On Your Toes on AllMovie

No relation to the later Rodgers-Hart Broadway musical, On Your Toes was a star vehicle for personable Universal Pictures breadwinner Reginald Denny. Harking back to his old "Leather Pushers" two-reelers, Denny plays Kane Halliday, the son of a celebrated prizefighter. Though he wants to follow in his father's footwork, Kane is dissuaded by his pacifistic grandmother (Mary Carr), who insists that the boy pursue a career as a ballet dancer (!) Circumstances force Kane into the boxing ring, but to pacify his grandma he persuades the palookas at his training camp to pose as "aesthetic" dancers. Eventually, of course, the truth is revealed, whereupon granny becomes Kane's biggest fan. One of the film's running gags, wherein Kane's ears begin to wiggle whenever he's riled, was reused by Laurel and Hardy in A Chump at Oxford (1940).