The High School Hoofer

Eleanor King is quite charming as the beauty who talks gawky Hal LeRoy into performing at a high school talent competition, but it is LeRoy who is the point of this Vitagraph short subject -- they even use his real name.

Leroy's dance is an eccentric one performed to the tune "Dinah", played to a fast, jazzy beat, and his feet certainly keep up. More than that, while he is dancing, he looks like a John Held Jr. cartoon from the New Yorker, a young sheik who wears clothes in a manner than makes him look like he is posing languidly at an absurd angle, even while he is moving fast. There are a couple of cuts to focus on his feet, and he is very good.

Unhappily, Leroy's career in front of the camera never quite took off. He did very nicely on the stage, though.