Our Dancing Daughters (1928)

OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS  (1928)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Harry Beaumont
    Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, 
    Dorothy Sebastian, Anita Page, Nils Aster, 
    Kathlyn Williams, Edward Nugent
In her first significant lead role, Joan Crawford plays a good-time girl who loses the man of her dreams to a gold digger who's no good at all. There's something distinctly modern about Crawford's acting that stands out in the context of a silent film. Her character's a hedonist with a heart, a combination of free-spirited sauciness and vulnerability that Crawford knew instinctively how to express, often with no more than a look. The shadowy cinematography and posh art-deco sets are eye-catching, too, but the movie belongs to the eye-catching Crawford. You can see why it made her a star.