In defense of Joan Crawford...
I really get the impression her ungainly dancing in this film is primarily a result of trying to make her feet be heard with the primitive sound equipment. It's also a mystery to me why MGM used that take.
OMG! OMG!
"Modern" dance hasn't always been what it used to be... ;-)
shareJoan Crawford's dancing was typical of the day. People need to put things in perspective. Ruby Keeler's dancing wasn't any better. Joan was a hoofer and it was enthusiasm that made her dancing appealing if not the most graceful. Also, her singing is quite natural and lovely. It is not a bad voice. I think people just like to put her down not matter what and that is unfair. She dances quite a lot in her early films, Our Dancing Daughters, Dance, Fools, Dance, Dancing Lady and many others and it is always in the vain of youth and vitality. We had to wait for Eleanor Powell to get an exceptionally trained dancer. Brava to Joan.
shareI love Joan but her performance in this film is awkward and bordering on terrible. I say bordering on because nearly everyone in this film seems awkward, wooden, slightly terrified and downright bored. Modern dance certainly was different in the 1920s but they still knew how be somewhat graceful. Joan didn't stick her landing (so to speak) at the end of her number. She looked like she was about to fall over or snap a tendon.
It seems like they didn't do retakes at all because all of goofs are in the film. This is shockingly apparent in the last number. Nearly everyone looks confused and a few people didn't know the words to "Singing in the Rain" and how to finish the number. Did they even rehearse?
It was a very early experience with sound. The great musicals that came later raised the standard, as you would expect, but don't forget what came before them... before that standard was raised.
And this movie was infinitely greater than what had gone before it, in terms of song and dance, which was pretty much nothing.
Everything in context.
Evidently you haven't seen very much of Keeler's work. She was a terrific dancer with speed and power. If you're referring to her dancing in 42ND STREET (which, like many people, is probably the only one of her movies you've watched) she is not doing tap. That was buck and wing dancing, performed with shoes with thick wooden soles with which you pounded out the rhythm (other notable buck dancers were Bill Robinson, Marilyn Miller and Ann Pennington). Her tap routines in, for example, COLLEEN and SWEETHEART OF THE CAMPUS rank with the best work of Eleanor Powell, Ann Miller or Ginger Rogers.
share