Hardboiled Rose

Hardboiled Rose
Hardboiled Rose
	Lobby card
Directed by	F. Harmon Weight
Written by	Darryl F. Zanuck (story); Robert Lord (screenplay); Joseph Jackson (titles)
Starring	Myrna Loy; William Collier, Jr.; John Miljan
Cinematography	William Rees
Edited by	William Holmes
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. (as Warner Brothers Production)
Release date	March 30, 1929;
Running time	5 reels (silent version); 6 reels (sound version)
Country	United States
Languages	Sound (Part-Talkie); English Intertitles

Hardboiled Rose is a 1929 American sound part-talkie romantic drama film directed by F. Harmon Weight and released by Warner Bros. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The soundtrack was recorded using the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system. The film starred Myrna Loy, William Collier, Jr., and John Miljan.

Plot[edit]

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 sweeps her off her feet and takes her away from it all.

Cast[edit]

Myrna Loy as Rose Dunhamel
William Collier, Jr. as Edward Malo
John Miljan as Steve Wallace
Gladys Brockwell as Julie Malo
Lucy Beaumont as Grandmama Dunhamel
Ralph Emerson as John Trask
Edward Martindel as Jefferson Dunhamel
Otto Hoffman as Apyton Hale
Floyd Shackelford as Butler

Production[edit]

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. Loy's early talkies in Technicolor were The Desert Song (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. In 1934, Myrna Loy made two movies with MGM that would make her a big star for the next 20 years, Manhattan Melodrama and The Thin Man.

Sound[edit]

According to TV 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[edit]

The film elements for Hardboiled Rose still survive, but the soundtrack which was recorded on Vitaphone discs, is lost except the fourth reel disc.^[1]