6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Look out, Jake Luva. That sinuous moll cuddling up to you on the dance floor isn't the floozy she seems. She's Bonnie Jordan, ex-society girl and current undercover reporter, investigating a murder that has your fingerprints all over it. She has what it takes, all right — to take you and your crime empire down.
Starring: Joan Crawford, Lester Vail, Cliff Edwards, William Bakewell, William Holden (II)Romance | 100% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.2:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.2:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
An early sound showcase for Joan Crawford's considerable talents as well as her first on-screen pairing with frequent "collaborator" Clark Gable, Harry Beaumont's Dance, Fools, Dance is a pre-Code melodrama that packs a lot into just 81 minutes. Maybe a little too much, even: it concerns the fall, rise, and second life of two formerly wealthy siblings, both of whom work opposing sides of a bootlegger's ruthless organization and may not make it out alive.
Sadly, a fierce rivalry between Luva's organization and a competing gang leads to multiple murders investigated by Bonnie's friend and fellow reporter Bert Scranton (Cliff Edwards), and she's the perfect candidate to dig deeper. Still unaware of Rodney's involvement with Luva, she infiltrates his swanky nightclub as performer "Mary Smith" and he immediately falls for her. As expected, the web only gets more tangled as both Bonnie and Rodney's separate but similar charades go on... especially after she has to make a hasty escape from Luva's pawing advances.
Dance, Fools, Dance is something of a mini-epic, making several stops and detours through 81 melodramatic minutes. It takes longer than expected to really get going and doesn't find a comfortable groove until right around the halfway point, but is well-acted and at least interesting even during its less impressive stretches, and to its credit makes us genuinely care for two spoiled rich kids to actually have to face real life. Its better moments are well above average for an early pre-Code film of this vintage, as select members of the cast have exceptionally good chemistry and other fundamentals are solid too, including its production design and gradually more claustrophobic atmosphere.
Committed to preserving films as far back as the WB and MGM vaults will take them, Warner Archive's excellent Blu-ray presentation of Dance,
Fools, Dance is yet another fine effort from the boutique label. Although its new A/V restoration may not score quite as high as their other
titles on paper, it's a proportionately solid effort that will appeal to fans of pre-Code cinema and features a handful of solid extras including an MGM
documentary newly scanned in HD.
Sourced from a new 4K scan of the original nitrate camera negative, Dance, Fools, Dance looks overwhelmingly solid during the bulk of its brief running time with a clean and stable appearance that keeps its original film textures intact. Fine detail is impressive in close-ups of faces, hair, and costume details, with a reasonable amount of depth and steady black levels that don't succumb to crush. Stray moments, from single shots to a handful of short scenes, show a slight dip in quality with softer textures, lower grain levels, and broader contrast, even exhibiting trace amounts of blooming; in all honesty, had it not been advertised as sourced entirely from the negative I might have guessed these were brief interpositive inserts. But considering Dance, Fools, Dance is well past its 90th birthday, this is truly a best-case scenario for fans of pre-code Hollywood: not only is it a generally excellent-looking restoration, but as usual Warner Archive's welcome Blu-ray is expertly encoded and avoids any tangible amount of compression artifacts.
Things are little more complicated in the audio department, but not for lack of trying. Warner Archive's DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix -- a split presentation of its original mono source -- again sounds generally good, although source-related issues stand a bit more in the way this time. The most noticeable is persistent hiss which, during some scenes, might make one think that Dance, Fools, Dance was shot a few hundred meters away from a river or waterfall. It's not always distracting... but it's never not noticeable, if that makes sense. (One other curious defect arrives at the 72:40 mark, where a short, two-word remark by Clark Gable's character is mouthed but no dialogue is heard.) Regarding the former, a light hand on the controls was probably required to preserve the film's fragile dynamic range, which otherwise dodges most era-specific issues with intelligible dialogue and background effects. The end result is clearly an adequate effort under the circumstances, though it's hardly the best-sounding disc on Warner Archive's résumé.
Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature only, not the extras listed below.
This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with bold red poster-themed cover artwork and no inserts of any kind. Bonus features include an excellent mid-length historical documentary and two vintage Merrie Melodies shorts.
Harry Beaumont's Dance, Fools, Dance isn't quite at the level of "forgotten masterpiece", but it's a minor early career highlight for both Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, who would be linked together on and off movie sets during the next decade. At a surprisingly slim 81 minutes, it nonetheless has the scope of a longer film and, though it doesn't quite hit every target, this one's well worth a watch for fans of the cast and pre-Code cinema in general. Warner Archive's Blu-ray adds support with a solid A/V restoration and several worthwhile bonus features. Recommended.
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Warner Archive Collection
1936
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1927
1934
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1934
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1945
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Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1955
1939