Tap! Filmography - The Feature Films
from Appendix B of Tap! The greatest tap dance stars and their stories, 1900-1955 by Rusty Frank, published 1990
"From the 1920s-1950s, there were very few musical films made that did not have tap dancing in some form. This appendix concentrates on "featured" tap dancers - solo, and groups. There are some entries listed here that have not been viewed since their original release. In these cases it is assumed that the tap dancer did perlorm a tap number in the film."
+ means information I added
++ is an entry from Jazz Dance: The Story Of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall & Jean Stearns, 1994
+++ is an entry that I added
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Companion list: Tap! Filmography - The Short Films
"From the 1920s-1950s, there were very few musical films made that did not have tap dancing in some form. This appendix concentrates on "featured" tap dancers - solo, and groups. There are some entries listed here that have not been viewed since their original release. In these cases it is assumed that the tap dancer did perlorm a tap number in the film."
+ means information I added
++ is an entry from Jazz Dance: The Story Of American Vernacular Dance by Marshall & Jean Stearns, 1994
+++ is an entry that I added
View Page breaks:
1 ('29-'36) | 2 ('36-'39) | 3 ('39-'41) | 4 ('41-'47) | 5 ('47-'57)
Edit Page breaks:
1 ('29-'41) | 2 ('41-'57)
Companion list: Tap! Filmography - The Short Films
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- DirectorHarry BeaumontStarsBessie LoveAnita PageCharles KingA pair of sisters from the vaudeville circuit try to make it big time on Broadway, but matters of the heart complicate the attempt.MGM/ Bessie Love, Anita Page
- DirectorJohn CromwellA. Edward SutherlandStarsHal SkellyNancy CarrollDorothy RevierWhen a vaudeville comic and a pretty young dancer have little luck in their separate careers, they decide to combine their acts; to save money on the road, they get married.Paramount/ Nancy Carroll, Hal Skelly
- DirectorMillard WebbStarsMary EatonEddie CantorHelen MorganThe rise of a showgirl, Gloria Hughes, culminating in a Ziegfeld extravaganza "Glorifying the American Girl".Paramount/ Mary Eaton, Dan Healy
- DirectorRoy Del RuthStarsNancy WelfordConway TearleWinnie LightnerThree Broadway chorus girls seek rich husbands.Warner/ Ann Pennington
- DirectorJames CruzeErich von StroheimStarsErich von StroheimDonald DouglasBetty CompsonAn insanely, egocentric ventriloquist, even though he is possessed by his wooden dummy, is in love with a dancer who is in love with another. The dummy gives advice to the ventriloquist.SonoArt/ Marjorie "Babe" Kane
- DirectorKing VidorStarsDaniel L. HaynesNina Mae McKinneyWilliam FountaineA sharecropper decides to become a preacher after falling for a vamp from the city.MGM/ Esvan Mosby
- DirectorBenjamin StoloffStarsCharles E. EvansMarjorie WhiteRichard KeeneMargie, a singer on a showboat, decides to try her luck in New York although she's in love with the owner's grandson. She is successful, but suddenly she hears that the showboat is in deep financial trouble, and she summons all of the boat's former stars to unite and put on a big show to rescue it.Fox/ Dixie Lee, Richard Keene, Tom Patricola, Ann Pennington, Slate Brothers, Martha Lee Sparks
- DirectorCharles ReisnerChristy CabanneNorman HoustonStarsConrad NagelJack BennyJohn GilbertAn all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.MGM/ Joan Crawford
- DirectorArchie MayoStarsTed LewisAlice DayAnn PenningtonThis is the story of Ted Lewis, popular band leader and clarinettist.Warner/ Ann Pennington
- DirectorMalcolm St. ClairStarsAileen PringleHugh TrevorDorothy GulliverBobby Martin, a young middleweight champion boxer, is an honest and decent fighter. However, on the eve of his biggest fight, he becomes entangled in the snare of a dishonest woman and ends up framed.RKO/ Ann Pennington
- DirectorAlan CroslandStarsArthur LakeBetty CompsonJoe E. BrownA musical advertised as the first 100% natural color, all-singing production. The plot concerns a wide-eyed former hatcheck girl who takes the place of a rebellious star.Warner/ Four Covans
- DirectorJohn Francis DillonStarsMarilyn MillerAlexander GrayJoe E. BrownSally was an orphan who got her name from the telephone exchange where she was abandoned as a baby. In the orphanage, she discovered the joy of dancing and has been practicing since. Working as a waitress, she goes from job to job until she finds a job that also allows her to dance. At the restaurant, she meets Blair, and they both fall for each other, but Blair is engaged to Marcia. Sally is hired to impersonate a famous Russian dancer named Noskerova, but at that engagement, she is found to be a phony and that Blair is engaged. Undaunted, she proceeds with her life and has her show on Broadway, but she still thinks of Blair.First National/ Marilyn Miller
- DirectorJohn G. AdolfiStarsFrank FayWilliam CourtenayH.B. WarnerIn 1929, the studio gave the cinema its voice and offered audiences a chance to hear their favorite actors and actresses from the silent-screen era. For the first time, they can be heard in a gaudy, grandiose musical-comedy revue. But also appearing are actors and actresses from the first 'talkies', stars from Broadway, and, of course, German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay is the host of the more than 70 well-known stars who show various acts.Warner/ Dancers, two choruses - one black one white
- DirectorSam WoodStarsElliott NugentRobert MontgomeryCliff EdwardsBiff and Eddie are the best of friends. They are college seniors, roommates at the fraternity, and star teammates on the USC football team. Then a flapper named Babs enters the picture. Biff considers Babs his girl, and she does like him more than Eddie, but Eddie is persistent. Everywhere they go, Eddie and Biff are competing for Babs. When Eddie backs off for the sake of the friendship, Babs decides that she wants him, and this causes the friendship to end. Their rivalry even threatens the team's play in the big Stanford football game.Fox/ Ann Pennington, Slate Brothers
- DirectorFrank TuttleStarsNancy CarrollHelen KaneStanley SmithA chorus girl inherits a men's college where her boyfriend is a star football player.Paramount/ Helen Kane, Jack Oakie
- DirectorJosef von SternbergStarsGeorge BancroftFay WrayRichard ArlenA criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.Paramount/ Nina Mae McKinney
- DirectorCharles ReisnerStarsBessie LoveCharles KingJack BennyThe road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.MGM/ Bessie Love, Anita Page
- DirectorMelville W. BrownStarsFreeman F. GosdenCharles J. CorrellSue CarolTypical Amos 'n Andy storyline has the boys trying to make a go of their "open-air" taxi business while they get caught up in a society hassle, involving driving musicians to a fancy party. All the regular characters are here (or mentioned), including the famous Mystic Knights of the Sea. The only film appearance of radio's long-running characters.RKO/ Four Step Brothers
- DirectorLuther ReedStarsBebe DanielsEverett MarshallBert WheelerIn antebellum New Orleans, two men vie for the affections of a beautiful young girl during Mardi Gras.RKO/ Bill Robinson
- DirectorDavid ButlerStarsEl BrendelMaureen O'SullivanJohn GarrickNew York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.Fox/ Frank Albertson, Margorie White
- DirectorJohn Murray AndersonWalter LantzStarsPaul WhitemanJohn BolesLaura La PlanteAmerican Pre-Code color film starring Paul Whiteman and his Jazz orchestra.Universal/ Chorus tap
- DirectorLeo McCareyStarsJack OakieJeanette MacDonaldRichard 'Skeets' GallagherDress designer Joan Wood, who's heavily in debt, has created costumes for a Broadway show that is exported to Argentina. With the money she wants to pay her debts, but there was a mistake: she is receiving the money in Buenos Aires, not in New York. Her friend Wally Wendell, whose grandfather does not approve of his relationship with her, wants him to marry a girl he hasn't seen for some years named Constance Cook, whose grandfather is the owner of a ship traveling to Buenos Aires and Constance is one of the passengers. Wally's friend Basil has caused a freak accident with Voltair McGuines' cab, who wants his money for the damage. Basil asks Wally, but he has been disinherited and lost all credit by his grandfather, because he still wants Joan.Paramount/ Jack Oakie
- DirectorMichael CurtizStarsAl JolsonLois MoranLowell ShermanA love triangle develops in a traveling minstrel troupe.Warner/ Corbet Brothers
- DirectorCharles ReisnerStarsAlbertina Rasch DancersBetty BrownWilliam Collier Jr.A musical revue scheduled for release in September 1930 but shelved midway through production when musicals fell out of favor at the box office. In the years since, film aficionados have attempted to compile footage of the film's completed musical numbers, most of which MGM recycled into short subjects or feature films of the early 1930s.MGM/ Barney Fagan (never released as a whole)
- DirectorDorothy ArznerOtto BrowerEdmund GouldingStarsJean ArthurClara BowMaurice ChevalierA musical revue that basically has Paramount stars and contract-players doing things some had never done on screen, and wouldn't again; such as Ruth Chatteron , in a French-café setting singing "My Marine" (written by Richard A. Whiting and Raymond B. Eagan) to a group of U. S. Marines, including Stuart Eriwn, Stanley Smith and Frederic March; Buddy Rogers doing a song-duet with Lillian Roth called "Any Time's the Time to Fall in Love" (written by Elise Jans and Jack King), on a cuckoo-clock set; and Clara Bow singing and dancing in the "True To The Navy Now" number to a group of sailors.Paramount/ Nancy Canoll, Mitzie Mayfair, Jack Oakie