Dance, Fools, Dance

1931 film

Dance, Fools, Dance

Directed by| Harry Beaumont
Written by| Story and dialogue:
Aurania Rouverol
Continuity:
Richard Schayer
Starring| Joan Crawford
Lester Vail
Clark Gable
Cinematography| Charles Rosher
Edited by| George Hively
Distributed by| Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Release date

* February 21, 1931 (1931-02-21)

Running time

| 80 minutes
Country| United States
Language| English
Budget| $234,000[1]
Box office| $1.26 million [1]

Dance, Fools, Dance is a 1931 pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama film starring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, 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

[edit]

Former socialite Bonnie Jordan (Joan Crawford) 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) finds out too much, and Gang chief Jake Luva (Clark Gable) 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 later married.

## Cast

[edit]

* Joan Crawford as Bonnie Jordan
* Lester Vail as Bob Townsend
* Cliff Edwards as Bert Scranton
* William Bakewell as Rodney Jordan
* William Holden as Stanley Jordan
* Clark Gable as Jake Luva
* Earle Foxe as Wally Baxter (credited as Earl Foxe)
* Purnell B. Pratt as Parker
* Hale Hamilton as Selby
* Natalie Moorhead as Della
* Joan Marsh as Sylvia
* Russell Hopton as Whitey
* Sam McDaniel as Jake Luva's Butler

## Reception

[edit]

Photoplay 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, Miss Crawford's acting is still self-conscious, but her admirers will find her performance well up to her standard."[2]

### Box office

[edit]

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.[1]

## Historical note

[edit]

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 by underworld hoodlums in 1930.

## See also

[edit]

* Joan Crawford filmography
* Clark Gable filmography

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
2. ^ Quirk, Lawrence J. The Films of Joan Crawford. The Citadel Press, 1968.

## External links

[edit]

* Dance, Fools, Dance at IMDb
* Dance, Fools, Dance at the TCM Movie Database
* Dance, Fools, Dance at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
* Poster for Swedish release of Dance, Fools, Dance
* Stills at pre-code.com
* Reviews, lobby cards, and stills at www.joancrawfordbest.com

* v
* t
* e

Films directed by Harry Beaumont

1910s|

* The Truant Soul (1916)
* Burning the Candle (1917)
* Filling His Own Shoes (1917)
* Skinner's Dress Suit (1917)
* Skinner's Bubble (1917)
* Skinner's Baby (1917)
* Thirty a Week (1918)
* Brown of Harvard (1918)
* Go West, Young Man (1918)
* A Man and His Money (1919)
* Heartsease (1919)
* One of the Finest (1919)
* Lord and Lady Algy (1919)
* The Gay Lord Quex (1919)
* The City of Comrades (1919)
* The Little Rowdy (1919)
* Toby's Bow (1919)
* A Wild Goose Chase (1919)

1920s|

* Going Some (1920)
* Dollars and Sense (1920)
* The Great Accident (1920)
* Officer 666 (1920)
* Stop Thief! (1920)
* June Madness (1922)
* Lights of the Desert (1922)
* Seeing's Believing (1922)
* Glass Houses (1922)
* The Five Dollar Baby (1922)
* They Like 'Em Rough (1922)
* Love in the Dark (1922)
* Very Truly Yours (1922)
* The Ragged Heiress (1922)
* The Gold Diggers (1923)
* Main Street (1923)
* A Noise in Newboro (1923)
* Crinoline and Romance (1923)
* Babbitt (1924)
* Don't Doubt Your Husband (1924)
* Beau Brummel (1924)
* The Lover of Camille (1924)
* A Lost Lady (1924)
* Recompense (1925)
* His Majesty, Bunker Bean (1925)
* Womanpower (1926)
* Sandy (1926)
* One Increasing Purpose (1927)
* Forbidden Hours (1928)
* Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
* A Single Man (1929)
* The Broadway Melody (1929)
* Speedway (1929)

1930s|

* Lord Byron of Broadway (1930)
* Children of Pleasure (1930)
* The Florodora Girl (1930)
* Those Three French Girls (1930)
* The Great Lover (1931)
* Dance, Fools, Dance (1931)
* Laughing Sinners (1931)
* West of Broadway (1931)
* Are You Listening (1932)
* Unashamed (1932)
* Faithless (1932)
* Made on Broadway (1933)
* When Ladies Meet (1933)
* Should Ladies Behave (1933)
* Murder in the Private Car (1934)
* Enchanted April (1935)
* The Girl on the Front Page (1936)
* When's Your Birthday? (1937)

1940s|

* Maisie Goes to Reno (1944)
* Twice Blessed (1945)
* Up Goes Maisie (1946)
* The Show-Off (1946)
* Undercover Maisie (1947)
* Alias a Gentleman (1948)

Unfinished|

* Great Day (Unfinished)

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template