There isn't much to say about WE WERE DANCING except that it was the second of Norma Shearer's career blunders in 1942 which she should not have taken and instead chosen the better roles of Charlotte Vale in NOW VOYAGER or the title role in MRS MINIVER which would have suited her fine, allowing her to wield her own mannered style of dramatic emotion with ease and would have quite definitely secured her Oscar pull. Based, albeit loosely, on two Noel Coward plays, this is the story of Vicki Wilmoriska who falls into romance with Nicki Prax, but events conspire against them. She catches Nicki with former squeeze Linda Wayne (the always aloof Gail Patrick), and decides to go into the arms of Hubert Taylor, but just as she is ready to marry Hubert, guess who pops back into her life?
Such is the stuff of this by-the-numbers fluff that holds little water or interest in a time when war dramas were the norm and eccentric socialites were dead and buried as Hollywood was concerned. Norma and the cast seem like they belong in the early 30s, not its time, and no one rises above this bad material, effectively teetering Norma's career right over the edge of the abyss, to which she would fall come the release of her next movie HER CARDBOARD LOVER. It just shows what happens when an actress refuses to age gracefully and begin to play parts more appropriate her age (she was forty). She refused to play a mother (odd, considering she played one in THE WOMEN) and was reputedly disinterested in acting altogether, which is probably why she decided to make this forgettable film, but then again, other actresses have ended their careers in worse films than this. Only for die-hard fans of her filmography, and part of a retrospective shown on August 25 on TCM as its salute to her body of work.
Such is the stuff of this by-the-numbers fluff that holds little water or interest in a time when war dramas were the norm and eccentric socialites were dead and buried as Hollywood was concerned. Norma and the cast seem like they belong in the early 30s, not its time, and no one rises above this bad material, effectively teetering Norma's career right over the edge of the abyss, to which she would fall come the release of her next movie HER CARDBOARD LOVER. It just shows what happens when an actress refuses to age gracefully and begin to play parts more appropriate her age (she was forty). She refused to play a mother (odd, considering she played one in THE WOMEN) and was reputedly disinterested in acting altogether, which is probably why she decided to make this forgettable film, but then again, other actresses have ended their careers in worse films than this. Only for die-hard fans of her filmography, and part of a retrospective shown on August 25 on TCM as its salute to her body of work.