Some Thoughts
Warner Bros released 42nd Street in March 1933. MGM’s attempt to plough the same furrow came out eight months later. All the basic elements are there: a chorus girl becomes the star of the show; a hard-bitten director orders everyone about; dozens of wisecracking chorus girls perform musical numbers that transcend the physical limits of an actual stage. But Dancing Lady has the MGM sheen that Warners would never even try to emulate, with huge Merrill Pye sets that seem to go on forever.
Dancing Lady is a lesser film than 42nd Street, but that does not make it a bad one. It is thoroughly entertaining, and a demonstration of the way Metro was coming into its own as the studio of sophistication and gloss. Robert Z Leonard’s direction could not be more different from his first musical, 1929’s Marianne. Aided by cinematographer Oliver T Marsh (also from Marianne), he imbues the film with smooth camera work.
The production numbers at the end of Dancing Lady include the kind of reality-defying nonsense familiar from Warner’s 1933 musicals, and Slavo Vorkapich’s special effects in ‘Heigh Ho, the Gang’s All Here’ are as inventive as anything conceived by Busby Berkeley.
Joan Crawford recognized and embraced the autobiographical aspects of a story about an ambitious hoofer who makes it to the top, and was able to contribute to the development of the story after expressing some initial doubts. Her dancing is as energetic as always, not dissimilar to Ruby Keeler’s buck-and-wing style.
Clark Gable was a less willing participant than Crawford, and his ill health at the time shows on the screen. His sometimes difficult behaviour was a major factor in Metro’s decision to ‘punish’ him by loaning him to Columbia to make the film that won him an Academy Award. Gable’s Patch Gallagher is never really convincing as a director of musicals, but is certainly preferable to Franchot Tone’s sleazy and manipulative Tod.
The sudden outbursts of violence by Ted Healy and his three stooges, while entertaining, seem a little out of place, though not as much as Fred Astaire, in his film debut, who looks like he has wandered onto the set by mistake. He would have to wait until A Damsel in Distress (1937) and Joan Fontaine to have a less gifted dance partner.
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