Review of We Were Dancing

This is a pleasant little comedy but a minor work coming as it does from Noel Coward. Perhaps his name on the script was part of Norma's decision to participate in this instead of the other films offered that she rejected to do this one. It certainly has an estimable cast: Melvyn Douglas an expert as this sort of fluffy comedy, Gail Patrick and Lee Bowman both able performers and a handful, Connie Gilchrist, Marjorie Main, Norma Varden, Alan Mowbray, Florence Bates etc., of the best character actors MGM had under contract. The main problem with this and perhaps part of the reason it tanked on initial release is that even all dressed up in fancy 40's fashions this is a relic of the sort of drawing room confections that were popular a decade earlier and had fallen out of favor by the war years. Unfortunately without Irving Thalberg's strong guiding hand to pick the right properties for her Norma's script sense failed her. She had done well with her previous film "Escape" but would blunder again with her follow up to this her last film "Her Cardboard Lover". Still taken as is without all the back story an enjoyable trifle but unmemorable.