stages of their respective careers. Fun facts such as this make movies such as this all the more fun.
July 10th, 2021 at 8:39 pm
I’ve seen this, as B goes it isn’t bad.
Having grown up on Joe Sawyer in RIN TIN TIN as the Sergeant I’m usually a sucker for anything he’s in.
July 11th, 2021 at 3:57 am
Hi! How are you? I just finished watching this movie and at one point I was all mixed up and to add to all this, the Girlfriends resemble too. For a b movie it was quite efficient and the performances of the cast was wonderful. Thank you to share and to help Us discover those movies, it is very appreciative. Take good care and be safe and Love you All and God bless.
July 11th, 2021 at 8:10 am
You’re quite right, Serge. I thought the two leading ladies looked too much alike, too. I had to concentrate really hard to tell them apart, even when they were in the same scenes together. I don’t know why they did that, especially when their respective boy friend and husband were already played by the same man.
By the way, getting the latter two into *their* scenes together was done very well. I also noticed that when Castle was playing the former convict his voice changed ever so slightly, coarser if you will, to reflect his correct social class level.