The Dance of Life (1929)

The Dance of Life
Directed by James Cromwell and A. Edward Sutherland
Written by Benjamin Glazer from a play by Arthur Hopkins and George Manker Watters
1929/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville, which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities. Julie Andrews [/box]

Contrary to my original belief, not all 1929 musicals are clunky!

“Skid” Johnson (Hal Skelly) is a comic dancer (think Ray Bolger) with a starring role in a second-rate traveling vaudeville act.  Bonny King unsuccessfully tries out for a job as a speciality dancer with the troupe.  When Skid quits his job, he meets up with Bonny at the train station and the two determine that they will see how things go for a new twosome. The act goes on the road with another troupe and the two marry.  But Bonny’s hard job will be keeping Skid, who is weak but basically a nice guy, off the sauce.  This works out well for about four years,

Things go to hell when the talented Skid is recruited to star in a Zigfield show on Broadway.  The loyal Bonny is left behind and it looks like the marriage is over.  But …

The lanky Skelly and tiny Carroll make a very pleasing dancing duo, and can act to boot.  I liked the fact that the performances, even by the Zigfield girls, all clearly could fit on an actual stage.  The story of Carroll’s devotion and the near hopelessness of Skelly’s alcoholism left tears in my eyes on more than one occasion.

The sound and print quality on YouTube left a lot to be desired but I got used to it a few minutes in.  There is a whole sequence (unfortunately with the Zigfield girls) that lacked sound.  Nonetheless recommended to musical lovers and other such types.

Remade as Swing High, Swing Low (1937) and When My Baby Smiles at Me (1948), neither of which I have seen.

Skelly’s moving rendition of “True Blue Lou”