Warners excelled at producing musicals and gangster movies separately, but this attempt to combine the two was a bit unusual. Variety wondered in its review if perhaps a lighter approach would have allowed the genre blending to work better: "The two elements blend as far as logic is concerned," the review said, but "since the gunmen business is a vital part of the plot and could not have been disposed of with a once-over-lightly, a satirical approach rather than a serious one might have been a better solution." Still, the trade paper declared the film to be "a vigorously directed and agreeably entertaining musical picture. Besides everything else it has Al Jolson in top form, plus a nifty set of songs."
Jolson is indeed at the top of his talent here, performing songs like "Mammy, I'll Sing to You", "Latin from Manhattan" and "About a Quarter to Nine," all by songwriters Harry Warren and Al Dubin. The staging of "Latin from Manhattan" even won an Oscar® nomination for Bobby Connolly's great dance direction. The public ate it up, and Go Into Your Dance was a modest hit. There were to be no more Jolson-Keeler movies, however, due entirely to Jolson's legendary ego.
Jolson was extremely competitive and could not bear not being Number One all the time, even at the expense of his wife. But the truth was that by the mid-1930s, Keeler was a star in her own right, and Jolson, nearing 50, was slipping into something less than top-star importance. For Jolson, anything less was failure.
Even before Go Into Your Dance, the Jolsons' overzealous professional competition was straining their marriage. Harry Warner suggested that they work together instead of competing against each other, though his real reason for saying so was that "Keeler's name was needed to put the new Jolson picture over" (according to author Herbert Goldman). When Jolson agreed to try it, the Warners' publicity machine attempted to paint the Jolsons' marriage as nothing less than idyllic. In truth, author Michael Freedland has written, "there were occasional glimpses of pain on Al's face when he saw Ruby getting the close-ups he thought were his due." Furthermore, Jolson constantly gave Keeler direction, which was a constant frustration to Archie Mayo, the film's director.
Go Into Your Dance turned out to be a success but Jolson lamented, "They don't want to see me anymore. They want us." That was it for the Jolsons as far as co-starring. Inevitably, the marriage would soon collapse. Although the couple adopted a baby just before this film was released, Keeler left Warner Bros. in 1937 at the insistence of Jolson, and by 1940 they were divorced.
Despite the off-screen troubles of Jolson and Keeler, Go Into Your Dance is worth watching and offers a rare chance to see Helen Morgan, the torch singer of 1920s clubs and stage. By now her alcoholism was really taking its toll, but she still performs her one ballad in the movie, "The Little Things You Used To Do," quite poignantly while sprawled across a piano (a typical pose for her). This is one of the famous Broadway star's very few movies. A year later she would be featured in her best-known and final picture, Show Boat (1936). Five years later she was dead, from cirrhosis of the liver.
Another famous stage performer of the era to be seen in this movie is Patsy Kelly, who had previously played opposite Jolson on Broadway in Wonder Bar. Songwriters Warren and Dubin also appear here in bit roles as themselves. And look fast for Ward Bond.
Producer: Samuel Bischoff
Director: Archie Mayo
Screenplay: Bradford Ropes (novel/story), Earl Baldwin
Cinematography: Tony Gaudio
Film Editing: Harold McLernon
Art Direction: John Hughes
Music: Harry Warren
Cast: Al Jolson (Al Howard), Ruby Keeler (Dorothy Wayne), Glenda Farrell (Molly Howard), Barton MacLane (Duke Hutchinson), Patsy Kelly (Irma Knight), Akim Tamiroff (La Cucaracha Cantina).
BW-90m.
by Jeremy Arnold
Sources:
Pearl Sieben, The Immortal Jolson
Michael Freedland, Jolson
Herbert G. Goldman, Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life
