Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Our Dancing Daughters (1928)

This romantic drama, directed by Harry Beaumont, stars Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, Nils Asther, Dorothy Sebastian, Anita Page and Kathlyn Williams.

Narcisstic life-of-the-party Diana Medford (Crawford) is the center of attention in this flapper story initially fueled on amphethamines. Upon meeting handsome, rich and eligible bachelor Ben Blaine (Brown), Diana must fight for his attentions against money-dazzled Ann (Page).

Doe-eyed Crawford makes the most of the gauzey cinematography by George Barnes, with cocked head and sparkly batted-eyes, in her successful star-making vehicle. Anita Page is fun as the golddigger goaded on by her mother (Williams). Oh, Yes. Asther and Sebastian are in there somewhere but do little to make an impression.

This Blu-ray Disc (BD-R) edition has been mastered from good to very-good print material that appears to be a 16mm reduction print. Warner has “meticulously” cleaned-up the high-resolution scan for this BD release. The results are a vast improvement over their 2010 DVD release noted below.

The film is accompanied by its original Movietone soundtrack of synchronized music and sound effects as released in 1928. The soundtrack has been cleaned-up as well.

There is no supplementary material included on this manufactured-on-demand BD-R disc.

Highly recommended to everyone, especially to those who were frustrated at having to bear watching the old DVD release. Now you can throw ’em away!

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 Blu-ray Disc (BD-R) edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from good to very-good print material that appears to be a 16mm reduction print and is presented as was originally prepared for broadcast on the Turner Classic Movies cable television network. The source print has a very high amount of dust, fibers, speckling, fine scratches, image instability, rough splices and schmutz that has been allowed to remain in this significantly dirty video transfer. The print itself is a bit contrasty, with greyish highlights that often hold little image detail. As this film was shot on hand-cranked cameras and released with a synchronized soundtrack, some of the silent footage runs at a faster-than-normal speed to accommodate the technical requirement of the sound print. We wonder whether sound accompaniment was decided on during production because some silent footage runs closer to natural speed.

The film is accompanied by its original Movietone synchronized soundtrack music score as released in 1928.

We do not recommend this edition that is no better than the product of an independent home video company unless you cannot play Blu-ray Discs and, if so, be prepared for a less than ideal viewing experience.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Other FILMS FROM 1928 available on home video.