Tanned Legs

It is a watchable first-generation film musical. There are some obvious flaws caused by a mostly immobile camera and choreography better suited for the Broadway stage than the Hollywood sound stage, but there are some great strengths to it. Among them are its cast, including Arthur Lake, Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) and Lloyd Hamilton, a good if unmemorable set of songs and the opening-out of the action to a beach location -- if you can accept cliffs in seaside Florida, of course.

Leo Tover, whose black-and-white cinematography would be Oscar-nominated in the 1950s, is obviously operating under a considerable handicap. Except for the dance numbers and a couple of MOS sequence, almost everything is done in medium shots, usually extended two-shots. Still, director Marshall Neilan manages to keep things humming, there are a couple of funny scenes (including a six-handed bridge game) and we get to see a lot of tanned legs.

This is a very old fashioned musical, though I certainly expected this and cut the film some slack. After all, 1929 was still very early for talking pictures and the musicals of the era are a tad stilted and the production numbers a bit...well...much. And, compared to most of the musicals of the time, this one isn't bad at all.

The plot involves a family that is on vacation. However, Peggy (June Clyde) isn't about to pitch woo with Bill (Arthur Lake) because she's too worried about her family. After all, her daddy is out chasing a younger woman and mom isn't any better. As for her sister, there are some incriminating letters...and Peggy is determined to get them.

The film has a few cute songs, though the singing varies tremendously. A few of the actors (such as Lake) should NOT be singing! Interestingly enough, one of the co-writers of the songs was the very clever raconteur, Oscar Levant. Overall, it's harmless fluff. Folks that love older talking pictures will enjoy it...others might find it a bit tough to finish. The film also has one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings...it makes we wonder if the whole ending might actually be missing.

The summer resort "Breakers Beach Club" (Laguna Beach, CA) attacks wealthy vacationers and leggy dancers. Pretty blonde June Clyde (as Peggy Reynolds) is embarrassed by her middle-aged parents, who have both found younger romantic interests. Her mother and father are only at the flirting stage, however. "Harmless fun" is how her cute boyfriend Arthur Lake (as Bill) describes the affairs, but Ms. Clyde thinks her parents are "playing with fire." Also worrying Clyde is her beautiful sister Sally Blane (as Janet), who is serious about smarmy Edmund Burns (as Clinton Darrow). Clyde must solve everyone's problems by obtaining a blackmailer's love letters...

This early all-talking musical play lives up to the title "Tanned Legs" -- partly. There are several dance numbers, and director Marshall Neilan gives us a good look at the legs of many attractive young women. Legs go way up. On occasion, dresses do, too. It's difficult to tell in black and white, but the gams do not look especially tanned. Direction is otherwise not notable. As the portly father and matronly mother, Albert Gran and Nella Walker are perhaps most memorable. Broadway favorites Allen Kearns and Ann Pennington give it some authentic musical appeal. Best song "With You, With Me" (by Sidney Clare & Oscar Levant) lingers awhile.

**** Tanned Legs (11/10/29) Marshall Neilan ~ June Clyde, Arthur Lake, Sally Blane, Albert Gran

An early musical, with some modest synchronised dance moves, that points very tentatively towards the place in which the genre would find itself once Busby Berkeley grabbed hold of it. The lightweight plot is more interested in recovering incriminating love letters the sister of its young heroine wrote to her con-man lover than finding out why their parents seem so intent on bedding partners half their age.

The further back you go, the earlier in the evolutionary chain of cinema.

Even if the movie is uninteresting in a conventional sense, it has interest. Each of these early movies — and there weren't that many — was a firework shot into a sky, defining it.

This one is a rather crude imposition of a show onto several slightly related stories of romantic situations, and some sexual intrigue.

The show has the legs of the title rather overtly displayed in an obvious attempt to add spice to the stiff staging of the romantic episodes. Some of these involve the participants bursting into song, so its a strange amalgam of a musical on the story and one in the story. The stories are trite, as one would expect, but the women in the stories, even the vamps, are amazingly prim, especially when compared to the show girls.

These show girls, by the way, were selected for a different body type than usual for the period and more in line with modern trends: low body fat, muscle tone. As much is made of the Florida locale, that must have applied.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.