Although I love the singing of Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, their acting is too much the product of that time, affected. That is why I prefer the 1954 movie version of Rose Marie, with Oscar-winning actress Ann Blyth who has a lovely young-sounding lyric soprano in the title role. The two male leads, Howard Keel and Fernando Lamas, have always been known to be excellent singers, as far back as I can remember.I would like to refute someone's synopsis where he says that Rose Marie and the Mountie fall in love with each other. This is not true. The Mountie (Howard Keel) falls in love with his ward, but Rose Marie's love is Jim Duval (Fernando Lamas). Rose Marie sings "Indian Love Call" and "I Have the Love" to Duval and he to her. These two songs are among the most beautiful love songs ever composed. The exuberant "Free To Be Free" accurately evokes the feeling of preferring the state of "being free." Ann Blyth sings this with just the right amount of emphatic insistence and earnestness. I would love to know where I can purchase the sheet music of these songs, or even the entire Rose Marie songbook (movie version).

Aren't singing Mounties the first sign of the Apocalypse? This is a below average standard MGM musical, from the period when the genre was already dying.Problem is that the movie really lacks a good story. It's not until the second halve that the movie is finally starting to show some progress and some plot lines but it's then already too late to still really make something good of the movie.The love story, which is always essential in this type of movies, isn't much interesting which is due to the characters and actors that portray them. Ann Blyth is mostly irritating with her thick overdone French-Canadian accent, that by the way seems to come and go randomly. She also doesn't look convincing enough as a woman who feels at home in the wilderness. She looks far too timid and pretty for that. Also hard to imaging that she would really fall and really become happy with such a 'criminal' as Duval.The character treatment is also quite poor. Seemingly important characters just suddenly disappear out of the movie for too long and basically all characters are extreme stereotypes.You know it's one of those musicals in which the characters just suddenly burst into singing, in the middle of some dialog, to express their thoughts and feelings. This always have been quite ridicules in my book.The movie does get extra points for its environment. The Canadian natures serves as a beautiful backdrop for this movie!Not a complete waste of time but still a below average late MGM attempt.5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Not enough good things can be said about this beautiful musical, one of my favorites. It has the right combination of romance, conflict, suspense, tragedy, and comedy in the plot. The setting is in the colonial or exploration era of Canada, and the rivalry between English and French Canadians is evident.The story is about Rose Marie (Ann Blyth), a tomboyish girl that her guardian Mountie (Howard Keel) tries to civilize. Rose Marie is grateful to him, but she truly loves the French trader Duval (Fernando Lamas), who accepts her as she is. The unrequited love an Indian girl has for Duval adds to the conflict and leads to the tragic elements in the film. However, justice and a happy ending prevail.I commend Turner Broadcasting for keeping "Rose Marie" alive by showing it on the movie channel, but I would love to have a quality DVD version. I hope it will be on DVD soon.The film has inspired me to look for the sheet music and script from the musical, and I am very disappointed that I cannot find a "Rosemarie" songbook. If any music and script publishers are listening, they should have the score and script of this film in print.

Saw this on a massive CinemaScope screen during its first-run release at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California. If memory serves (since I haven't caught it on a Turner Classic Movies broadcast recently) it was enjoyable and nicely mounted, although I seem to recall that a lot of it was done on some massive MGM soundstages rather than outdoors in the northern California and Canadian locations. Of course that was usually the case with musicals with outdoor settings. Technical considerations prompted the studios to go the easy route of utilizing the more easily controlled environments of, in MGM's case, their Culver City, Calif. lot and stages subbing for the great outdoors. Howard Keel and Ann Blyth (and Fernando Lamas, too) acquitted themselves quite nicely in the vocal department. And any movie that gives us Marjorie Main and Bert Lahr for some expert comic relief is to be fondly remembered. Although its popularity may not merit it, it would be nice to add a DVD version, not yet available, it appears, of this widescreen/stereo remake to one's video library.