The New Pictures, Jul. 14, 1947

New Orleans (United Artists), which deals with early jazz, tries hard to give its subject the love and enthusiasm it deserves. In many respects, the movie does no more than clumsily suggest the fine picture that might be made about jazz. An elementary history of the cellar art, New Orleans barely hints at the fascinating redolence and toughness of New Orleans' red-lighted Storyville, where jazz was born, and little of it is imaginatively filmed.

The plot: the king of Basin Street (Arturo de Cordova) is run out of town by the mother (Irene Rich) of a music-minded debutante (Dorothy Patrick) who likes him and the short-haired music played in Arturo's basement by Louis Armstrong (Louis Armstrong). Arturo and Louis move on to Chicago and finally to world success, which is excuse enough for everybody to kiss and make up.

Some of the people who worked on the film and acted in it plainly have a real feeling for jazz and the feeling shows up on the screen with honesty and warmth. The genial touch of Elliott Paul (see BOOKS) is often clear in the script; the Negro musicians—notably Armstrong, Singer Billie Holiday, Trombonist Kid Ory and Guitarist Bud Scott—act and play their music with freedom and pleasure. At the end, regrettably, jazz becomes "respectable"—probably the worst break it could get.

General audiences will be no more than mildly pleased with New Orleans; even jazz lovers may be let down. But the film does give Louis Armstrong a chance to reproduce some of his best numbers.

Moss Rose (20th Century-Fox) is used in this thriller as a murderer's signature. Every time sinister-looking Victor Mature moves on to a new sweetheart, the flower is found on an open Bible beside the corpse of the girl he has just left. Peggy Cummins, a cockney showgirl who wants to be a lady, blackmails Mature into taking her for a visit to his elegant country mansion. There she hobnobs uneasily with his jealous fiancée (Patricia Medina) and his magnificent old mother (Ethel Barrymore). She also tries to play detective, and falls in love with her main suspect. Next thing she knows, she is in line for the Bible, the moss rose, and the hair's-breadth intervention of Scotland Yard (Vincent Price).

After the first few reels, Moss Rose is not very mysterious, but it is sometimes exciting, even when it doesn't puzzle. Miss Cummins, a luscious little blonde, proves in this film that she certainly has a future in movies, whether she ever becomes much of an actress or not. Mature, who is generally effective in inverse ratio to the amount he talks, has little to say; he has the advantage of being under suspicion and looks like a million dollars in counterfeit money. Miss Barrymore, trapped in foolish lines and a none-too rewarding role, appears often to be debating whether to kid the daylights out of her job or to throw it, with a queenly yawn, at Director Gregory Ratoff's head. But the habits of a lifetime prove too much for her, and foolish role or not, she gets off some first-rate croaks and eyeflashes.