After the Dance

One wonders how a film featuring a male dancer getting sentenced to jail for manslaughter plays out under the straitjacket of the Hays code . Come on you all know what getting at . Trying making a film featuring the Darwinian law of the jungle that is the American penal system without any allusion to gang rape. This is a movie we've all got to see as to how the producers, screenwriters and director are going to get around

AFTER THE DANCE starts after the inciting incident of the killing scene. This opening is so bizarre that I was left wondering if the censors edited the scene out before the film was distributed for release. Indeed as people on this page have noticed this is a film with an entirely strange feel where segments of the story feel like they're missing. The main bulk of the narrative - where the protagonist ends up in jail - isn't in fact the bulk of the story. Instead it's about a convicted criminal on the run who gets lucky enough to relaunch his career again as a dancer. None of it makes sense from a logical point of view and is very contrived . Likewise as everyone has noticed the film just comes to an abrupt stop which led me to ask what the point of the film was

This short and snappy crime drama about nightclub dancers plunges us into the action from scene one. Three elements give the movie its special flavor: Thelma Todd as an alluring but nasty vixen; Nancy Carroll as her alluring and kindhearted opposite; and the insertion of full blown song and dance sequences without which the movie would clock in at around 45 minutes! The songs and dances themselves are nothing special but pleasant enough. And it must be noted that after seeing George Murphy and Carroll trip the light fantastic you clearly understand why it was Astaire and Rogers who are remembered today. Murphy was physically more attractive than Astaire but heavy footed in comparison. And his singing voice was thin like Astaire's but there is no life in his delivery. It makes sense that Murphy eventually abandoned performing to become a politician. It does not make sense that Nancy Carroll's career had to end so soon. She is absolutely winning every moment she is on the screen. And poor Thelma Todd was murdered the year this film was released so we will never know what she might have done with her comic (and, as revealed here) dramatic talents.

This was a pretty poor B-movie--with a plot that makes little sense and a non-existent ending. George Murphy stars as a song and dance man who is wrongly convicted of manslaughter--making this one of the very few films to combine singing, tap dancing and prison---a very strange genre melange indeed! The problem is that the stories just didn't mesh well at all. At one point, he's getting into fights in prison and going stir-crazy and the next he's in a white tux doing a second-rate imitation of Fred Astaire!!! It's rather surreal and mind-numbing, so after a while I found myself fast-forwarding through the song and dance numbers. I'd have much preferred if they'd just made it a prison film--this was by far the best portion. If all this wasn't bad enough, the film just didn't make sense and by the end of the film it was hopelessly silly and unconvincing. By appearances, the studio must have felt the same way, since the movie just abruptly ended--with no real resolution. This was shown on Turner Classic Movies and they pride themselves for showing the most complete versions available. However, it sure looked like there was a huge chunk missing. Considering it was a B-film, I truly believe that at the one hour mark, they just edited out the ending to meet the usual time format for that style film. Regardless, it's very unsatisfying and hokey--not at all a pleasant or entertaining film.