Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Our Dancing Daughters Blu-ray Movie Review

Don't drink and walk.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III January 19, 2023

A melodrama that's pretty much Reefer Madness for jazz music, Harry Beaumont's silent-not-silent film Our Dancing Daughters was an early launchpad for Joan Crawford. Released during those eventful years when Hollywood gradually transitioned into the sound era, it features carefully synced music and sound effects as well a bits of off-screen spoken dialogue, although the majority of conversations still use intertitles to tell the story. The result is a film that feels a bit padded even at just 85 minutes, yet Our Dancing Daughters is still stuffed to the gills with soapy twists and detours. High art this ain't, but it's still an interesting slice of film history if you enjoy pre-Code entertainment.

There's not all that much to the story, but due to the slow pace of its intertitled dialogue -- not to mention the regular presence of unavoidably outdated slang -- Our Dancing Daughters might be tough to follow for newcomers. Front and center is "Dangerous Diana" Medford (Crawford), a popular young woman whose energetic nature, wild dancing skills, and perceived "loose" morals make her a hit with the fellas; trouble is, she's only playing the part and is actually much more demure. Her best friend Ann (Anita Page) takes the opposite approach: she's a bit more reserved in public but, much like her own mother (Kathlyn Williams), an unapologetic gold-digger. A love triangle forms with the introduction of John Blaine (John Mack Brown), a football star from a wealthy family who, despite his initial attraction to Diana, ultimately falls in love with and marries Ann due to her more virtuous mask. To make matters worse, Diana's friend Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastian) gets married to a wealthy suitor of her own. What's a flapper to do?

Go away on a long vacation, obviously. From there on out, the back half of Our Dancing Daughters spirals into soapy overdrive that includes gossip, adultery, deceit, a lot of unrequited love, and even a good old-fashioned shot of severe alcoholism -- smack in the middle of the Prohibition era, mind you -- just for good measure. The ending is absolutely bananas, culminating in a clever and dangerous bit of stunt work that leaves one of our key characters in a crumpled heap. It all plays to the tune of those frightening secular influences plaguing 1920s youth, what with their jazz music and dance parties, but these kids are thankfully at least allowed to be sexually charged since Our Dancing Daughters was released several years before the Hays Code took effect. It doesn't go to graphic extremes and is certainly more than a little cartoonish in its execution, but to its merit doesn't portray bad behavior in the wishy-washy, "fill in the blanks" way of much more sanitized productions of the next few decades. This one's got a little pepper.

It's far from perfect, though, and in my opinion suffers from the limitations of its non-talkie source material. A story of this nature, with its more sudden developments and extreme emotional ups and downs, would have flowed much more smoothly with actual dialogue to season the stew. As a result Our Dancing Daughters is a film that, despite its valiantly broad attempt to capture an extremely specific moment in time -- as wrong-headed as some of its intentions might be -- nonetheless feels like it was made a few years too early. Yet it's pretty damn entertaining most of the way and serves as a perfect vehicle for Joan Crawford and the underrated Anita Page who, along with co-star Dorothy Sebastian, took up the reins for two spiritual sequels in 1929 and 1930: Our Modern Maidens and Our Blushing Brides. There's also its clever synchronization of music and background sound effects, a popular experiment during this window in cinematic time, that works decently as a stand-in for the true "full sound" experience when no one's speaking.

That's a nice way of saying Our Dancing Daughters' technical merits and name value, as well as its outstanding Art Deco production design, mostly outshine the actual story. But from any angle, this MGM production sure feels like a perfectly natural fit for Warner Archive's meticulous Blu-ray restoration process: the boutique label's own 2010 DVD was a worn-out mess, but this new 1080p transfer is an absolute revelation, a painstaking effort and true labor of love that makes this 95 year-old film sparkle like (almost) new. If you're at all interested in pre-Code silent films or just want to revisit Crawford's big break, it's well worth looking into even with the complete lack of extras.

Our Dancing Daughters Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

To untrained eyes, Warner Archive's 1080p transfer of Our Dancing Daughters will look... OK. Kinda soft, a little hazy even. But fans of this particular era of filmmaking, or especially anyone who owned the boutique label's 2010 DVD, will rightly regard it as an outstanding effort that meets or exceeds all expectations. Since its original nitrate negative was deteriorated beyond repair, a safety dupe negative from the 1960s -- which was determined to be the best available source material -- was scanned in full 4K and treated to extensive manual cleanup that, thanks to modern technology, is about as close to a definitive home video presentation as we're likely to get. What's more is that Warner Archive's purist-friendly approach allows the film to retain its original texture in the process, as Our Dancing Daughters was not subjected to extraneous levels of grain management or digital sharpening to "boost" its silvery, dream-like appearance. There are stray fluctuations, such as varying contrast levels and dips into softer territory, but absolutely nothing outside the bounds of reasonable expectations for a film from this decade. It looks even better in motion, as Warner Archive's reliably solid disc encoding shows no flagrant signs of banding, posterization, or other compression artifacts.

Our Dancing Daughters Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Similarly, the DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix shows a marked improvement over the earlier DVD thanks to the same careful restoration efforts. (A reliable source informed me that disc's audio was taken from an old 1990s-era master.) Since this is essentially a dialogue-free affair -- aside from a few bits and pieces of off-screen conversation -- the only real items of interest to evaluate are the original synchronized music and sound effects, both of which sound great under the circumstances and, perhaps more importantly, line up perfectly when needed. There's a bit of unavoidable strain in the high end but no real source-excluded damage to speak of, resulting in a pure and unfiltered mix that sounds like it ought to. Since no on-screen dialogue is spoken, no subtitles are offered during the film.

Our Dancing Daughters Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with poster-themed cover artwork and no inserts. Sadly, no extras are on board here -- not at all surprising given the film's age and home video history, but disappointing nonetheless.

Our Dancing Daughters Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Harry Beaumont's 1928 flapper melodrama Our Dancing Daughters is, like many productions during this short window of cinematic time, a silent film that shows signs of sonic life through synchronized music and background effects which help to liven up the regular appearance of dialogue intertitles. It's a clever hybrid but tends to work against this film's occasionally choppy brand of emotional momentum, yet the end result can be appreciated by most modern audiences at least familiar with material from this era. Still, the film's technical merits, star power (chiefly, young Joan Crawford), and a bit of pre-Code sizzle make Our Dancing Daughters stand out more than most, and Warner Archive's meticulous new restoration is basically worth the price of admission alone. Recommended to the right crowd.