Tanned Legs (1929) User Reviews

It's not THE COCOANUTS, but....

[boblipton · 6/10 · 23 January 2003]

It is a watchable first-generation film musical. There are some obvious flaws caused by a mostly immobile camera and choreography better suited for the Broadway stage than the Hollywood sound stage, but there are some great strengths to it. Among them are its cast, including Arthur Lake, Sally Blane (Loretta Young's sister) and Lloyd Hamilton, a good if unmemorable set of songs and the opening-out of the action to a beach location -- if you can accept cliffs in seaside Florida, of course.

Leo Tover, whose black-and-white cinematography would be Oscar-nominated in the 1950s, is obviously operating under a considerable handicap. Except for the dance numbers and a couple of MOS sequence, almost everything is done in medium shots, usually extended two-shots. Still, director Marshall Neilan manages to keep things humming, there are a couple of funny scenes (including a six-handed bridge game) and we get to see a lot of tanned legs.

Legs Up!

[wes-connors · 4/10 · 20 October 2014]

The summer resort "Breakers Beach Club" (Laguna Beach, CA) attacks wealthy vacationers and leggy dancers. Pretty blonde June Clyde (as Peggy Reynolds) is embarrassed by her middle-aged parents, who have both found younger romantic interests. Her mother and father are only at the flirting stage, however. "Harmless fun" is how her cute boyfriend Arthur Lake (as Bill) describes the affairs, but Ms. Clyde thinks her parents are "playing with fire." Also worrying Clyde is her beautiful sister Sally Blane (as Janet), who is serious about smarmy Edmund Burns (as Clinton Darrow). Clyde must solve everyone's problems by obtaining a blackmailer's love letters...

This early all-talking musical play lives up to the title "Tanned Legs" -- partly. There are several dance numbers, and director Marshall Neilan gives us a good look at the legs of many attractive young women. Legs go way up. On occasion, dresses do, too. It's difficult to tell in black and white, but the gams do not look especially tanned. Direction is otherwise not notable. As the portly father and matronly mother, Albert Gran and Nella Walker are perhaps most memorable. Broadway favorites Allen Kearns and Ann Pennington give it some authentic musical appeal. Best song "With You, With Me" (by Sidney Clare & Oscar Levant) lingers awhile.

**** Tanned Legs (11/10/29) Marshall Neilan ~ June Clyde, Arthur Lake, Sally Blane, Albert Gran

Mom and Dad don't exactly set the highest standards for their daughters in this one!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 13 December 2016]

This is a very old fashioned musical, though I certainly expected this and cut the film some slack. After all, 1929 was still very early for talking pictures and the musicals of the era are a tad stilted and the production numbers a bit...well...much. And, compared to most of the musicals of the time, this one isn't bad at all.

The plot involves a family that is on vacation. However, Peggy (June Clyde) isn't about to pitch woo with Bill (Arthur Lake) because she's too worried about her family. After all, her daddy is out chasing a younger woman and mom isn't any better. As for her sister, there are some incriminating letters...and Peggy is determined to get them.

The film has a few cute songs, though the singing varies tremendously. A few of the actors (such as Lake) should NOT be singing! Interestingly enough, one of the co-writers of the songs was the very clever raconteur, Oscar Levant. Overall, it's harmless fluff. Folks that love older talking pictures will enjoy it...others might find it a bit tough to finish. The film also has one of the most abrupt and unsatisfying endings...it makes we wonder if the whole ending might actually be missing.

Legs Up

[tedg · 22 February 2008]

The further back you go, the earlier in the evolutionary chain of cinema.

Even if the movie is uninteresting in a conventional sense, it has interest. Each of these early movies — and there weren't that many — was a firework shot into a sky, defining it.

This one is a rather crude imposition of a show onto several slightly related stories of romantic situations, and some sexual intrigue.

The show has the legs of the title rather overtly displayed in an obvious attempt to add spice to the stiff staging of the romantic episodes. Some of these involve the participants bursting into song, so its a strange amalgam of a musical on the story and one in the story. The stories are trite, as one would expect, but the women in the stories, even the vamps, are amazingly prim, especially when compared to the show girls.

These show girls, by the way, were selected for a different body type than usual for the period and more in line with modern trends: low body fat, muscle tone. As much is made of the Florida locale, that must have applied.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Early Talkie

[atlasmb · 5/10 · 10 October 2014]

The title of this film implies a naïve titillation representative of the pre-Code films.

As movies made the transition from silent screen to talkies, there was a lot of experimentation. In this film, they use the occasional title card to explain or advance the story. It is interesting to see the state of the art in 1929, but in many instances it is amateurish compared to later standards.

Cameras are mostly stationary. The featured music and background music have a long way to go to achieve the potential realized in the sophisticated tunes of the great writer-composers that followed in the thirties. The dancing/choreography is unpolished and synchronization is mostly ignored. The script is disjointed and, sometimes, ridiculous. The ending of the film is laughable.

It would not take long for producers and directors to understand the potential for talkies and to harness the advantages of new film technologies and methods. Only ten years after this film, Hollywood would release a host of films displaying the fully-formed artistic visions of "Gone With the Wind", "The Wizard of Oz", "Ninotchka" and many other classics.

Tanned Legs review

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 5 May 2020]

An early musical, with some modest synchronised dance moves, that points very tentatively towards the place in which the genre would find itself once Busby Berkeley grabbed hold of it. The lightweight plot is more interested in recovering incriminating love letters the sister of its young heroine wrote to her con-man lover than finding out why their parents seem so intent on bedding partners half their age.

it's delicious!

[ptb-8 · 9/10 · 16 July 2009]

I almost screamed with delight for 66 minutes through this perfect 1920s flapper musical set in a seaside resort with lots of gorgeous girls and guys in their cossies waving their tanned legs about to music. What a delight! Made at RKO in may 1929 TANNED LEGS is simply beautiful to see, with a snazzy modern cast singing and dancing in the most fantastic modern 1929 clothes... and in sets that make any person in love with the era swoon with glee. Several very funny songs include "Jump In - The Water's Fine", "You're Responsible" (with terrific tap dancing reprise) and "Tanned Legs" itself with howling risqué exposure of many tanned legs and what is at the top of them. Arthur Lake in particular is a standout, he was about 24 at the time and is like a lovesick tousled tom cat, especially in his striped dressing gown on the porch. Very modern in tone and style and an utter delight TANNED LEGS is THE BOYFRIEND for real. The film veers off into some melodrama later and ends abruptly which might explain why there is an original running time 5 minutes more than this print of 66 minutes. It seems to have the end missing, which given the way the film starts, should also end with a musical number. However, for the 66 minutes I lapped up it was flapper and swimming cossie heaven. Sally Blaine, who was Loretta Young's sister is astonishingly as beautiful. The film is so early in the talkie era that it is clear the camera is trapped in a glass booth and you can hear the camera whirring. TANNED LEGS is simply gorgeous for every artistic musical and technical reason imaginable. I can't stop watching it. The film is similar to FOLLOW THRU made at Paramount and in color in 1930... and TANNED LEGS clearly needed Jack Haley as well.. there is even one comedian who is similar and only serves to remind us of him. The sound is excellent - photo-phone on film - and serves to explain why it instantly became the industry standard. TANNED LEGS is a complete delight even if the print is incomplete.

Gorgeous Penny!!

[kidboots · 9/10 · 23 July 2015]

This originally started life as a straight comedy but when RKO studio heads heard about the popularity of "Sunny Side Up" they decided to stop filming, scrap the cast, all except June Clyde and then add some songs. Clyde was touted by RKO as the "Luckiest Girl in Hollywood" and for a short while she was the studio's musical hope but all too soon (by 1931) she was on poverty row. Picked for the role apparently because of her lovely legs, she plays "little Miss Fix-it" Peggy Reynolds, embarrassed at her parent's foolish cavortings - her father with flirtatious widow (Dorothy Revier) and her mother with artist Roger (Allan Kearns). Second billed in the cast was Arthur Lake as Bill, Peggy's irritating sweetie. Originally Joel McCrea was going to get his big break but he was dropped in favour of Arthur Lake, surely the whiniest actor of that or any other time (he found his dream role almost a decade later as Dagwood). He was really persevered with by the various studios, why? who knows - it may have been his family connections.

All roads lead to the Orphan's Benefit as the film starts with a panning shot of beachside frivolity then goes directly to cute as a button Peggy who sings up a storm with "Come On In", a very hummable song with gorgeous Clyde strutting her stuff in bathers and the chorus line enthusiastic as well. Another person who is unhappy about the romantic entanglements is Tootie, Roger's flapper fiancée. Ann Pennington is gorgeous, all pep and personality and she informs him of her displeasure in "You're Responsible". They both perform a great little song and dance duet which is the highlight of the movie. Kearns, who didn't really have the greatest face for a leading man, had been a star on Broadway specializing in Gershwin productions and went on to have a starring role in "Girl Crazy" - he could actually dance and matched Ann step for step!! Shock!! Horror!! - two girls saunter onto the beach in stockings and that is all that is needed for Peggy and Tootie to go into the song and dance "Tanned Legs"!!

There has to be more than just singing and dancing - where's the story!! Enter Sally Blane (originally the part was to be played by Marceline Day) - she plays Janet, Peggy's sister, in love with a ne'er do well who, unknown to everyone at the resort, is in league with the flirtatious widow and between them hoping to get as much as they can from the gullible Reynolds family. Peggy overhears her sister pleading for some incriminating letters and being sneered at for her trouble. Peggy decides to get them herself, she is seen on his balcony and her reputation is in tatters!! - "turned against by kith and kin"!! but she finds an unlikely ally who turns out to be the hero of the movie!! Not before a shot rings out and Peggy from her sick bed can give everyone a thorough dressing down worthy of Shirley Temple!!

Marshall Neilan had been a skyrocket, directing some of Mary Pickford's best films and discovering some terrific talent (Sally O'Neill, Wesley Barry) but by 1929 it had all faded in an alcoholic mist. He didn't get congratulations for "Tanned Legs", the New York Times critic scolded that the film was "unimaginatively directed like a senior high school play with sound"!!

Highly Recommended.