''Dance, Fools, Dance'' is a 1931

pre-Code Pre-Code Hollywood was an era in the Cinema of the United States, American film industry that occurred between the widespread adoption of sound in film in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship gui ...

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

starring

Joan Crawford Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, 190? was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway theatre, Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion-picture cont ...

Clark Gable William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901November 16, 1960) was an American actor often referred to as the "King of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". He appeared in more than 60 Film, motion pictures across a variety of Film genre, genres dur ...

, and Lester Vail in a story about a reporter investigating the murder of a colleague. Story and dialogue were created by Aurania Rouverol, and the film was directed by Harry Beaumont. ''Dance, Fools, Dance'' was the first of eight movies featuring Crawford and Gable.

Plot

Former socialite Bonnie Jordan (

) and her brother Rodney ( William Bakewell) have their lives turned upside down one day when their father loses his entire fortune in the stock market crash, and subsequently dies of a heart attack. Due to their inheritance being wiped out overnight, the siblings are forced to fire their wait staff, sell their belongings, and work to earn a living. Bonnie decides to get a man's job and winds up as a cub reporter for a newspaper, while Rodney decides to get involved with a beer-running gang, but things begin to escalate for him quickly. On one caper, Rodney drives the get away car after his gang guns down a rival group, leaving Rodney emotionally scarred. Things only get worse when Bonnie's journalist colleague Bert Scranton (

Cliff Edwards Clifton Avon "Cliff" Edwards (June 14, 1895 – July 17, 1971), nicknamed "Ukulele Ike", was an American pop singer, musician and actor. He enjoyed considerable popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s, specializing in jazzy renditions of pop sta ...

) finds out too much, and Gang chief Jake Luva (

) orders Rodney to murder him under threat of death, leaving him no choice but to go through with it. Bonnie is given the task of investigating the murder of her colleague, and she infiltrates Jake Luva’s club as a dancer, eventually learning the horrifying truth that her brother is the murderer. Jake soon catches on to her act though, and he ambushes Bonnie, intending to kill her. However, Rodney arrives just in time and a shootout occurs, with Bonnie barely escaping with her life. As the authorities arrive, Jake and his henchmen are dead, but so is Rodney ... and Bonnie cradles his head and cries. Pulling herself together, Bonnie phones the paper and through tears she reports on the details of the story, including the role that her brother played. Despite the paper wanting to keep her on, Bonnie decides that she wants to get away from it all, and as she leaves she meets an old friend who is still rich, and the movie ends as the two kiss, with the implication that they married and lived happily ever after.

Cast

Reception

Photoplay ''Photoplay'' was one of the first American film fan magazines, its title another word for screenplay. It was founded in Chicago in 1911. Under early editors Julian Johnson and James R. Quirk, in style and reach it became a pacesetter for fan m ...

'' commented: "Again, Joan Crawford proves herself a great dramatic actress. The story ... is hokum, but it's good hokum, and Joan breathes life into her characterization." Andre Sennwald noted in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, ''Miss Crawford's acting is still self-conscious, but her admirers will find her performance well up to her standard." Quirk, Lawrence J. ''The Films of Joan Crawford''. The Citadel Press, 1968.

Box office

According to MGM records, the film earned $848,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and $420,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $524,000.

Historical note

Several events in the screenplay are based loosely on real-life crimes that occurred in Chicago prior to the film's production, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929 and the murder of reporter

Jake Lingle Alfred "Jake" Lingle (July 2, 1891 – June 9, 1930) was an American reporter for the ''Chicago Tribune''. He was shot dead gangland-style in the underpass leading to the Randolph Street Terminal, Illinois Central Randolph Street station on the a ...

by underworld hoodlums in 1930.

References

External links

* * *
Poster for Swedish release of ''Dance, Fools, Dance''

Stills
at pre-code.com

at www.joancrawfordbest.com {{Harry Beaumont 1931 films 1931 crime drama films American black-and-white films American crime drama films Films about journalists Films directed by Harry Beaumont Films set in Chicago Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films English-language crime drama films