Ballroom blitz… Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Kennington Bioscope with John Sweeney

 

Joan Crawford is doubtless the best example of the flapper, the girl you see in smart night clubs, gowned to the apex of sophistication, toying iced glasses with a remote, faintly bitter expression, dancing deliciously, laughing a great deal, with wide, hurt eyes. Young things with a talent for living.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

It’s been a long time since I last watched this film and, as ever when viewing Joan Crawford through the lens of her later power roles, it’s fascinating to see her strengths absolutely in place with this, her major break out role. Whilst Crawford had worked her way in successful but slight comedies like Spring Fever with William Haines, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp with Harry Langdon and most memorably in Tod Browning's gonzo The Unknown with Lon Chaney, Our Dancing Daughters was the film that turned her into a major star. And it’s easy to see why.

In his introduction, Chris Bird quoted her co-star Anita Page in highlighting how hard she worked and there’s not an ounce of effort left off-screen as Joan wrenches every last drop of drama from what could have been a routine exercise. Of course, we know now, but who knew at the time, who really knew what magic she could create on screen with her energies and almost subconscious emoting pulling the viewer in to those huge, bright blue eyes and a face that could switch from triumph to disaster in the flicker of her eyelids… and it’s heart-breaking to watch. Difficult to credit that she was just 20 when this film was made or possibly 24… she updated the year although not the date, 23^rd March, of her birth.

Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastien

With so many silent films under her belt before the advent of sound, she is one of the major examples, along with Garbo and her nemesis Norma Shearer, of silent stars who transitioned to sound but she enjoyed a longer career than those two and her renaissance post war was reflected by three Oscar nominations and a win for Mildred Pierce (1946). She wasn’t done yet either, continuing to refine the talent she had and breaking down barriers of age and preconceptions.

Here she plays Diana Medford an energetic jazz baby who is running wild in a very Clara Bow fashion, in a hurry to have a good time whatever her parents expect. The film starts with the camera focused on a pair of feet dancing ferociously in front of three full-length mirrors, the feet carry on their complex movement as, cheekily, a pair of pantyhose are pulled up over them. The camera pulls back to show a full-clothed and party-ready Joan dancing like the Charleston champion she had been on route to the movies.

“Dangerous” Di is a party animal but when asked to raise a toast, toasts herself as she wants to be able to be able to like herself all of her life and this is the key to a film that stresses the importance of being true to yourself. Di’s best friend is Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastien) who is less vivacious but steadfastly so and then there is Anni (Anita Page) a girl who is anything but as innocent as she looks – she wants to marry well and more importantly, so does her mother.

Anita Page and John Mack Brown

They have variable relationships with the men in their social group, the mischievous Freddie (Edward Nugent), the serious Norman (Nils Asther) and the seriously loaded Ben (John Mack Brown). Di and Anni have a competition for the millionaire’s affection which Ann wins through guile and pretending to be the innocent girl that Di is not. Yet Di won’t compromise her way into Ben’s affections and she suffers for it even though – red flag! – Ben is clearly lacking instinct!

Meanwhile Beatrice marries the controlling Norman and they struggle to balance their relationship. Even though Ben realises his mistake it seems that only the amoral schemer has got what she wanted and things are set for an almighty showdown and a dramatic climax.

There's a lovely moment when a drunken Anni looks down on three washer women scrubbing the floor of the night club: "Women, women... working!" – she finds them ridiculous and unreal but is this the future calling? Written by Ruth Cummings, with titles by Marian Ainslee from a story by Josephine Lovett, it’s a “woman’s film” in many respects and it was her ability to connect with her sisters in the audience that would make Joan Crawford an immortal star.

 

The Red Devils Jazz Band

Crawford won competitions not just for the Charleston but also the Black Bottom – so called after the Black Bottom area of Detroit where it was invented in the early 1920s. During the first half of the show Chris Bird treated us to some rare and probably unique films on 95mm including one which he says was recorded in Paris featuring The Red Devils Jazz Band and a couple dancing the BB. This featured a slow-motion section so jazz babies could work out the moves ourselves although it’s beyond me even with the annual Bioscope Silent Film Weekender in a few days. I can reveal that it’s a more suggestive dance than the Charleston and what it lacks in the latter’s delightful angularity it makes up for in more frenetic limb throwing and the frequent grasping of the sides between your torso and your legs. This is an important document and one we need to study further.

DJ Bird also made a welcome return pre-show with a variety of 78 rpm nuggets including - I'm guesssing - Jack Hylton and His Orchestra playing Do the Black Bottom with Me (1927). He certainly played the madly infectious Jollity Farm, later made famous by the Bonzo Dog Doo-dah Band. Now, if you’ve ever wondered where Mr Vivian Stanshall got the name from, we were about to find out with an episode of Bonzo the Dog an anarchic canine created in 1922 by British comic strip artist George Studdy and the subject of some 35 short cartoon films. Here he teams up with a fox to evade the hunt a sure sign of the growing influence of the labour movement in Great Britain at the time…

 

Our King of Jazz projected by Chris Bird

Back to jazz and a world premiere of a nitrate short featuring Jack Hylton, Britain’s King of Jazz, playing as part of the Playtime at the Piccadilly cabaret at the Piccadilly Hotel that Chris had exchanged for some cartoons with a collector in America. He asked big band expert Mark Beresford about the dating and he estimated 1926-7 but it may be even earlier given the songs featured. These included Vamp Me from 1922 and My Cretonne Girl written by Earl Carroll for his Vanities of 1923 as a love song for a young woman wearing the fabric in questions which, according to the online Britannica, is a printed fabric usually made from cotton which was used to make smocks for women.

This might be the only surviving record of this band line-up, which had played in Jack Hylton’s Cabaret Follies at the Queen’s Hall, Langham Place, from autumn 1922 to mid-1924, although Hylton gave up control at the end of 1923 (according to fabulous The Jazz Age Club website). So, this film could well be his next review at the Piccadilly Hotel.

Also on the bill were a dancing troupe of eight simply called The Girls – probably the Dolly Girls, dressed by Dolly Tree and previously featuring in Dolly’s Revels at the Piccadilly with Jack’s band. They are four dressed as Cretonne clothed country girls and four in male drag, illustrating the music in the manner of a prototypical Pan’s People. Dolly was a busy woman and the Jazz Age Club website has her in London for ’24-’25 working on this review, further evidence of its date.

We're all Pan's People really... (image from Chris Bird's film)

They are followed by “Leo Bill”, a ventriloquist who has the exact same M.O. as the Spanish vent, Senor Wences who had an extraordinary career after joining the circus aged 15 and then starring on stage and screen, eventually featuring on the Ed Sullivan Show and then The Muppets, living to 101 years of age. The trick was to paint a face on his hand and use this as the head on top of a dummy’s body – here Toto but later Johnny and variations of the same. The dates fit and there’s a facial resemblance so I’m calling it, especially as there couldn’t be two vents with this bizarre technique.

Next we have two gents from New York, Brooks and Ross who sing Wild, Weak Warm and Willing which was a shortening of  the full title: I Want 'Em Wild, Weak, Warm and Willing published in1923. And written by Sam Coslow and Eddie Cantor, yes, he of the wide-eyes and Clara’s Kid Boots (1926), for the Ziegfield Follies.

You can download the sheet music here... 

The Girls return in one-legged costumes to dance to I’m Just Wild Over Dancing, which they clearly are… in the manner of “jazz agents” whilst Jack, facing away from his band, holds the rhythm in his hands. Two “Bolsheviks” join the dance, throwing some vaguely Cossack steps but this ain’t no history lesson… It’s murder on the dancefloor but next there are two dancers in Hawaiian costumes and you wonder where the music is leading us? And all the while, Jack is smiling and I’m sure the audience is too!

Zelia Raye takes to the floor with the band and The Girls watching (image courtesy of Chris Bird)

Now for some culture with ballerina Zelia Raye who was a pioneer of modern dance in the UK, eventually establishing the Modern Theatre Faculty at the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. “Straight from Paris”, Josephine Head and Albert Zapp follow and perform to Vamp Me! with the odd hint of the Apache dancing to be found in many depictions of the City of Light at this time. Finally, The Girls return to dance Hooting de Hoot which is as poignant appraisal of the contemporary political situation as you’ll find…

John Sweeney put on his dancing shoes and accompanied the variety with verve, stamina and distinction – it was a foot-tapping evening and we were only lacking a rug to cut! This was probably for the best.

 

This film captures the dances in particular in clear detail and it is so rare for this vintage. More than that it shows the spirit of the jazz age in this country and is a significant discovery reflecting the entertainments and the style of our great grandparents!

 

Pictures from the Projectionist Chris Bird

The film itself - you can see the different tinted sections (Chris Bird)

Chris's projector: a Specto with enhanced lighting

Lost in transition… Our Blushing Brides (1930)

 Wiki-parently this was Joan Crawford’s 31st film (out of a career total of 86) and her 4th sound film – a third of her films were silent - made when she was just 26 and still in the process of becoming “Joan Crawford”.

Her diction is deliberately modulated to enable the microphones to pick up something approximating a received pronunciation north eastern American accent – this gal doesn’t sound like she’s from the Bronx let alone San Antonio, Texas… that she manages to act through these constraints is a wonder and a measure of her talent.

Crawford, Page and Sebastien again!

Our Blushing Brides follows loosely on from Our Dancing Daughters (very good), Our Modern Maidens (so-so) and is a mixed bag of genre and tone incorporating shop-girl comedy, dance spectacular, rom-com and melodrama shifting sometimes awkwardly between happy and really bloomin’ sad. Throughout it all, the camera is focused on Joan in and out of a variety of stunning gowns and frankly very pre-code lingerie… Ever get the feeling you’re being exploited?

It proves to be a very uneven experience and for stretches leaves you marooned in one of its pockets of coherence as you wait for the narrative to move along whilst, other-times, it just ups and jumps to its (sometimes-inevitable) conclusions without taking the characters and the audience through the steps to get there…

Laughs!

And yet… there are laughs, snap-chatty inter-play between the three female leads and a catwalk over-flowing with dancing mannequins all wearing the finest in elegant sewing or haute couture to you. Then there’s Joan, as expressive and energetically-focused as ever: this feels like a reasonably aerobic work-out for her but she’s clearly playing within her limits – half actress half athlete.

She gets good support from Dorothy Sebastian – ideal best friend material for Miss Crawford; capable of keeping up without overshadowing the front-runner. Also good is Anita Page who performs the seemingly impossible feet of having larger and prettier eyes than Joan. Joan has to work her lids to show her peepers to full effect but Anita just has to blink. A more natural comedian than Crawford her role is all the more tragic for that.

Legs!!

The three women play a hat-trick of shop workers who all perform different roles in Jardine’s Department Store and share a humble brownstone flat on their $20 weekly pay. Joan is Geraldine "Gerry" March a model or “mannequin” – who shows off the stores finest clothes to the well-off patrons whilst Anita is Connie Blair who works in the perfume counter whilst Dorothy’s Francine Daniels sells blankets in home furnishings.

As with all store-slaves they dream of escape and it seems Connie may well have found hers in the form of the owner’s second son David Jardine (Raymond Hackett). Gerry is less certain and has a natural distrust of male motivations no doubt having been once or twice-bitten. She attracts the attention of David’s elder brother Tony (Robert Montgomery) who ogles her during a fashion show and tries his luck but it turns out that Gerry doesn’t just play at hard-to-get: she is.

Lingerie!!!

Then Francine, almost despairing of a lucky break, meets a mustachioed charmer Marty Sanderson (John Miljan) who orders $500 worth of blankets for his hotel and arranges a date at the same time: he’s in the money and she’s not bothering to check the gift-horse’s teeth…

Relationships move to the next level very quickly: Francine and Marty have a quick-fire drunken wedding much to Gerry’s concern whilst Connie soon moves into an apartment courtesy of David and it’s surely only a matter of time before he makes their relationship public.

Jeepers, creepers... check out Anita's peepers!

Then the film decides it’s time for a huge set-piece as a flamboyant fashion designer arrives to greet old pal Tony and arrange a massive show at the family pile… spotting Gerry he decides to make her the centre-piece. The limos arrive to find a massive stage erected on the vast Jardine estate and the nonsense begins with long minutes of Joan high-kicking and knicker-revealing in a flowing white dress. Swoosh, spin and bend: take that Mr Hays!!

What a swell party this is

Tony is naturally very impressed and takes Gerry off for a quite walk in the woods to show her his electronic tree house (haven’t you got one?). At the flick of a switch a large apartment is revealed and a stairway is lowered… Climbing up Gerry finds the room full of all the home comforts and yet, when Tony pulls up the stairs she feels cheated by this house-trap/tree-trick. Gerry had thought better of Tony and yet when he tries to man-splain his worldly-wise ways she realises he’s not one to trust before a tryst.

Tony's on third strike

Disgusted Gerry departs and refuses to give Tony a second chance: a line that impresses as a third chance is also spurned. Gerry leaves to live alone as expectations are momentarily confounded… Then things begin to unravel as life and the narrative takes a turn for the worse all round as the film finally decides it’s a drama after all with music and comedy put aside for the final fraught thirty minutes.

At the time Our Blushing Brides did good business and it’s not hard to see why: it was built to succeed by ticking so many boxes it could almost be a multiple choice examination on how to make a Hollywood winner. It’s a thoroughly-professional endeavour from all concerned and whilst it doesn’t engage in the way that Our Dancing Daughters did, it prefigures the mass ensemble back-stage musical dramas that were to follow.

Such a show off

It was also another staging post in the rise of the remarkable Joan – her diction and tone would improve but the look and the intensity was already in place as evidenced throughout her silent successes.

Our Blushing Brides is available on Warner Archive DVD-R either direct or from Amazons.

Don't worry dear, he liked it really...

Joan Crawford in... Our Dancing Daughters (1928)

Every time I see Joan Crawford she gets younger. Of all the stars of the twenties she was the one who perhaps had the greatest career in sound and I know her best from those films of the 40s and 50s.

I watched Johnny Guitar a few months back – what a stunningly odd film that is, but all the better for it – and to see the same intelligent hood-eyed stare from Joan a full 26 years’ earlier is testament to her consistency and ability.

Whilst Crawford had earlier been in successful but slight comedies like Spring Fever with William Haines (a superb comic actor who lost his stardom to homophobic prejudice) and Tramp, Tramp, Tramp with a fading Harry Langdon (she was also in Tod Browning's truly bizarre The Unknown with Lon Chaney), Our Dancing Daughters was the film that turned her into a major star. And it’s easy to see why.

Joan plays Diana Medford an energetic jazz baby who seems to be the life and soul of every party. The film starts at breaktaking pace with the camera focused on a pair of dancing feet in front of a mirror, the feet carry on their movement as, cheekily, a pair of pantyhose are pulled up over them. The camera pulls back to show a full-clothed and party-ready, Joan dancing like the Charleston champion she was in real life.

Di goes down stairs to say goodnight to her folks – "...see you at five!" – and to be toasted by a trio of male admirers. She decides to toast herself as she wants to be able to like herself all of her life…it seems a strange thing to say but it’s key.

Off they go to the party were the various characters are revealed and Joan gets to blast the floor some more. Di’s best friend is Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastien) who is seemingly more straight-laced and sensible and Anni (a great performance from Anita Page who really gives herself to the role) a girl who is anything but as innocent as she looks – she wants to marry well and that precludes everyother option.

They have variable relationships with the men in the group, the mischievous Freddie (Edward Nugent), the serious Norman (Nils Asther) and the seriously loaded Ben (John Mack Brown).
Di spies Ben and take an immediate interest but gets pulled away to dance leaving the way open for Ann to make a play.

A competition takes place for the millionaire’s affection which Ann wins through guile and pretending to be the innocent girl that Di is not. Yet Di is true to herself and won’t compromise her way into Ben’s affections.

He falls for Ann’s impersonation and the two are married. Ann is triumphant and doesn’t mind who knows it and at the same time she continues a fling with Freddie behind Ben’s back: she’s got what she wants and doesn’t think she can be displaced.

Too late Ben realises that it was Di he loved after all but she has resolved to tour Eurpoe and to leave the scene of her disappointment. At the same time Bea has married uptight Norman who cannot forgive her past and tries to exclude her old friends.

It seems that only the amoral schemer has got what she wanted and things are set for an almighty showdown and a dramatic climax.

What is so interesting about the story is how it plays with preconceptions. The flapper turns out to be the decent gal and when Di toasted her good character and her ability to live with herself she really meant it. Ann is also true to herself but she is totally cynical and sees manipulation and “real politik” as the only means of obtaining her goals.

The rest are less sure of themselves and are in various states of confusion even though they may find their way forward – Bea is essentially decent and we hope Norman is too.

Written by three women, Josephine Lovett, Marion Ainslee and Ruth Cummings, Our Dancing Daughters is very much a film dominated by the female leads and that, coupled with its balanced view of youthful high spirits marks it apart from the formulaic moral tale it could have been.

There's a lovely moment when a drunken Annikins looks down on three washer women scrubbing the floor of the night club: "Women, women...working!" Josephine, Marion and Ruth obviously knew that reaction well enough.

And, Joan Crawford is sensational…there's a particular set of the jaw that she carries when faced with opposition and it is the same warring against Anita Page as it is facing down mad Mercedes McCambridge all those years later in Johnny Guitar. What an intelligent and centred actress she was and, all legend aside, she seems to have been immensly hard-working and driven.

Here she is naturalistic and believable. Her character is a winning one and that is all the more impressive given the subject matter. This is a party gal but one who we will see to be true to herself, honest and fair. It would take a superior talent to make that line work in any time, that Joan does it here is testiment to the small revolution of her coming.

Our Dancing Daughters is available through Amazon and all good retailers. Now, having outlined the plot of The Unkown to my disbelieving wife, I have to persuade her to watch it!