1920s

Dancing in a London Dive 1929

Dancing in a London dive from the Anna May Wong film "Piccadilly" from 1929.

It opens with a bunch of women doing a Charleston and then moves to general, lively social dancing to include a scandalous inter-racial dance. I cut the bit where the landlord throws the black man out as it detracted from my general purpose of showing the dances of the time.

A Fox-Trot Evening in Paris in 1929

This was trimmed down from Fox Movietone News out takes of an evening at a Paris nightclub in 1929. The sound was pretty bad so I superimposed a French band number.

This was done in support of a "Fox Trot in the 1920s" workshop I gave in DC in May 2016.

Dance Scenes from "Nickel Hopper" - 1926

A satirical look at the social dance scene (in a dance hall) at the height of the Charleston craze. Mabel endures a parade of the worst dance partners imaginable. That's Oliver Hardy at the drums. The big bo-hunk who deserves a belt in the beezer is Boris Karloff. Here's my source for the footage:
https://archive.org/details/TheNickel-hopper1926

Jazz Age Tango Mix

A selection of clips from 1920s and 30s movies illustrating the simplicity, romanticism and sensuality of the Tango of the Jazz Age. Includes clips from "Die Buchse der Pandora", "Her Majesty, Love", "Abwege" and "Prix de Beaute".

French Tango Instruction 1927

A Pathe short film showing the basic steps of the French Tango of 1927. I added a sound track (it was silent) and trimmed out the second part, which was an odd bit with two small children dancing the Charleston. The music is Tino Rossi singing Ecris Moi.

Dancing in A Dockside Dive in 1928

This scene, in which dancing figures prominently in the background, gives a sense of the sorts of dancing a movie audience would expect to see in a sleazy dive in New York in 1928. It's from "The Docks of New York"

Dancing in a Parisian Dive in 1921

The dance scenes from the 1921 French film Fievre, showing low-down Jazz Age dancing in a low down venue full of drunk, unhappy people. I pasted "The Montmartre Rag" and "Around the Bois de Boulogne" onto the silent footage.

1920s Fox Trot and Waltz - Dance Scenes from "Regent Hall".

I happened on this fragment of an obscure British film set in a dance hall that contains a lot of nice detail. I also love it when they put up a sign saying "Fox Trot" or "Waltz" to remove any doubt. I am a bit disappointed they flashed a One Step sign, but didn't show it. I am curious what a British One Step would look like given how One-Steppy their Fox Trots are. You would seldom see a dance called a One Step in the States by this time.