This silent melodrama gives Joan Crawford a crackerjack early role, full of the fire, spirit, and defiance of social convention that would come to define her career. She plays Diana Medford—or, as she dubs herself, Diana the Dangerous—a Jazz Age socialite who is the life of every party, where she draws the attention of every man. Despite the moniker, however, Diana isn’t much of a threat, or even a conniver; when she falls for Ben Blaine (Johnny Mack Brown), she’s oblivious to his wealthy status. Not so Ann (Anita Page), a do-gooder who acts prim and proper in order to snag a rich fiance, then, after the wedding, plans to have her fun with other men on the side. And so who will Ben choose: the wild but upfront Diana, who genuinely cares for him, or the duplicitously sweet Ann? Our Dancing Daughters might hold more suspense as a romantic drama if Ben was less of a drip (really, Diana is better off on her own), but it’s a fascinating document of the sexual and gender expectations of the time. (“So this is all about slut-shaming, huh?” my 15-year-old daughter observed.) Indeed, and Crawford’s Diana is having none of it.
