We Were Dancing

Count Nicki Prax (Melvyn Douglas) and Princess Victoria "Vicki" Wilkomirska (Norma Shearer) marry after falling in love at first sight during a party held to celebrate Vicki's engagement to another man, Hubert Tyler (Lee Bowman). They pretend to be poor (and not married) to get themselves the life they were used to leading, as rich aristocrats. However, their scheme is discovered when they're found sleeping in the same room (not in the same bed, it was the production code era).

When they actually fall poor, they take up lodgings with a whole bunch of rich friends, but will their marriage be as temporary as their wealth? There's another woman named Linda Wayne (Gail Patrick) who Nicki promised himself to before he met Vicki, and Hubert may want to get back together with Vicki. Nicki and Vicki (heh) soon divorce, but since this comedy is screwball in tone, you know it will end the same way that The Awful Truth and The Philadelphia Story ended.

I found that the film was well-paced at the beginning, lost steam in the middle and finished on a mediocre note, with a happy conclusion that seemed forced but in truth wasn't. The acting is pretty good.

Norma Shearer is her usual self (maybe a bit less mannered) as Princess Wilkomiska- she's clearly been made to look more 1940s, an ill attempt to transfer her image over to the new decade (this was her second-last film before retiring). She has a lightened, more 1940s hairstyle which makes her look both younger and older at the same time (shades of Billie Burke), and is placed in a lovely variety of pantsuits, suit-skirt combos and suit-looking dresses, many with tassels. Her character is supposed to be Polish, but Norma's about as Polish as maple syrup. She makes it work, launching into long threads of Polish (I think it's Polish, I don't speak the language so I wouldn't know) when she gets upset. Melvyn Douglas is also his usual self, charming, debonair, with that terrible mustache. He has very good chemistry with Norma, but I must admit, he had chemistry with all of his leading ladies. Even Greta Garbo.

The two leads also have reliable support from several notable character actors; the aforementioned Gail Patrick, Lee Bowman, Marjorie Main and Reginald Owen. They basically just do their usual as well. (Gail Patrick's eyebrows still freak me out. 😑) The film is nice to look at, with the usual M-G-M treatment of luscious production values and big sweeping Art Deco rooms. However, as I mentioned above, the plot isn't executed well, as the pacing is a bit off. It could have been shorter in some parts and longer in others. As well, exactly WHY Vicki and Nicki divorce is a bit unclear- you can't tell me that all Gail Patrick had to do was walk into the room.

It's not as bad as I expected it to be- much better than Her Cardboard Lover- but it doesn't rank among the best films of any actors involved. If you managed to slog your way through HCL, I'd watch this one- or if you just want to see Norma as a blonde. 🙂

Solid 6.5/10 from me, and no, I am not the only reviewer hung up on Norma's hair colour. 😁

We Were Dancing was one of the small playlets that Noel Coward wrote for his show Tonight At 8:30. Two years earlier Coward told anyone who wanted to hear how much he disliked what MGM did to his production of Bittersweet when Jeannete MacDonald and Nelson Eddy starred in it. MGM must have had the rights for this show before that because Coward said that he would never allow another of his shows to be filmed in Hollywood.

Back in the day Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery did Coward's Private Lives back in 1931 to good acclaim. It's the only reason I can think of why Shearer chose to do this film as opposed to Mrs. Miniver which she was also offered. Other than Greta Garbo, Shearer as Mrs. Irving Thalberg had first refusal on any part there. Of course it was Thalberg who did the choosing and he was gone.

Whatever possessed the folks at MGM to take Coward's British based story about a pair of titled individuals who make a living as permanent party guests and bring it to an American setting we'll never know but through séance. Occasionally you'll hear some flashes of Coward's witty dialog, but it only shows how mediocre the rest of the words are.

Norma Shearer and Melvyn Douglas do get a solid supporting cast of decent players, but the whole bunch can't lift this film above average.

This is a pleasant little comedy but a minor work coming as it does from Noel Coward. Perhaps his name on the script was part of Norma's decision to participate in this instead of the other films offered that she rejected to do this one. It certainly has an estimable cast: Melvyn Douglas an expert as this sort of fluffy comedy, Gail Patrick and Lee Bowman both able performers and a handful, Connie Gilchrist, Marjorie Main, Norma Varden, Alan Mowbray, Florence Bates etc., of the best character actors MGM had under contract. The main problem with this and perhaps part of the reason it tanked on initial release is that even all dressed up in fancy 40's fashions this is a relic of the sort of drawing room confections that were popular a decade earlier and had fallen out of favor by the war years. Unfortunately without Irving Thalberg's strong guiding hand to pick the right properties for her Norma's script sense failed her. She had done well with her previous film "Escape" but would blunder again with her follow up to this her last film "Her Cardboard Lover". Still taken as is without all the back story an enjoyable trifle but unmemorable.

Why this film is so maligned I will never figure out. The script is witty. Leonard's direction sparkles and the acting by the charismatic Norma Shearer and Melvyn Douglas is a delight. Certainly it is MGM glossy fluff but it is so entertaining. Something about a penniless princess and the playboy she falls in love with. However it does not matter with these two stars at their peak. Norma is beautiful in her second to last film. I wonder if this film really flopped since box-office numbers are not available. Now Norma's last film "Her Cardboard Lover" is terrible but this charmer does not deserve such a hideous reputation. The forgotten Gail Patrick is also a delight as Norma's competition for Douglas.

This film, "We Were Dancing" from 1942 is a combination of two Noel Coward plays, and neither one was his best work.

The film stars Norma Shearer and Melvin Douglas, with a good supporting cast including Gail Patrick, Lee Bowman, Alan Mowbray, Connie Gilchrist, Norma Varden, Reginald Owen, and Marjorie Main.

Norma Shearer, with a blondish wig, plays Princess Victoria 'Vicki' Wilomirska who, when she gets excited, spouts outrageous Polish. At her engagement party (she is to marry the Lee Bowman character), she dances with Baron Nicholas Prax (Douglas) and they fall in love immediately. She breaks her engagement and marries the Baron.

The profession of these two is that of houseguests. They wander from place to place staying in the homes of socially ambitious people, usually Americans, who like the pedigree.

It's the usual break up to make up scenario.

Norma's big problem was that she couldn't get out of the '30s, and without her husband around, she couldn't choose films either. She obviously was concerned about her age and unfortunately, she had a right to - at 40, she was about 10 years past the age where most leading ladies in those days actually were leading ladies and not character actors. It's a shame, because she would have done so well in other films more appropriate for her.

This film has the same problem as "Her Cardboard Lover" - it came out at the wrong time, when this type of film had come and gone, and people were looking to more serious films or films that put the war into the story: "Mrs. Miniver," "The More the Merrier," "A Yank in the RAF," etc.

Norma Shearer was a hard-working, dedicated actress, but her ego got in the way of her final film choices. If only she had stopped with the wonderful "Escape" -- but she didn't.