Tenderloin (film)


Tenderloin is a 1928 American part-talkie crime film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Dolores Costello. While the film was a part-talkie, it was mostly a silent film with a synchronized musical score and sound effects on Vitaphone discs. It was produced and released by Warner Bros. Tenderloin is considered a lost film, with no prints currently known to exist.

Plot

Rose Shannon, a dancing girl at "Kelly's," in the "Tenderloin" district of New York City, worships at a distance Chuck White, a younger member of the gang that uses it as their hangout. Chuck's interest in her is as just another toy to play with. Rose is implicated in a crime which she knows nothing about. The police pick her up, and the gang sends Chuck to take care of her in the event she may know or disclose something that will implicate the gang.

Cast

Tenderloin premiered at the Warners' Theatre in New York City on March 14, 1928.
TitleYear
Orpheus in der Unterwelt Overture1927
Beniamino Gigli & Giuseppe de Luca in Duet from Act 1 of "The Pearl Fishers" 1927
Abe Lyman and His Orchestra1928
Xavier Cugat and His Gigolos 1928
Adele Rowland in "Stories in Song"1928

Production

Tenderloin was the second Vitaphone feature with talking sequences that Warner Bros. released, five months after The Jazz Singer. The film contained 15 minutes of spoken dialog, and Warners promoted it as the first film in which actors actually spoke their roles. Reportedly, at the film's premiere, the feature was met with derisive laughter as a result of the film's stilted dialogue, resulting in two of the four talking sequences being eliminated during the first week of the film's premiere run.

Box Office

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $889,000 domestically and $96,000 foreign.