Dance Pretty Lady on AllMovie

Based upon a thrice-filmed book by Sir Compton Mackenzie, Dance Pretty Lady is a romantic drama set in the Edwardian era. Jenny (Ann Casson) is a young Cockney lass who, despite her humble origins, is pursuing a career as a ballerina. Jenny meets Maurice (Carl Harbord), a young bohemian artist for whom money is no problem. She finds him attractive and falls in love with him. Maurice, for his part, is quite taken with her. However, he does not support the concept of marriage, and so asks her to be his mistress rather than his wife. Despite her love for him, Jenny wants no part of such an arrangement. Maurice eventually gives in and agrees to marry her, but Jenny does not want believe in his sincerity, and so the two part. After Maurice has left for the continent, Jenny realizes how much she desperately loves him and becomes extremely unhappy. Waiting for him to return, she pines away and grows disconsolate, at length believing that he has surely become involved with someone else. Despondent, she somehow falls into a relationship with Jack Danby, a friend of Maurice's, but is then filled with remorse. When Maurice finally returns, he learns of what is happened; initially upset, he then realizes that Jenny behaved this way because of her feelings for him and the way he treated her, and he makes a genuine offer of marriage to her. Dance marked the feature film debut of a young Hermione Gingold in a small role.