Dance Hall

In its current form this is a real "Singin in the Rain" experience as the sound wanders in and out of sync for the entire film. However, it must have been released in a suitable format in 1929 - and that's definitely not the TCM print - or else it would not have gotten the good reviews it did which are quoted in a book I read on Olive Borden entitled "Olive Borden: The Life and Films of Hollywood's Joy Girl". If the version shown on TCM had been shown in theaters in 1929 it would have been greeted with boos, hisses, eggs, tomatoes, and any other groceries available to the audience. Another reviewer's comments on the TCM print being a probable merging of the sound on disc with just the film in a careless manner is the best explanation I've heard so far.

However, I was grateful to see this in any form and applaud TCM for at least showing what they had available. It's an interesting look into film and life as it stood at the end of the roaring twenties. The plot is simple and this is absolutely not a musical. It is simply the story of shipping clerk Tommy Flynn (Arthur Lake) who thinks his love for dance hall hostess Gracie Nolan (Olive Borden) is reciprocated. He finds out otherwise when he sees Gracie in the arms of stunt pilot Ted Smith (Ralph Emerson).

Arthur Lake is very much like a Mickey Rooney for the roaring twenties - an optimistic young man of the pre-Depression years. There are some precode elements in this film which is really just a light romantic fluff piece. At one point we see Ted in his apartment in his robe with dance hall girl Bee in her nightgown on his lap. You'll have to look fast to see the other precode element - girls waltzing together towards the end of the movie. Then there is the whole element of the "stunt pilot" - the bigger than life pioneers and heroes of the 1920's. Also note the difference between the haves and have-nots right before the Depression. Tommy and his mother badly need the six dollars a week rent they get from a boarder in order to make ends meet, yet salaries for professional dancers are quoted at two hundred dollars a week! So you get the feeling that work and extra hours are plentiful, but they just don't pay very well for the average worker. This is the reason to watch such a film - not the pedestrian plot, but the little things that tell you about a bygone era.

Honorable mention among the cast - Lee Moran as the soda jerk at the dance hall and the Flynn's boarder that has a humorous Ned Sparks way about him. Unfortunately for him, the real Ned Sparks would soon be signed by RKO and that would be the end of Lee Moran. Margaret Seddon, as Tommy's mother, was 57 when she made this film and would live to be 95, outliving leading lady Olive Borden by 20 years even though Olive was 34 years her junior. Then there is Joseph Cawthorne as the crusty but sympathetic dance hall owner who did numerous comedy supporting roles for RKO in the early talkie years, usually as a Scandinavian that butchers his sentences without mercy.

And finally there is one big decision as to costume design that has me stumped. Why are both Olive Borden and Joseph Cawthorne wearing obvious cheap blonde wigs? A mystery for the ages. Recommended for the film history buff only.

Likeable little b-movie featuring a young Arthur 'Dagwood' Lake as a young man whose gawky mannerisms vanish when he's on the floor of his local dance hall. His partner of choice is Olive Borden, but she only has eyes for flashy, two-timing pilot Ralph Emerson. Production values are low, and the sound is frequently out of synch, but that somehow adds to its homely charm.

Despite what is written in the trivia section, this film was not post dubbed. Picture and sound were recorded at the same time. Here is my theory on the reason for the out of sync sound and picture.

It was made at RKO which used the photophone system. Sync should not ordinarily be a problem. It probably was released in two versions: sound on film, and sound on disk. It was common practice at this time to do that because not every theater had sound on film projectors. The first system to be used was sound on disc. All of the Warner Bros releases until about 1930 to 1931 were made available to theaters on sound on disc first and latter on sound on film. My guess is that the print used for this video transfer was one that had no sound recorded on the film. The sound was probably only available on disc. Somehow during the transfer the disc and picture got out of sync. Or a disc may have been made from the original sound on film print. That process could have been very tricky in the early days of sound.

The recorded sound track was recorded very badly anyway. It is almost completely unintelligible. THis was also common at the time. The sync problems can be corrected by anyone with some editing software on a computer, but it is such a terrible film that I can't imagine anyone wanting to do the job!

I can't bring an expert historian's perspective on 1929's "Dance Hall", but I can speculate some. It must have been among the first batch of talkies produced by RKO, but clearly doesn't have the production values of a "Rio Rita".

In fact, the TCM print demonstrates clear issues with sound and picture sync. It doesn't seem to me that this was ever intended as a silent, nevertheless the entire soundtrack seems to have been dubbed in by the actors after the fact. One could speculate whether this was done because of technical failures or limitations at the time of filming or for budgetary reasons, but it creates a jarring effect that will turn some viewers off immediately. It does seem though, that this could be corrected through restoration work, but who's going to put up the money for something like that?

As for the film itself, it's a fairly paint-by-numbers love triangle set in the world of the dance hall. Arthur Lake seems born to play these naive lovelorn 20-something roles, and while we're supposed to identify with and root for him, it's hard not to also want to slap him upside the head a few times as well, viewing the film through 2013 eyes.

Visually, the film is somewhat ahead of many other 1929 productions in that it keeps its characters moving and mostly avoids the interminable stagy scenes and long pauses characteristic of the period.

It is painfully obvious where the film is going at any given moment, and anyone who's seen just a few movies of this age won't have too much trouble predicting the next scene at any given time. It also has that hallmark of the era, the oddly placed comic relief character, who in this case shows up for his biggest laugh during arguably the dramatic crescendo of the film.

All in all, a middling melodrama that is somewhat more visually interesting than many of its 1929 cohorts, plagued by issues with the sound technology used, which will turn off many but be tolerated by others.

I noticed that the sound was pretty weird in this early talky--I think anyone would since it's so obvious. It was badly out of sync at times and it was kind of funny. It does not appear to be just a silent with sound added, as the film is VERY voice-intensive throughout. It looks like they shot it like a talking picture but either lost the sound track or added one later very haphazardly. BUT, on the positive side, so many of the films from 1927-1929 with sound are practically unintelligible when you try to watch them today--and "Dance Hall" is easier to understand than most. Too often, you can barely hear the actors because the sound technology was so bad--here they are mostly very loud and very clear--mostly. A few of the actors did mumble their lines a bit. And, I still wish they'd captioned this film before showing it on Turner Classic Movies.

Tommy (Arthur Lake) loves to dance and has won a lot of trophies with Gracie (Olive Borden). He loves her but is so tongue-tied he's never told her. When a slick aviator blows into town (Ralph Emerson), the pilot isn't afraid to express his feelings to Gracie and she's soon smitten with him. You almost feel sorry for Tommy, though he is a bit of a weenie and never speaks up about his feelings. And, he's too much of a nice guy to say anything when the pilot confides in him his feelings for Gracie. And, he whines a bit and needed to 'man up' so to speak. So will Tommy ever profess his love for Gracie? And, what will happen to the pilot? Tune in and see.

I actually thought this film wasn't quite as bad as most of the reviewers said. I guess this is because I've seen tons of 1927-1929 films and realize they can be a lot worse than this one! This isn't exactly a glowing review but in context, "Dance Hall" isn't a bad film at all. A good film? Well, not exactly--but a nice little time-passer, definitely.

A few final observations. Arthur Lake is known to old movie fans as Dagwood from the Blondie films--so if you are wondering where you saw him before, this is probably it. Also, the soda fountain routine was a variation on one Laurel & Hardy did a few months earlier in "Men 'O War". I wonder if some others used it before them.