We Were Dancing ** (1942, Norma Shearer, Melvyn Douglas, Gail Patrick) – Classic Movie Review 9962

Norma Shearer rejected starring in Mrs Miniver while making director Robert Z Leonard’s 1942 featherweight black and white drawing room comedy We Were Dancing, loosely based on one of Noël Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 short plays.

With her hair colour lightened to suit the mood, Shearer works hard as ‘Vicki’ Wilomirska, a Polish princess who at her engagement party skips away with a romeo, Baron ‘Nikki’ Prax (Melvyn Douglas). Both are broke ex-patriate European nobles, who, once married, become professional house guests in American homes.

Shearer and Douglas are both good, but the script is not, and much more must have been expected of this if the MGM big cast and production is anything to go by. Coward fans might wonder what happened to his play.

Claudine West, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel’s screenplay lacks the very sparkle it needs.

Gail Patrick plays one of Nicki’s ex-girlfriends, decorator Linda Wayne, who exposes the couple’s secret marriage.

King Baggot, a major star in the silent era but reduced to bit parts after the advent of sound, has an uncredited appearance as Courtroom Spectator. He was also a writer and director, his most famous film as director being William S Hart’s Western classic Tumbleweeds (1925).

Also in the cast are Lee Bowman as Hubert Tyler, Marjorie Main as Judge Sidney Hawkes, Reginald Owen as Major Tyler-Blane, Alan Mowbray as Grand Duke Basil, Florence Bates as Mrs Vanderlip, Heather Thatcher as Mrs Tyler-Blane, Connie Gilchrist as Olive Ransome, Nella Walker as Mrs Janet Bentley, Russell Hicks as Mr Bryce-Carew, Norma Varden as Mrs Bryce-Carew, Adriana Caselotti as Opera Singer, Dick Elliott as Mr. Samson Platt, Leatrice Joy Gilbert as Debutante, Mary Forbes as Mrs Louise Sandys and Florence Shirley as Mrs Charteris.

Sig Ruman (Baron Prax) is one of many cast members in studio records or casting call lists who either do not appear or are unidentifiable in the movie. This includes Ava Gardner, who allegedly makes her film debut here in a crowd scene but is unidentifiable.

MGM boss Louis B Mayer personally offered Norma Shearer the title role in Mrs Miniver (1942) but she refused, not wanting to play a mother with a grown son, and chose instead forgotten film Her Cardboard Lover (1942).

We Were Dancing is Shearer’s penultimate movie: after Her Cardboard Lover, released the same year, she retired, got married and lived happily on till 1983 when she was 80.

It was shot in 1941 but not released until 1942 when America’s mood had changed after it entered World War Two. So it flopped, causing a loss to MGM of $409,000 (on a cost of $1,085,000).

The waltz theme We Were Dancing (music by Noël Coward) is heard throughout the film.

We Were Dancing is directed by Robert Z Leonard, runs 94 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Claudine West, Hans Rameau and George Froeschel, based on Noël Coward’s play, is shot in black and white by Robert Planck, is produced by Robert Z Leonard and Orville O Dull, is scored by Bronislau Kaper and Noël Coward (waltz theme We Were Dancing), and designed by Cedric Gibbons.

It is loosely based on Noël Coward’s 1935 playlet We Were Dancing, together with ideas from another of his Tonight at 8.30 plays, Ways and Means, as well as his play Private Lives.

Noël Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 play is in three parts, shown a different evenings. It opened in London on 9 January 1936. The Broadway openings took place on 24, 27 and 30 November 1936 and starred Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, running for 118 performances for all three shows. There have been two Broadway revivals.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9962

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