The Rogue Song

The Rogue Song is a 1930 American pre-Code romantic and musical film that tells the story of a Russian bandit who falls in love with a princess, but takes his revenge on her when her brother rapes and kills his sister. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production was directed by Lionel Barrymore and released in two versions, with and without sound. Hal Roach wrote and directed the Laurel and Hardy sequences and was not credited. The film stars Metropolitan Opera singer Lawrence Tibbett—who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance—and Catherine Dale Owen. Laurel and Hardy were third-billed; their sequences were filmed at the last minute and interspersed throughout the film in an attempt to boost its potential box-office appeal.

This film, MGM's first all-talking Technicolor film, is partially lost as there are no known complete prints of this film. Fragments do exist.

The story takes place in the Russian Empire in the year 1910. Yegor (Lawrence Tibbett), a dashing (as well as singing) bandit leader meets Princess Vera (Catherine Dale Owen) at a mountain inn. They fall in love, but the relationship is shattered when Yegor kills Vera's brother, Prince Serge, for raping his sister, Nadja, and driving her to suicide. Yegor kidnaps Vera, forcing her to live a life of lowly servitude among the bandits. Vera manages to outwit Yegor, who is captured by soldiers and flogged. Vera begs Yegor's forgiveness. Although still in love with each other, they realize they cannot be together.

There were eight comic episodes throughout the film in which Laurel and Hardy appeared. One of these has survived on film. In this scene, there is a storm and a tent is blown away revealing Stan and Oliver. They try to sleep without any cover. A bear enters a cave. Stan and Oliver decide to seek shelter in the cave and, because it is so dark, they can't see the bear. Oliver thinks that Stan is wearing a fur coat. The bear begins to growl. Stan and Oliver flee.

Another segment, in which Laurel swallows a bee, has also survived on the trailer to the film, which has survived almost intact.

The film is MGM's first all-talking, all-color (Technicolor) production. It was also the screen debut of Lawrence Tibbett, a world-renowned star of the Metropolitan Opera. The film is notable today as Laurel and Hardy's first and only appearance in a color feature film (all of their feature films before and after were shot in black-and-white; their only other professionally shot color film was the wartime short The Tree in a Test Tube), although they were only minor players in the film.

The film was adapted from the score of the operetta Gipsy Love, with a new story by Robert Bodanzky and A. M. Willner and only "a little" of the music in Franz Lehár's score.

Production was supervised by Paul Bern, and the anticipated 30-day shooting schedule began on August 29, 1929. The studio executives' response to the daily "rushes" was that the film was not working well and needed help. MGM borrowed Laurel and Hardy from Hal Roach, and after negotiations between Roach and Thalberg, Roach agreed to write and direct their scenes. The final film has eight scenes with the comedy duo. Principal photography ended on October 11.