Abie's Irish Rose (1928 film)

1928 film by Victor Fleming

Abie's Irish Rose is a 1928 early sound (part talkie) film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Nancy Carroll, Jean Hersholt, and J. Farrell MacDonald. 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 Western Electric sound on film system. The film based on the 1922 play Abie's Irish Rose by Anne Nichols. The film was later remade in 1946. In the 1930s, author Nichols revealed that her deal with Paramount brought her $300,000 plus half the film's profits.

A Jewish boy, Abie Levy, falls in love with and secretly marries Rosemary Murphy, an Irish Catholic girl, but lies to his family, saying that she's Jewish. The fathers of both bride and groom are at first religiously bigoted toward the other but with the birth of twin grandchildren, their antagonism fades.

The film featured a theme song entitled "Rosemary" which was composed by J. S. Zamecnik and Anne Nichols. A song entitled "Little Irish Rose," also by the same composers, was also featured on the soundtrack.

Only reels 3–6 and 9–12 survive of this film in a silent incomplete copy. There may also be an incomplete copy of reel 8, unverified. All of the surviving reels of the film are held at The Library of Congress in Washington, D. C., and the Vitaphone soundtrack discs for the film still exist complete has been restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The film entered the public domain on January 1, 2024.