Rose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon. When Jim falls under suspicion for murder, her brother Emile plans for Rose-Marie to marry Edward Hawley, a city man.

The work premiered on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on September 2, 1924, running for 557 performances. It was the longest-running Broadway musical of the 1920s until it was surpassed by The Student Prince (1926). It was then produced at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London in 1925, enjoying another extraordinary run of 581 performances. It was filmed in 1928, in 1936 and again in 1954.

The best-known song from the musical is "Indian Love Call". It became Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy's "signature song". Several other numbers have also become standards, including the title song.

Rose-Marie (born 7 February 1956) is a singer, television personality, actress and radio presenter from Northern Ireland. Her parents are Ann and Owen, and she is one of six siblings who were raised on a farm outside Newry, County Down.

Local and international success

While Rose-Marie enjoyed success as a local and national television personality in the United Kingdom, she has also released nineteen albums, all of which have gone either gold or platinum in the UK.

At the International Music Awards, she was voted 'Most Popular Singer', and has sold out at the London Palladium on more than one occasion.

She is a former judge in two series of the BBC talent show Go For It. Other television appearances include The Royal Variety Show, Shooting Stars, Doctors,Big Brother's Little Brother, a documentary of herself and various chat shows. As well as her work on television she has been involved in acting in several stage productions and on radio, and played Rita in the 2001 film, Cold Fish.

Rose-Marie was a 1928 American drama film directed by Lucien Hubbard. It is the first of three MGM adaptations of the 1924 operetta Broadway musical Rose-Marie. The best-known film adaptation starring Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald was released in 1936; another film was released in 1954. All three versions are set in the Canadian wilderness. Portions of Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart's original score for the Broadway musical are utilized in the 1936 and 1954 films, but not for the silent version. This version was filmed on location at Yosemite National Park.

Cast

Joan Crawford, who starred in the 1928 version alongside James Murray, later remarked, "Rose Marie was surprisingly good without the music, but I felt uneasy as a French Canadian, but the critics didn't notice.". The film is considered lost.

Rose Marie or Rose-Marie is the title of the following films, all based on the 1924 light operetta-style Broadway musical Rose-Marie:

Rose Marie Mazetta (born August 15, 1923), known professionally as Rose Marie, is an American actress. As a child performer she had a successful singing career as Baby Rose Marie. A veteran of vaudeville and one of its last surviving stars, her career includes film, records, theater, night clubs and television. Her most famous role was television comedy writer Sally Rogers on the CBS situation comedy The Dick Van Dyke Show. She later portrayed Myrna Gibbons on The Doris Day Show and was also a frequent panelist on the game show Hollywood Squares.

Early years

Rose Marie Mazetta was born in New York City, New York, to Italian-American Frank Mazetta and Polish-American Stella Gluszcak. At the age of three, she started performing under the name "Baby Rose Marie." At five, she became a radio star on NBC and made a series of films. Rose Marie was a nightclub and lounge performer in her teenage years before becoming a radio comedian. She was billed then as "The Darling of the Airwaves". According to her autobiography, Hold the Roses, she was assisted in her career by many members of organized crime, including Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel.

Rose Marie is a 1936 black-and-white musical film starring Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy and Reginald Owen and directed by W. S. Van Dyke. It was the second of three movie adaptations from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer of the 1924 Broadway musical of the same name. A silent version was released in 1928 and a color film in 1954. All three versions are set in the Canadian wilderness. Portions of Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart's original score for the Broadway musical are utilized in both the 1936 and 1954 films.

Although the original plot was changed, and most of the songs were dropped, the 1936 film was a huge success and became MacDonald and Eddy's best-known film. Their duet of "Indian Love Call" was a major hit for the two singers and remained a signature song throughout their careers.

Plot

Marie de Flor (Jeanette MacDonald) is a Canadian soprano performing in Roméo et Juliette in Montreal; the Premier of Quebec is in the audience. Inviting him and his entourage to supper after the performance, she learns from a 'half-breed' man called Boniface (George Regas), that her brother Jack, supposedly in prison for armed robbery, was wounded as he escaped from prison and has killed a Mountie in the process. Making her excuses, she leaves for the Canadian wilderness with Boniface, hoping to help Jack.

Rose Marie is a 1954 musical adaptation of the 1924 operetta of the same name, the third by MGM, following a 1928 silent movie and the best-known of the three, the 1936 Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy version. It is directed by Mervyn LeRoy and stars Ann Blyth, Howard Keel and Fernando Lamas. This version is filmed in the Canadian Rockies in CinemaScope. It was MGM's first film in the new widescreen medium and the first movie musical of any studio to be released in this format.

The story adheres closely to that of the original libretto, unlike the 1936 version. It is somewhat altered by a tomboy to lady conversion for the title character.

Soundtrack

Only 3 numbers are retained: "Rose Marie", "Indian Love Call, and "The Mounties". Five new songs were written for the film: "The Right Place For A Girl", "Free To Be Free", "The Mountie Who Never Got His Man", "I Have The Love", and "Love And Kisses". The latter was filmed, but deleted from the release print (it is included on the DVD version of the film). An Indian totem dance with choreography by Busby Berkeley (his last) takes the place of the original number "Totem Tom Tom". This new number does not make use of that song's music or lyric, despite a claim on the DVD cover.