Tip Tap Toe

A WARNER BROS. VITAPHONE Short Subject.

A pair of dancing sweethearts carry on a private romance in a very public department store window.

TIP TAP TOE is an enjoyable little film and serves primarily as a showcase for its incredibly lithe & limber young stars Hal LeRoy and Mitzi Mayfair, stars of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931. The story is very silly, but agreeable, and the plot doesn't get too much in the way of the highly energetic duo.

Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.

Hal Le Roy is a window dresser for Frank McNellis's store. He disapproves of Le Roy, because all he wants to do is dance and marry McNellis's daughter, Mitzi Mayfair. He doesn't know that his wife, Helen Goodhue, used to be a dancer and has taught their daughter all her steps.

Le Roy came from the Broadway stage and for about ten years made a few features and several short subjects showing off his hoofing. Miss Mayfair was likewise a Broadway dancer. She began in vaudeville very young, went to work for Gus Edwards at the age of 12, and appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1931. She died in 1976 at the age of 61.