Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

Mystery of Marie Roget is a 1942 adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story. Now there have been countless movies ostensibly based on stories by Poe many of which have only a tenuous connection with the source material. This movie was based on one of Poe’s three detective stories, stories which have a very strong claim to being the first-ever genuine detective stories. Once again, the Poe connection turns out to be somewhat nebulous.

It does at least feature a character named Dupin. But instead of the brilliant amateur detective C. Auguste Dupin this one, Dr Pierre Dupin (Patric Knowles), is a Paris police detective who appears to be a pioneering forensics scientist.

The setting is Paris in 1889. The very popular musical comedy star Marie Roget has disappeared without a trace. After ten days there seems little hope that she will be found alive. And indeed her dead body is finally found.

Since Marie Roget is played by the star of the movie, Maria Montez, we’re not the least bit surprised when she turns up very much alive. This is not a spoiler. This happens right at the beginning of the movie. The supposed disappearance of Marie Roget is merely the start of the story.

There is certainly a mystery involving Marie Roget. The mystery also involves her sister Camille (Nell O’Day), their eccentric grandmother (played by Maria Ouspenskaya), the grandmother’s pet leopard, a young man named Marcel (Edward Norris) who has been romancing both sisters and a middle-aged government official named Beauvais (John Litel) who is making a fool of himself over Marie.

There is also an immense inheritance at stake.

The grandmother is convinced that an attempt will be made to murder Camille. She wants Dupin to act as bodyguard. Dupin agrees reluctantly, mostly because there is something about Marie’s disappearance that puzzles and fascinates him.

Dupin will play the master detective role, with Lloyd Corrigan as the Prefect of Police Gobelin being the comic relief sidekick.

The plot has some reasonable twists and a few very unconvincing elements. It works well enough overall.

At this stage Universal had not yet figured out what to do with Maria Montez, although they did know they wanted to make her a star. She’s probably a bit miscast here. She also doesn’t get a huge amount to do.

Patric Knowles is not wildly exciting but he’s a serviceable hero. Maria Ouspenskaya has fun as the crazy grandmother. The other cast members are adequate without being dazzling.

Rigid genre boundaries did not exist in Poe’s days and in the first of his Dupin detective stories, The Murder in the Rue Morgue, he incorporated elements we might be more inclined to associate with horror. Universal had had some success with an adaptation of that story and obviously hoped to repeat that success. As a result Mystery of Marie Roget does have a few macabre touches (faceless corpses and body parts stolen from the morgue).

The period setting is done quite well although it certainly does not have a noir look. There’s a pretty decent horse-and-carriage chase and a couple of moderately effective action scenes.

Mystery of Marie Roget is enjoyable enough if you don’t set your expectations too high.

It’s included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: The Dark Side Of Cinema XVI Blu-Ray boxed set. Needless to say Mystery of Marie Roget has not the remotest connection with film noir. The transfer is nice and there are two audio commentaries.