Everybody Dance

In the 1930s Gaumont British,the largest film company in the Uk decided to try to get into the Ameican market.It didn't work.They spent their way into bankruptcy.Rank bought the assets and the rest as they say is history.Ironically the head of production was Michael Balcon who a couple of years later would become head at Ealing Studios and would become famous for making British subjects.This film though is typical of the mid thirties.American director,actors and songwriters.However Cis of course was the very English heart of this film.She is a bit more restrained than usual.The story is very lightweight.However the title number is very good and set in a fabulous art deco nightclub set.Alma Taylor ,silent star,features in one scene.

Alma Taylor gets run over by a taxi cab. She wanted her sister, Cicely Courtneidge, to raise her children, Dean Reisner and Billie de la Volta on her farm in England. Cicely, however, is not a farmer, but Lady Kate, the notorious star of her own nightclub -- notorious on nonsensical publicity concocted by the club's owner and publicity agent. In truth she's a kindhearted woman who rescues young girls just before they take that fatal step, despite the hectoring of her maid, Kathleen Harrison.

However, the children's rich and hardhearted grandfather back in New York, who had disowned his son and ignored the children up to now, can't stand the bad publicity, so he sends his other son, Ernest Truex, over to England to get them back.

Dean's father, Charles Reisner, directs well, if rather unimaginatively, leaving the performers to perform their shticks, and the editing often makes this movie less than it might have been. The big production number has a troupe of dancers doing the kazatsky, and there is a brief bit of Miss Courtneidge in a tutu and boots at the end. This sort of routine was just her sort of meat, and the way it is unimaginatively shot and chopped up is a shame. I was also somewhat bemused at the sight of the farm she owns, with more than a dozen milk cows and dozens of fowls, without a laborer in sight. Still, Miss Courtneidge's big stage personality is well served in the role, and Mr. Truex' milquetoast comedy persona gets in some nice jokes and makes a good contrast. It might not have cracked open the American market, as Miss Courtneidge and Gaumont British may have wished, but it's a good record of then-popular British film making.

This was a typical British light entertainment film from the '30's, starring Cicely Courtneidge giving a typically highly charged performance. Along with most of her other films from this period she didn't even mention it in her autobiography, her stage work being paramount. Husband Jack Hulbert had the same point of view: these familiar films simply brought in the money to finance the next play - Jack & Cicely's own quota quickies!

American widow dies leaving the care of her two children to her sister Kate (Courtneidge) in London – who happens to be the star at a nightclub promoting her with shady and salacious publicity. She buys a farm in Chipping Sodbury and along with her maid Kathleen Harrison tries to lead a double life pretending to be as pure as the driven snow for the kids sake. Favourite bits: Kate to her agent - "Your throat will be caught between my fingers and the pressure will be all mine" is a fair snapshot of the humour displayed; Ernest Truex (Mr Bensinger from His Girl Friday) played a bumbling middle aged American convincingly - yet again; the Everybody Dance "big" production number with Louis Levy and his Orch. looking on - although Gordon & Revel's songs were mucked about with; the Isle Of View bit with a rather sudden thunderstorm!

Viewed dispassionately it's definitely corny, contrived and clumsy, viewed like me without any prejudices or hang ups it's also witty and worthwhile watching, one I regularly see every couple of years.