Hardboiled Rose

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
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

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