Dancing Lady

A Broadway chorine (Joan Crawford) needs a little help with her hoofing, so her dance director (Clark Gable) gets an idea. A good idea. "Do you feel like going through that opening number with Mr. Astaire?" And Fred Astaire, making his screen debut, shows the lady how it's done. Three film icons give the backstage musical a jolt of superstar electricity in a song-, dance-, and romance-filled extravaganza featuring support by Nelson Eddy, Robert Benchley and The Three Stooges and tunes by Rodgers and Hart, Burton Lane, Dorothy Fields and more musical greats. Gable and Crawford had such stellar chemistry that MGM teamed them for eight movies. Here, as always, they have street-smart glamour and charisma to burn. Add Astaire's sophistication and Dancing Lady can take a well-deserved bow. .com ---- Joan Crawford and Clark Gable were both in their young MGM prime when they suited up for Dancing Lady, the studio's big, shiny, silly reply to 42nd Street. Joan is a burlesque dancer (but mind you, serious artiste) when she is plucked from the ranks by a playboy, played by Franchot Tone, Crawford's future real-life hubby. Gable is the bluff, hard-driving theater director guiding a new Broadway musical that has room for one more chorus girl. Maybe. It all builds to the opening of the big show, and some utterly insane musical numbers including a Bavarian spectacle and the mind-bending "Rhythm of the Day." The saving grace in these scenes is that Fred Astaire, in his film debut, partners Joan onstage and sings a bit. The movie also has Nelson Eddy and soused one-liners from Robert Benchley, plus Ted Healy and His Stooges doing some surreal comedy. Vaudevillian Healy actually has a pretty big role here, but the Stooges (three fellows named Moe, Curly, and Larry) would go on to stardom without him. The movie may not be a great one, but it gives the sugary flavor of early-'30s MGM, and even a simple scene like a gym workout (with Gable and Crawford in especially sassy form) provides the pleasures of art deco production design and cool costumes. --Robert Horton

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