In Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Joan Crawford played Diana Medford, a flapper whose love life and friendships drive a story of Jazz Age youth. Directed by Harry Beaumont, the silent film was a major success and made Crawford a star.
Diana is lively, modern and unafraid, and Crawford played her with a dancing energy that captured the spirit of the late 1920s. The film’s famous dance sequences showed Crawford’s background as a dancer, and audiences responded to her vitality.
Our Dancing Daughters remains Crawford’s breakthrough film — the moment she moved from bit parts to stardom, and a vivid record of the flapper era she came to symbolise.