Giving her all to this big budget musical, Joan Crawford goes from the 42nd Street burlesque houses to the star of a lavish musical revue (that couldn't fit on any Broadway stage) and proves herself to be quite the dancer if not one of the better singers of the early movie musicals. She looks great in her evening gowns but in rehearsal clothes appears to be rather odd looking with a rather wide head that made her seem older than she was. Put her in frills and sequins, however, she's the glamorous Joan that made her one of the biggest stars of the 1930's, and certainly MGM's most financially successful.
The men here are second string in supporting Joan with Franchot Tone a Park Avenue man about town who happens to spot Joan in the chorus of the burlesque show and takes her out, glamours her up and then tries to keep her from the big musical revue's producer, the rugged Clark Gable. She is unaware that Tone has manipulated her success by putting money in the show and withdrawing it when her initially cool working relationship with Gable seemed to be turning into romance. But Gable, like Warner Baxter in the same year's "42nd Street", is determined to make sure that the show goes on.
1933 saw the return of the movie musical in a major way, and MGM produced several that rivaled the Busby Berkley dance extravaganzas being made over at Warner Brothers. Joan, however, isn't Ruby Keeler, the innocent chorus girl who gets a lucky break; It's obvious from the get-go that she's tough, sharing wisecracks with burlesque star Winnie Lightner and even getting some laughs with her brief encounter with none other than the Three Stooges. Like Marian Davies in MGM's "Going Hollywood", she is meant to be more window dressing than Jeanette MacDonald, and looks fabulous in her Adrian gowns. When all of a sudden she begins to dance with Fred Astaire in an outrageously lavish production number, she proves herself to be practically his equal, giving her the distinction of being his first screen dancing partner.
Nelson Eddy leads the big production number of "Rhythm of the Day", giving "Dancing Lady" the distinction of having the two leading men who would become part of famous twosomes in musicals for the rest of the decade. "Rhythm of the Day" is almost laughably pretentious, but not as outrageous as "Heigh Ho the Gang's All Here" which has Fred and Joan dancing on a whirling gadget that flies through the sky and lands in the middle of a big festival with chorus boys and girls clad in liederhosen. "Let's Go Bavarian!" is actually ironic for a 1933 release with its Germanic themes considering that this was the same year that Hitler began his rise to power and ultimate reign of terror.
May Robson, already having played Joan's mother in "Letty Lynton", is Tone's hard of hearing grandmother, with Grant Mitchell as a theater owner and in an unbilled role, the future Eve Arden as a chorus girl rejectee who had tried to feign a Southern accent. Of course, Arden would go on to support Joan in a larger way years later in "Mildred Pierce", so there's an irony in seeing her here. The blowzy Winnie Lightner, after a brief leading lady stint at Warners, gets in some good gags and an amusing musical number.
While certainly not among the best of the 1930's big budget musicals, "Dancing Lady" is still fun, frivolous and frilly. Gable seems a bit out of sorts putting on a show, and his role is rather secondary. Tone's character lacks motivation, but somebody's got to be the heavy, even if the script gives no real indication as to why. This is Joan's picture all the way.
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