Hardboiled Rose
Encyclopedia
Hardboiled Rose is a 62-minute part-talkie
Part-talkie
A part-talkie is a partly, and most often primarily, silent film which includes one or more synchronous sound sequences with audible dialog or singing. During the silent portions lines of dialog are presented as "titles" -- printed text briefly filling the screen -- and the soundtrack is used only...

 released by Warner Brothers and starring Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...

, William Collier Jr.
William Collier
William Collier, Jr. was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films.-Biography:Collier was born as Charles F. Gal, Jr. in New York City...

, and John Miljan
John Miljan
John Miljan was an American actor of Serbian origin. He appeared in 201 films between 1924 and 1958.He died from cancer.-Selected filmography:* The Lone Chance * Silent Sanderson...

.

Plot

A Southern belle (Loy) must work in a gambling house to pay off her father's debts, which drove him to suicide. She then meets a man who takes her away from it all.

Cast

  • Myrna Loy
    Myrna Loy
    Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...

     as Rose Dunhamel
  • William Collier Jr.
    William Collier
    William Collier, Jr. was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films.-Biography:Collier was born as Charles F. Gal, Jr. in New York City...

     as Edward Malo
  • John Miljan
    John Miljan
    John Miljan was an American actor of Serbian origin. He appeared in 201 films between 1924 and 1958.He died from cancer.-Selected filmography:* The Lone Chance * Silent Sanderson...

     as Steve Wallace
  • Gladys Brockwell
    Gladys Brockwell
    Gladys Brockwell was an American actress whose career began during the silent film era.-Early life:Born Gladys Lindeman in Brooklyn, New York, she was the daughter of a chorus girl who put her on stage at a very early age. By the time she reached her middle teens, she was already a veteran and...

     as Julie Malo
  • Lucy Beaumont
    Lucy Beaumont
    Lucy Beaumont was an English actress of the stage and screen from Bristol, England. She was the daughter of Sir Albert and Helen Coles. She was educated at a young ladies' college in Bath, England....

     as Grandmama Dunhamel
  • Ralph Emerson as John Trask
  • Edward Martindel
    Edward Martindel
    Edward Martindel was an American stage and film actor. He appeared on Broadway and in 89 films between 1915 and 1946....

     as Jefferson Dunhamel
  • Otto Hoffman
    Otto Hoffman
    Otto Hoffman was an American film actor. He appeared in 199 films between 1915 and 1944.He was born in New York and died in Los Angeles, California from lung cancer.-Selected filmography:* The Haunted Bedroom...

     as Apyton Hale
  • Floyd Shackelford as butler

Production

This was Loy's second starring role in a movie, after Turn Back the Hours (1928). Hardboiled Rose would become Myrna Loy's last part-talkie. After this movie Myrna Loy would make all-talking movies, with some filmed in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

. Loy's early talkies in Technicolor were The Desert Song
The Desert Song (1929 film)
The Desert Song is a musical operetta film photographed partly in two-color Technicolor. This was the first movie released by Warner Bros. to be in color. Although some of the songs from the show have been omitted, the film is otherwise virtually a duplicate of the stage production...

(1929, Warner Brothers' first movie released in color), The Show of Shows (1929), and Under a Texas Moon (1930, the second all color-all talking movie to be filmed outdoors).

In 1933, Loy's Warners contract ended and she signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

. In 1934, Myrna Loy made two movies with MGM that would make her a big star for the next 20 years, Manhattan Melodrama
Manhattan Melodrama
Manhattan Melodrama is a 1934 crime melodrama film, produced by MGM, directed by W. S. Van Dyke, and starring Clark Gable, William Powell, and Myrna Loy...

and The Thin Man
The Thin Man (film)
The Thin Man is a 1934 American comic detective film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a flirtatious married couple who banter wittily as they solve crimes with ease. Nick is a hard drinking retired detective and Nora a wealthy heiress...

.

Sound

According to T.V. Guide.com's review of Hardboiled Rose, the talking sequences were added to the movie later in production. All studios were converting to sound, so major studio releases had to be at least a part-talkie.

Film preservation

The film elements for Hardboiled Rose still survive, but the soundtrack which was recorded on Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

 discs, is lost except the fourth reel disc.

See also

  • Vitaphone
    Vitaphone
    Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

  • Myrna Loy filmography
    Myrna Loy filmography
    - Notes :All of Loy's films released prior to The Desert Song were silent except where noted. All of Loy's films were produced in the United States except for That Dangerous Age which was produced in Great Britain....

  • Silent movies
    Silent Movies
    Silent Movies are 13 solo guitar compositions by Marc Ribot released September 28, 2010 on Pi Recordings.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating "For those interested in one of the more compelling and quietly provocative and graceful guitar records of 2010,...

  • List of Warner Bros. films
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