Projecting the Archive

Moss Rose

+ intro by Josephine Botting, BFI Curator

A London music-hall dancer gets mixed up in murder when she inveigles her way into high society in this post-war Hollywood thriller.

  • Director

    Gregory Ratoff

  • With

    Peggy Cummins, Victor Mature, Ethel Barrymore, Vincent Price

  • USA 1947. 82min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    PG

  • A BFI National Archive print

We mark the centenary of Peggy Cummins with a film from her Hollywood period – one of three collaborations with director Ratoff. Marjorie Bowen’s 1934 source novel was itself based on an unsolved Victorian murder and this adaptation features Cummins as a Cockney chorus girl who blackmails a rich gentleman she suspects of being the killer. Despite the excellent cast and crack screenwriting team, the film didn’t enhance Cummins’ stateside career. Nevertheless, it remains an entertaining mystery thriller set against the backdrop of foggy Victorian London, Hollywood-style.

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