Dancing Feet: A 1930s flick about a very bad radio idea

If you have about an hour and a half to kill and a soft spot for 1930s fluff where people get disinherited over a single night out, then Dancing Feet is a decent sit. It is mostly for folks who like seeing rich girls pretend to be poor and that snappy, fast-talking vibe of the early sound era.

If you are looking for something with actual weight or a plot that makes total sense, you should probably just skip this one. It’s light. Really light.

The movie starts at a party that looks incredibly stiff and boring. Peyton Wells, played by Ben Lyon, decides the best way to liven things up is to tell everyone the host has scarlet fever.

It is such a weird, specific lie to tell. Watching all those fancy people in their capes and tuxedos scramble for the exits is easily the funniest part of the first twenty minutes.

Then we get to the Dreamland Dance Hall. It is loud and crowded, and Joan Marsh looks slightly too polished to be a "hostess," but she plays along anyway.

She meets Jimmy, a guy who wants to teach dancing over the radio. Think about that for a second.

Teaching a visual art through a speaker. It is a terrible business plan, but he is so earnest about it you almost want it to work. Poor guy.

The grandfather, Silas, is your typical movie millionaire who just hates fun. He is basically there to be a buzzkill and pull his advertising money whenever things get interesting.

It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Hard to Handle, where the hustle is the whole point of the story. Here, the hustle is just... tap dancing and hoping for the best.

The Small Stuff

• Isabel Jewell shows up as Mabel and she is great.
• She always has this "I have seen it all" look on her face that makes the rest of the cast look like children.
• There is a moment where a character gets kicked out and they just sort of shrug it off like it happens every Tuesday.
• The dancing is fine, but the floor looks incredibly slippery.

The movie gets a bit slow when they start talking about the financial backing for the radio show. Nobody cares about advertising accounts in a dance movie. 😴

One reaction shot of the grandfather lingers so long it becomes funny. He just stares at the camera like he forgot his next line.

The ending feels rushed, like they realized they only had five minutes of film left in the camera. But that is how these movies usually go.

It is a nice little time capsule of how people used to dress up just to go to a place called "Dreamland." I wish we still had places called Dreamland that weren't just overpriced mattress stores.

Is it a masterpiece? No. But it has a certain charm if you don't think about the logic too hard. 💃