good film but with many flaws

Dreadfully Boring

A Brilliant Conflict

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The Roaring Twenties has come down to us in history as an era of good times and continual partying until that stock market crashed and one could no longer afford to party. Joan Crawford got her first taste of first billing and stardom with Our Dancing Daughter where she does the ultimate Charleston of the Twenties.Crawford at first glance is one wild child, but it's just a pose. Down deep she knows when to put on the brakes. She's got two friends she parties with, Dorothy Sebastian who's reticent now, but at one time was the wildest child of all. Sebastian knows that those loose morals of the past have irreparably damaged her reputation. She'd like to really settle down, but whomever she dates is expecting only one thing.Then there's Anita Page who comes off to her friends as prim and proper, but is really the wildest child of all. She's got a nice image, but when she parties, she really parties.Both are after young Johnny Mack Brown who is playing what he was in real life, a recently graduated All American halfback from the University of Alabama. He likes them both and wants a wife to settle down with, but he's not a good judge of character. In fact he's a bit of a dope. He rejects Crawford and marries Page and regrets it soon enough.MGM was stepping into the age of sound ever so cautiously. Sound effects are heard and several songs of the era are interpolated into a soundtrack either sung or played instrumentally. All these players would be talking soon enough on screen.Our Dancing Daughters is a must for Joan Crawford fans and it's a great look at the culture of the Twenties, the Flapper Culture.

If you have ever stumbled onto one of Joan Crawford's films from the 1950's such as Queen Bee or Sudden Fear, what you see is the caricature of Crawford that she herself seemed to endorse: tough, ballsy and no nonsense. She's inhumane, unreal and kind of scary. You have to wonder where this woman came from and why she is considered a Star. Check out "Our Dancing Daughters" to find out why. At the very least it showcases an appeal that Crawford had that was completely gone by 50s. In it she plays Diana Medford, a rich society girl who is also a great dancer. The plot is simply about a cat fight between Crawford and Anita Page over the rich Ben Blaine (Johnny Mack Brown). Page disparages Crawford to Ben and ends up married to him but Ben never stops loving Diana. Thanks to a melodramatic ending (complete with a drunken confrontation and a fall down a stairs), Diana and Ben end up together (or so it is inferred). So plot wise, there's not much to it and for a lot of people, the film won't hold much appeal outside of seeing what Crawford was like very early in her career. I'm interested by the films of stars that "made" them famous. Too often the films that stars are remembered for aren't really the ones that show their appeal. Take Clark Gable. He's mostly remembered for "Gone With the Wind" but is he really that good in it? I don't think so. He's much better in "Red Dust" and "It Happened One Night". Those are the films where is appeal is very clear. For a somewhat more contemporary view, take someone like Tom Hanks. What is he known for today? "Forrest Gump"? What made Hanks initially appealing to audiences were his comedies like "The Money Pit" or "Turner & Hooch"" and "Splash". Getting back to Crawford and "Our Dancing Daughters" it's this early appealing side of Crawford that is so interesting. She's very attractive here. Not beautiful but very pretty and that's an important distinction: Crawford connected with her female fans (and supposedly her fan mail greatly increased after this movie) because she was accessible, not an aloof, above it all beauty like Garbo. You genuinely feel for her as the movie progresses and then there's a protectiveness that develops in the viewer. At the end, when she "triumphs", you feel like the order of things has been restored. These feelings are due entirely to Crawford. What is fascinating is how completely opposite her later films are. Some of them are grotesques and others just feel clueless like Crawford was trying anything to bring back success. Crawford was good in "Mildred Pierce" but after that each of her films became more strained and some (like "Torch Song") were truly odd and campy. Crawford's legacy would have been completely different had she simply faded away like so many stars of the late 20s and 30s did. Perhaps most are forgotten (does anyone outside of film buffs really talk about Norma Shearer?) but is being remembered now as a grotesque, campy figure any better than being forgotten?

When I give this movie a score of 8, it is relative to other silents of the era. Seen today, viewers might be a little less charitable, though it is still a good and involving film.The first portion frankly did not impress me. You had lots of party animals dancing about and the wildest among these was the flapper, Joan Crawford. She was uninhibited and not exactly the girl you'd take home to meet your folks--although deep down she really was a nice girl. She and the other two ladies featured in the film were trying to balance having a good time with finding a good husband. Unfortunately, Joan didn't play the game so well--convincing the man of her dreams that she wasn't exactly pure and innocent.After Joan's love is taken, the movie moves into high gear. Up until then, the movie looked more like somewhat random film footage of flappers partying--with very little in the way of plot. However, the second half is much more plot driven and interesting. Some of this was because of how frankly the film dealt with sex for 1928 and some was because the overall messages were quite interesting. Joan, while a wild flirt, was a basically honest and decent flirt. Her rival was much more coy and "nice" but a liar through and through--leading to a dandy and rather amazing conclusion scene on the stairs (you have to see it to believe it).An excellent silent Pre-Code film, though you may notice that the film moves too fast and jerky. While this isn't always noticeable, when the people are dancing, they appear to be hyperactive, amphetamine-pumping gerbils!!! This is because someone forgot to adjust the film speed to compensate for the differing frame rates for silents (between 16 and 22 frames per second) and talkies (always 24 frames per second). If the film were restored, the film could be slowed slightly and the occasionally dirty print could be cleaned (there are some hairs stuck on the print in a couple scenes, for instance). TCM or some film archive, I hope you are reading this!!

When Joan Crawford signed with M-G-M studios, her name was Lucille LaSeur. Feeling the name was too long for the marquees, M-G-M held a contest in Photoplay Magazine to find their starlet a new name. "Joan Crawford" was the winning choice. Now with a new identity, the studio cast her in various "flapper roles," with the most famous vehichle; "Our Dancing Daughters." It made her a star and she remained so until her death in 1977.