Tonight's Movie: Our Dancing Daughters (1928) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS (1928), a quintessential Joan Crawford "flapper film" of the '20s, has now been released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive.

When I first saw this film in 2017 thanks to the Warner Archive's prior DVD release, I very much enjoyed it but wrote "The print is fairly rough at times, with some faded scenes and lots of scratches, but I suspect this is as good as it gets for this 1928 film..."

How wrong I was! This Blu-ray is absolutely lovely and bears no resemblance to my description of the DVD. Archivist Robert Harris of Home Theater Forum has described it as "a major restorative effort."

To make things even better, this is a very worthwhile and entertaining 85 minutes. Surely, it has some dated attitudes, but that's part of what makes it interesting.

It has wonderful performances, especially by Joan Crawford and Dorothy Sebastian, and the Art Deco settings are fabulous. It's even got location photography (by George Barnes) in Carmel.

OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS is a silent film with a synchronized musical track, one of the movies that bridged the sound and silent eras. It was the first of a loose trilogy of Crawford films, followed by OUR MODERN MAIDENS (1929) and OUR BLUSHING BRIDES (1930). The films are all about different characters, but they share similar types of stories and settings, telling tales of life among the rich in the 1920s.

In OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS Crawford plays wealthy Diana, a party-loving girl who puts on a "wild child" act but is really pure as the driven snow.

She falls for wealthy Ben (Johnny Mack Brown), who unfortunately misinterprets her character and instead marries sweet virginal Ann (Anita Page). There's just one problem with the marriage: Ann is actually far from sweet, and she rejects him soon after returning from their honeymoon. She married Ben for his money and intends to have "flings."

Meanwhile Diana's best friend Beatrice (Dorothy Sebastian) has married her love Norman (Nils Asther) after confessing to him she had had some flings herself before they fell in love. Norman marries her anyway, then struggles with the knowledge that some of their "crowd" had been intimate with his beloved wife.

Crawford and Sebastian are both quite moving as loyal, goodhearted women. Page's character, on the other hand, talks a good game about wanting to be "worthy" of a husband and babies, but following the marriage, both Ann and Page's performance go over the top in a big way.

It's all highly entertaining; the film is a wonderful time capsule both for its style of silent moviemaking and the era it depicts. I especially love the amazing party scene early in the film which opens with a bunch of balloons; it's both visually enticing and exciting.

OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS was directed by Harry Beaumont.  The supporting cast included Kathlyn Williams, Dorothy Cumming, Edward Nugent, and Mary Gordon.

There are no extras on the Blu-ray, but this is a beautiful print of a significant film. Recommended.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from the Warner Archive Collection Amazon Store, Movie Zyng, or from any online retailers where Blu-rays are sold.

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