On with the Dance

I was briefly given access to a collector's extremely deteriorated nitrate print of this British short film. It's a shame that this print is so thoroughly deteriorated: the opening credits were nearly intact, and the cast list includes several major British musical performers of the 1920s and '30s, some of whom made very few films.

The print has no soundtrack, but it's apparently some sort of musical short subject: aye, a musical silent movie. There are a couple of ways that a silent film can also be musical. Some of the early sound films produced in America were released with a phonograph record instead of a soundtrack: poor old Smokey, the overworked cinema projectionist, was meant to start the projector and the phonograph at the same time, while hoping that the image and the sound were in synch. However, I'm not aware of any British film companies attempting this phonograph system circa 1927 ... although the Warwick Trading Company had released several musical films (with synchronised phonograph discs) nearly twenty years earlier! A more likely explanation is that sheet music was issued with this silent film, and the individual cinemas were meant to engage musicians to perform the music live during the film, trying to keep in synch with the images on screen.

As far as I can tell from what's viewable here, this short film consisted of several sections: each sequence featuring a dance team demonstrating a different ballroom dance. Sonnie Hale (the husband of Jessie Matthews) and his sister Binnie demonstrate something which looks to me (from the viewable footage) like the Castle Walk, the dance created in America by Irene Castle and her English-born husband Vernon. I well and truly wish I could see this thing clearly, but some of this footage was already in the vinegar-soup stage by the time I examined it.

I was disappointed that two major theatre names in the opening credits -- Cyril Ritchard and Bobby Howes -- are not in the footage I was able to view. They're probably in the portions which deteriorated so badly that I couldn't even Steenbeck them. Bobby Howes was the father of Sally Ann Howes, and a West End star in his own right. I wonder what sort of dance he would have demonstrated here, as he was much better known as a comedic actor and singer rather than as a dancer.

The only footage here which was still in good nick features performers cried Bessie Hay and Sid Tracey performing an adagio dance (identified as such in a caption). Hay is quite attractive, and both dancers are graceful. According to IMDb, this was their only-ever film appearance, and I'm certainly not aware of any other films they made. I recognise their names only because they once performed on the same Moss Empire bill as an old variety performer whom I once interviewed; she recalled that Tracey and Hay were a married couple who emigrated to the States. One more talented act that never made it, alas.

While I can't speak specifically for Tracey and Hay, I will say that it was very commonplace in British variety (and American vaudeville) for a dance team to be husband and wife, if only for economy: a male-female couple travelling the circuit could share one hotel room, but the managers of most theatrical hotels would insist on seeing a marriage certificate as proof that they hadn't, erm, just met. Boy-girl dance teams who weren't spouses were usually siblings: the most notable examples of this being Fred and Adele Astaire, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen, and Sonnie and Binnie Hale.

Here's hoping that a better print of 'On with the Dance' surfaces eventually, but even a pristine print would be of limited use without the appropriate sheet music. This film is a reminder that even a major stage performer's career is impermanent ... and film, sadly, isn't always permanent either. As I've seen only fragments of this short movie, I shan't offer a rating.