Our Dancing Daughters (1928) JOAN CRAWFORD🍕 JOHNNY MACK BROWN

The ladies acted sublimely! And how cute were those dandies 😍🥰

I’ve heard of this movie – and the next two parts of the “trilogy” – but I had never seen this movie until today. And I’m very glad that I took the time and effort to do so!!! This is really good – with excellent acting throughout by characters both major and minor, both male and female, spurred on by a very good story and very good direction (by veteran actor and director Harry Beaumont, who was 40 years old when he directed OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS and had already directed SEVENTY movies in a career stretching back to 1914). Excellent synchronized score, too, with snippets of sound (as did THE JAZZ SINGER the year before!).

Joan Crawford (Diana Medford) AND Dorothy Sebastian (Beatrice) AND Anita Page (Ann) each turns in a fine performance – as do Johnny Mack Brown (Ben Blaine) and Nils Asther (Norman) and Edward J. Nugent (Freddie), and also especially Kathlyn Williams (Ann’s mother) and Dorothy Cumming (Diana’s mother) and Huntley Gordon (Dorothy’s father), AND Mary Gordon and Lydia Knott as two of the three scrubwomen in the next-to-last scene. You have to pay attention and WATCH the “little things” (e.g., facial expressions (particularly those of the three principal ladies) and lighting and interesting camera angles) as well as the big things, such as some very smart and “sassy” titles – and, as somebody else has pointed out in the comments, you have to be a good lip-reader, because not all of the most interesting dialogue is titled.

Thank you VERY much for sharing this gem with us!!!!! I’m looking forward to following this up with OUR MODERN MAIDENS (1929) and OUR BLUSHING BRIDES (1930) later this week (via other YouTube channels)!

(And for those who, like me, like Harry Beaumont’s direction of this movie, please keep in mind that he would go on to direct such films as THE BROADWAY MELODY (1929 – first ALL-sound film made in the U.S.), THE FLORODORA GIRL (1930), DANCE, FOOLS, DANCE (1931), WHEN LADIES MEET (1933), ENCHANTED APRIL (1935), THE GIRL ON THE FRONT PAGE (1936) – and MAISIE GOES TO RENO (1944), TWICE BLESSED (1945 – excellent film, starring Lee Wilde, Lyn Wilde, Preston Foster, and Gail Patrick; it certainly was the inspiration for both versions of THE PARENT TRAP decades later), UP GOES MAISIE (1946), UNDERCOVER MAISIE (1947), and ALIAS A GENTLEMAN (1948 – the final film directed by Harry Beaumont, and the third-to-last film for Wallace Beery, who died the following year).)

The movie that made Joan Crawford a star! 😍😍