{"id":4712,"date":"2007-11-06T16:48:52","date_gmt":"2007-11-06T23:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=4712"},"modified":"2021-02-02T14:20:26","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T21:20:26","slug":"glorifying-the-american-girl-1929","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=4712","title":{"rendered":"Glorifying the American Girl (1929)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;I&#8217;ve gotta dance now. I&#8217;ve waited all my life for this opportunity, and I&#8217;m not going to let it get away from me!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-237x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-68111\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-237x300.png 237w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-809x1024.png 809w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-101x128.png 101w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-768x972.png 768w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster-213x270.png 213w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/Glorifying-the-American-Girl-Poster.png 889w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nAn aspiring dancer (Mary Eaton) leaves behind her small-town sweetheart (Edward Crandall) for a chance at fame in New York; meanwhile, her corrupt partner (Dan Healy) takes advantage of her, and her best friend (Gloria Shea) hopes Crandall will fall for her instead.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Aspiring Stars<\/li>\n<li>Career-versus-Marriage<\/li>\n<li>Dancers<\/li>\n<li>Love Triangle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nThis early variation on the cinematic trope of marriage-versus-career &#8212; with an enormous dollop of &#8220;I want to be a star!&#8221; thrown in &#8212; received decidedly lukewarm reviews upon its release, for good reason. The performances are sub-par (most of the actors lean towards the over-emoting techniques of silent cinema), while the narrative is full of cliches &#8212; including a tepid &#8220;unrequited-love&#8221; triangle, an overbearing stage mother, and a lecherous Broadway cad. One scene in particular &#8212; in which poor Gloria Shea is run over by a car after being left behind by Crandall and Eaton &#8212; is so ridiculous it nearly approaches camp. <em>Glorifying the American Girl<\/em> is primarily notable these days for showcasing a handful of famous performers (including Eddie Cantor and Helen Morgan) in their prime, and for its cinematically innovative opening sequence; it&#8217;s too bad the rest of the film fails to live up to this early potential. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The creative opening sequence, depicting streams of hopeful starlets heading across the United States towards New York<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/opening-shot.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/opening-shot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1568\" height=\"1134\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4713\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>The dazzling &#8220;Follies&#8221; finale<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/glorifying-wings.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/glorifying-wings.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4714\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/glorifying-angel.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/11\/glorifying-angel.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4715\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0019933\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1930\/01\/11\/archives\/the-screen.html\">NY Times Original Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve gotta dance now. I&#8217;ve waited all my life for this opportunity, and I&#8217;m not going to let it get away from me!&#8221; Synopsis: An aspiring dancer (Mary Eaton) leaves behind her small-town sweetheart (Edward Crandall) for a chance at fame in New York; meanwhile, her corrupt partner (Dan Healy) takes advantage of her, and her best friend (Gloria Shea) hopes Crandall will fall for her instead. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Aspiring Stars Career-versus-Marriage Dancers Love Triangle Review: This&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=4712\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4712"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68112,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4712\/revisions\/68112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}