Rose Marie

As much as I was enthusiastic about the 1936 version of Rose-Marie, I completely condemn this cinemascope version. Yes, it's a gorgeous widescreen and features the beautiful Canadian landscape, but that is all. The story is nonsensically adapted in the style of a post-war utopia in which women are just human primitives. While at the age of 36 the main character has a great adventure saving her brother and also has an excellent musical career, less than 20 years later the same protagonist is practically a civilization outcast who speaks good French (maybe), broken English (definitely) and has to be taken from the arms of nature and made into a modern-day Pygmalion. Which is awkward enough in and of itself. It has in it a bit of Daughter of the Regiment, and a bit of The False Pussycat. In any case, it is nonsense, which massacred Friml's original operetta and left no trace of it. (16/04/2020)