Our Blushing Brides

This was the third film in the Joan Crawford flapper trilogy - (Our Dancing Daughters (1928)/Our Modern Maidens (1929)/Our Blushing Brides (1930)). The first two were silent, the third was a talking picture. This was not Joan Crawford's first talking picture nor her first film with costar Robert Montgomery - both those honors go to 1929's "Untamed".

You can really see the onset of the Great Depression having an effect in this final film of the trilogy. The first two films involve lots of melodrama, but there is also widespread prosperity and a focus on living it up with partying that reflects the excesses of the 1920's. This final film really isn't about living it up at all. It's more about three shop girls just getting by and how the men in the lives of two of them (Anita Page and Dorothy Sebastian) promise the good life but end up raining down tragedy upon them, while the third shop girl, Gerry (Joan Crawford), has her own cynical attitude towards men reinforced by watching the fates of her two friends. That makes the ending seem a little tacked on and even unbelievable to some degree, but it's still a good film.

Unfortunately this film is neither on DVD or VHS. "Our Dancing Daughters" and "Our Modern Maidens" can be found on used VHS copies, but the transfer is pretty blurry. None of the three is on DVD, and considering their place in Joan Crawford's filmography, I find that to be a shame.