Go Into Your Dance

I watched this last evening. Honestly, I believe that other reviewers are overrating this one, as compared with some of the great Warners backstage musicals; however, it is a pleasant hour-plus entertainment; and Jolson gives one of his few (somewhat)underplayed performances. (This probably ranks after Hallelujah, I'm a Bum; though his supporting roles In Swanee River and Rose of Washington Square show him off to good advantage, largely because he doesn't dominate the film.) As noted by others, it's a typical Jolson plot, less maudlin than most others, except at the close when Ruby Keeler does a near-death scene. (Well, at least she was a first-rate tap dancer.) I couldn't help noticing that in this film, Jolson's character is called "the world's greatest entertainer". Ruby Keeler, his wife for seven or eight years, is said to have remarked: "I know he was the world's greatest entertainer; he told me so every day." Incidentally, in my film history course, I always included the Jolson night club number from The Jazz Singer. Even the younger generation was impressed by the way his dynamic personality almost jumps off the screen; perhaps that was the screen appearance that showed him off to best advantage at the peak of his Broadway career.

Taking a look at the screen credits of Ruby Keeler and you'll find that Go Into Your Dance is not only the only film she did with her husband Al Jolson, but after five films, her first away from Dick Powell. She did two more subsequent to Go Into Your Dance with Powell, but after only one more film at Warner Brothers, she only made three more prior to retiring from the screen and settling down as wife and mother. Of course Keeler did make a comeback in the Sixties and I well remember seeing her and Patsy Kelly in that Broadway revival of No No Nanette.

What Go Into Your Dance really was meant to do is try to save the Jolsons marriage which was in free fall by then. Al's egomania didn't make him the easiest person to live with and within a few years Keeler called it quits. For the rest of her life she would never answer one question about life with Jolson.

Warner Brothers did assemble a good cast for them. Al plays an irresponsible, egomaniacal entertainer, no stretch in the casting department. He's walked out on too many a show as his sister Glenda Farrell tells him, no producer will hire him. Never mind says Jolie, he'll produce his own with a new dancer he's discovered, Ruby Keeler.

Producing costs money and that means going to gangster Barton MacLane whose trampy wife wants to resume her show business career. Jolie gets the money and the wife played by Helen Morgan. But his problems are only beginning.

Bobby Connolly did the dance direction and I have to say pinch hit admirably for Busby Berkeley. The big hit song of the film was Jolson singing and Keeler dancing to About a Quarter to Nine. It was nicely staged and worthy of Berkeley in every sense of the word as Berkeley gave Jolson that awful Going' to Heaven on a Mule in Wonder Bar. In this film the chorus of male dancers and Jolson all turn to blackface for a minute. Jolson also does the finale title song in blackface as well.

Unfortunately not only does Jolson do blackface, but in this film, not once, but twice he rubs the head of black actor Fred "Snowflake" Toone for good luck. That particular bit of tastelessness kept Go Into Your Dance off the television screens for decades. I remember seeing it on WOR TV's million dollar movie as a lad in the Fifties, but never again until recently.

The real pity is that we were also deprived of seeing Helen Morgan sing as well. Her alcoholism had gotten pretty bad at this point, but she was one of Broadway brightest stars. She sings The Little Things You Used to Do in her typical poignant fashion. It would have really been great to see her co-star with Jolson in a film, but that was not to be.

Go Into Your Dance is quite a museum piece of a film and if you're not into Jolson, I would urge you to see it for Helen Morgan.

"He doesn't even know I am alive...he thinks I am a kid or something" (Ruby Keeler in "Go Into Your Dance", who, incidentally married Jolson in real life when she was 18 and he was well into his 40s)

"Go Into Your Dance" is a highly flawed movie and the main character, Al (Al Jolson), is an oddly written guy--and it makes you wonder WHAT the writer was thinking! After all, he plays a successful Broadway star (what a stretch!) who is a jerk. Again and again, when he has a successful show he gets bored and simply walks away...leaving everyone in a lurch. This makes his character a seriously bad person...leaving backers and actors to be ruined simply because he gets bored! Well, by the time this film starts, he's once again disappeared and is down in Mexico having a good time...and he's burned about every possible bridge. So, when he has an idea about putting on a new show, backers are naturally unexcited about it. And this gets me to the HUGE problem with the film...the audience watching this picture also feels the same way---Al is a jerk and you DON'T want to see him succeed. Why would Jolson agree to make this film as it makes him look awful...just as terrible as the guy Ruby Keeler used to say he was like off stage!?

What you get in this film is pretty much what you'd expect otherwise. Jolson sings a lot and there are a lot of production numbers. And, unfortunately, Al gets the break he simply doesn't deserve. But what does he do with it? See the film.

I noticed that I am one of the few reviewers who thought the movie was fatally flawed. Obviously the other viewers could look past Al's nasty history of ditching shows because he got bored. They also apparently could look past Jolson doing a black-face number-- something he was famous for over the course of his career. As for me, the film was a decent time-passer and no more. It did end well and got better as the film progressed. I also noticed that a lot of the actors yelled their lines--particularly Barton MacLane and Ruby Keeler. Oddly, Patsy Kelly didn't!

This is one of the underrated musicals of the 1930s. But it has a lot going for it, most notably the electric performance of one of the greatest entertainers before microphones, Al Jolson. Jolson demonstrates in this film why he could have audiences in the palm of his hand---the power of his voice and the awesome reach of his personality come across on the screen as they must have in a vaudeville house or on the musical comedy stage. Ruby Keeler is also fine as the femme fatale, dancing with great style (though the film could have profited from the talents of a master choreographer like Busby Berkeley!). And Barton MacLane is grand as the heavy. The songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin are charming and winning, especially such jewels as "She's a Latin From Manhattan," "About a Quarter To Nine," and the title song. In all, a winning little film.

Why GO INTO YOUR DANCE is not as well known or appreciated or even screened as often as other Warners musicals of the 30s is a mystery to me because this film works well - with excellent and quite spectacular dance numbers. Four songs in particular "An Old Fashioned Custom" "She's a Latin From Manhattan" "A Quarter To Nine" and "Go Into Your Dance" are as catchy as any in the Berkeley films and the staging of the main nightclub scenes are right up there with what RKO was providing for Astaire and Rogers. This effervescent musical film even survives the clobbering behavior of Al Jolson romping about bellowing and squeezing everyone in between belting out songs. He is so obnoxious! I know he is legend but so leery and abrasive...yecch. Ruby Keeler in her last film is as delicious and normal as ever and looks great in taps on bare wood or in the glamor-puss scenes in full ballroom dress. Not seen on TV here in Oz for over 20 years, I occasionally run the tape (with terrible 80s ads) just to see how it is holding up. GO INTO YOUR DANCE never fails to entertain. I would love a DVD. This film much deserves to be discovered and shown as much as any of the other well loved 30s musicals from any studio.