"Today We Live" (1933), Joan Crawford as flapper in "Our Dancing Daughters"

Pre-Code Movies on TCM in January: "TODAY WE LIVE" (1933) THURSDAY 22nd, 10:45 AM
During WWI, two officers, one a pilot and the other in the navy, compete for the same beautiful young woman. An aristocratic English girl's tangled love life creates havoc during World War I. Based on the short story "Turn About" by William Faulkner (author of the film's dialogue). Director: Howard Hawks. Cast: Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young, Franchot Tone.

Louis B. Mayer, Paulette Goddard, Joan Crawford and producer Hunt Stromberg at the premiere of "The Women" (1939)

F. Scott Fitzgerald worked for MGM producer Hunt Stromberg from May to October 1938 writing a screenplay based on the hit play The Women (1936) by Claire Boothe Luce. The cast included Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, and Rosalind Russell, all of whom Fitzgerald had to provide with equally good lines. The job was complicated by health problems which prevented Stromberg from giving adequate attention to the project. Toward the end of the assignment, Donald Ogden Stewart was assigned to work with Fitzgerald, but they were replaced by Jane Murfin and Anita Loos when it was decided that female screenwriters were required. -"Critical Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work" (2007) by Mary Jo Tate

"The Offshore Pirate" is one of the eight stories originally published in F. Scott Fitzgerald's first collection of short stories "Flappers and Philosophers" (1920).

Ardita, the heroine of "The Offshore Pirate" values her courage "as a rule of life - a sort of insistence on the value of life and the worth of transient things." Yet clearly, Fitzgerald implies, if we have lived fully, even for a moment, then we have achieved victory over darkness and death. "Why, then I'd won" is Fitzgerald's reply to those who would moralize over the antics of the flapper.

Both comedy films "The Chorus Girl's Romance" (1920) and "The Offshore Pirate" (1921) featured one of the most popular female stars of the era, Viola Dana, an early flapper with less overt sex appeal than Clara Bow or Joan Crawford, but a unique screen personality. Joan Crawford, looking back, said "Our Dancing Daughters" (1928) was "a field day for me - I think it was the first time the script department was told to write strictly for Crawford." -"Fitzgerald's Flappers and Flapper Films of the Jazz Age: Behind the Morality" (2004) by Ruth Prigozy

In "Our Dancing Daughters", Jazz-baby Joan Crawford (playing Diana 'Dangerous' Medford) is actually a good girl despite her hedonistic lifestyle. She wants to marry young millionaire Johnny Mack Brown, but he is tricked into marriage by deceitful Anita Page. After drinking herself blotto at a party, Anita brags about her subterfuge, then conveniently tumbles down a long flight of stairs to her death. Thus, Crawford is able at last to link up with Brown, presumably to live happily ever after. Released with synchronized music and sound effects, Our Dancing Daughters manages to convey the "noise" of the Roaring '20s without sound, relying instead on inserted shots of art-deco statuary and the bubbling-over performance of Joan Crawford in the role that made her a star.

Crawford was reunited with her Dancing Daughters co-stars Anita Page and Dorothy Sebastian in two follow-up films (not sequels), Our Modern Maidens (1929) and Our Blushing Brides (1930). -Hal Erickson (All Movie Guide)

Around the time of the shooting of Our Dancing Daughters, rumors of Joan’s bisexuality began to surface, in spite of (or perhaps because of) her highly publicized relationship with pretty-boy Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Part of it was her intense desire to become friends with costar Anita Page, which some thought indicated that she had a crush on Page. Anita Page later told writer William Mann that “it may have been true in the beginning, that she wanted to know me for that reason.” Her friend and confidant Jerry Asher was certain that Joan had lusted for Page. Joan got farther with Dorothy Sebastian, cast as Beatrice in Our Dancing Daughters, and with Gwen Lee, who would appear with Joan in Untamed and Paid.

Joan also was sexually curious about Bette Davis, but, according to Asher, more than anything else it had to do with Joan’s amusement over Davis’s crush on her then-husband Franchot Tone. Joan remembered that she was “extremely uncomfortable with a British accent” in "Today We Live". -"Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography" (2002) by Lawrence J. Quirk & William Schoell