While London Sleeps

While London Sleeps
While London Sleeps
	Still from the film
Directed by	Howard Bretherton
Written by	Walter Morosco
Starring	Rin Tin Tin; Helene Costello; Walter Merrill
Cinematography	Frank Kesson
Production; company	Warner Bros. Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	November 27, 1926;
Running time	66 minutes; 52 minutes (edited British print)
Country	United States
Language	Silent (English Intertitles)
Budget	$119,000
Box office	$332,000

While London Sleeps is a 1926 Warner Bros. film about a police-dog, Rinty, who helps Scotland Yard defeat a dangerous criminal organisation known as the Mediterranean Brotherhood that operates out of the Limehouse district of London. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process. Walter Morosco wrote the screenplay. It was the first of many films directed by Howard Bretherton, and one of several created for Rin Tin Tin, a German Shepherd dog used in films during the 1920s and 1930s. Only the sound discs to the film survive today with the visual film portions being lost.^[2]^[3] The British release prints censored the more horrific aspects of the film.^[4]

George Kotsonaros only appeared in two horror films, this one and The Wizard (1927), and he played a beast-man in both movies. He died in a car accident in Alabama in 1933.^[4]

Plot

Inspector Burke of Scotland Yard concentrates all his forces on the capture of London Letter, a notorious criminal leader in the Limehouse district who possesses both Rinty, a splendid dog, and a man-beast monster called The Monk who ravages and kills at his master's command. Burke almost apprehends the gang in the midst of an attempted theft, but Rinty's uncanny perceptions foil Burke's coup, and Foster is killed for betraying the gang. When Rinty loses in a fight against another dog, Burke's daughter, Dale, rescues Rinty from London Letter's abuse, and he becomes devoted to his new mistress. At the criminal's order, the monster kidnaps Dale and imprisons her. Burke and his men wound London Letter while on his trail, and Rinty finds him dying. In a ferocious battle, Rinty kills the monster by tearing out his throat.

Cast

Rin Tin Tin as Rinty
Helene Costello as Dale Burke
Walter Merrill as Thomas Hallard
John Patrick as Foster
Otto Matieson as London Letter
George Kotsonaros as The Monk
De Witt Jennings as Inspector Burke
Carl Stockdale as Stokes
Les Bates as Long Tom

Box office

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $235,000 domestically and $97,000 foreign.^[1]

Preservation status

No prints of this film are known to survive suggesting it is lost.^[5] It is on the Lost Film Files list for missing Warner Bros., but the soundtrack survives intact on Vitaphone disks in the UCLA Film and Television Archive.^[6]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Warner Bros financial information in The William Schaefer Ledger. See Appendix 1, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, (1995) 15:sup1, 1-31 p 5 DOI: 10.1080/01439689508604551
^ Soister, John T. (2004). Up from the Vault: Rare Thrillers of the 1920s and 1930s. Jefferson, NC: McFarland Publ. pp. 50–56. ISBN 978-0-7864-1745-2.
^ "Silent Era : Progressive Silent Film List". www.silentera.com.
^ ^a ^b Workman, Christopher; Howarth, Troy (2016). Tome of Terror: Horror Films of the Silent Era. Midnight Marquee Press. p. 308. ISBN 978-1936168-68-2.
^ "While London Sleeps / H.P Bretherton [motion picture]:Bibliographic Record Description: Performing Arts Encyclopedia, Library of Congress". Archived from the original on September 24, 2016. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
^ "Lost Film Files - Warner". www.silentsaregolden.com.