Anita Page and Our Dancing Daughters

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intothenitrate
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Re: Anita Page and Our Dancing Daughters

Post by intothenitrate »

I watched ODD again recently, but I'm still warming up to it. It's just my personal issues with Crawford. It's certainly a sumptuous production. This last time around, I developed quite a screen crush for Dorothy Sebastian. She photographs sooo beautifully.

But on the subject of Page, she shocked me recently in Skyscraper Souls, an over-the-top pre-coder made by Metropolitan and released through MGM. She plays a cynical model who belches at the lunch counter after downing a morning-after bicarb (!), and has abandoned all pretense about what a girl might do to survive in the grips of the Depression.

At the end of the film, she hooks up with Jean Hersholt, a lonely jeweler. Their's is one of the few happy endings in this roller-coaster ride of a film. It's a sweet and poignant vignette, very well played.
"Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of one hundred percent virtue and three square meals a day."
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: Anita Page and Our Dancing Daughters

Post by charliechaplinfan »

I like Anita Page and always wondered why the girl they seemed to be building up in the late twenties early thirties became only a supporting actress, she seemed like the likeable girl next door so to watch her in Her Dancing Daughters, one of her early films but one of my later viewings of one of her films was quite a surprise. Our Dancing Daughters is a great late silent movie, it captures the flapper side to Joan Crawford, it captures the natural Joan Crawford, if there ever was one, nowhere does he come across as carefree as in this movie and some of the location shooting is simply stunning. I'm glad you got to watch it one the big screen.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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MichiganJ
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Re: Anita Page and Our Dancing Daughters

Post by MichiganJ »

I like Our Dancing Daughters a lot. I think it is one of the best examples of the flapper film, and has one of Crawford's best performances. Like intothenitrate, I'm not much of a fan of Crawford, but think she was better in silents than talkies because her penchant for over-emoting is less obvious in pantomime.

Page does steal the show, however, and is a terrific "bad" girl. Since Our Dancing Daughters was one of her first featured roles, it's surprising that she didn't get to play similar roles. It's a shame that her career was stalled because of the casting couch. However, she did live to be 98, and, because of home video and TV channels like TCM, whole new generations got to rediscover her and write her fan mail, which Anita answered.

Here's a link to an essay I wrote on Our Dancing Daughters way back from laserdisc days. (The Warner Archive DVD is from the same print.)
http://digitalsilents.com/Digital_Silen ... hters.html
"Let's be independent together." Dr. Hermey DDS
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: Anita Page and Our Dancing Daughters

Post by charliechaplinfan »

Has anyone else seen Anita in Night Court also known as Justice for Sale? She's trememdous.

Turning the premise on it's head, if Anita was the victim of not using the casting couch, how many of our lovely ladies did succumb? There was always be wild conjecture on this I suppose.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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