Our Dancing Daughters (1928)Listed as a "silent" movie but actually an early synched-score movie with intertitles, and it's a really good one. If you think a dance and music movie can't be silent, check this out. Yes, it's 1928, less than a year after "The Jazz Singer," but we see a full blown plot about infidelity, some pretty terrific photography, and dancing like only 1928 can offer.The star is the ever self-aware Joan Crawford.But there is a whole slew of beautiful "girls" on hand here, daughters all of them, and parents with different kinds of acceptance and worry. All these young women are going out to party hard, and some disguise their intentions and others just let loose. There are lots of scenes for the men in the audience—women dressed in as little as possible for the times (which was quite little, before the 1934 Code) and lots of legs and bright faces and big eyes. That of course is also the downfall of what is a pretty amazing movie, filled with crazy fun dancing. Crawford was famous for her dancing (she won lots of trophies going out to local competitions—and I mean Crawford, not any character). We see it here. She's the wildest of the women (she tells one suitor she is "Diana the Dangerous"), and one parent even bemoans that their sweet girl is cavorting with the likes of such a wild one.But what else does this movie offer? Great question. I think it might be about courtship, or falling into superficial love, or maybe just how to snake a rich due with some lifted gauzy skirts. The men don't have much to offer, or show—they are fully clad in expensive tux-like suits. Alas. It's worth saying, as a photographer, that the visuals are really nice even if the camera is often stuck to a tripod. The use of very shallow focus (allowing for great soft backgrounds behind the sharp foreground figures), and the atmospherics of the place (the rocky coast, or the rainy day) are great. This is no German Expressionist film— nothing that remarkable—but George Barnes does what the film needs really nicely. (He did Hitchcock's "Rebecca," to give you an idea of his talent.) You have to see it with this in mind to get it, and then you'll see what I mean, especially the very very careful shallow focus.In the end this is all about boy meets girl…and the matchmaking and the engagements and the cheating. It's a fast ride, and if not especially deep or complex, it's fun and wonderfully immoral. I'll say, if you don't like silent movies you should skip this, I think. There are too many silent movie qualities here (like some of the exaggerated reactions, and the stiff over-telling of the story) to keep you going unless you are used to it. But there is a lot of the fun 1920s stuff here if you are prepared for the style. I liked it more than I expected, and some of it even made me wistful and appreciative.

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?

Our Dancing Daughters (1928) *** (out of 4) This here is without question one of the most popular silent film and one that new fans seem to discover each passing year. The film isn't known for being great but for turning Joan Crawford into a movie star. In the film she plays Diana, a good natured girl with the reputation of being a party animal. Her best friend Ann (Anita Page) is a real gold digger who doesn't have a good bone in her body. Diana eventually falls for a guy named Ben (Johnny Mack Brown) and while he eventually falls for her, the reputation keeps him at distance but he makes a mistake when he falls for Ann who is only after one thing no matter what act she puts on for him. This certainly isn't the greatest movie ever made but there's enough entertainment here for fans of Crawford to want to check it out. Silent film fans will also want to check it out as it's another early attempt at putting sound onto a film. The synchronized soundtrack consists of various crowd noises in the background as well as a few lines of dialogue being spoken by people in the background. I'm sure this was very exciting back in 1928 but today it sounds incredibly fake and rather funny. Outside of that the movie delivers a lot of great performances, which is the real reason to check this out. Crawford is wonderful as the bright eyed, soft hearted girl and she really delivers a very memorable character. I loved the way she pulls off being goofy one second but at the snap of a finger she could switch gears and make it believable. Page never seems to get the credit she deserves but she too is good here and makes for a great villain. The ending where she and Crawford really go at it was wonderfully pulled off. Johnny Mack Brown, Mils Asther and Dorothy Sebastian, as the third friend, also do nice work. The actual ending and how this triangle gets worked out is really forced and rather stupid but it's only a mild error. This jazz age love story does a nice job at capturing the youth of this era and that's enough to make the film worth checking out. Throw in the performances and you've got a nice little gem that should keep most entertained.