I disagree strongly with anyone who might dismiss this film as "just" entertainment. Set right after the carefree, roaring 20s, during the early days of the Great Depression, Dance, Fools, Dance is at its heart an earnest cautionary tale, with a clear message about how best to endure these hard times. Yet this fast-paced and tightly-plotted film is far from being a dreary morality tale.
In the 30s, Hollywood had a knack for churning out one entertaining *and* enlightening audience-pleaser after another, all without wasting a frame of film. Dance, Fools, Dance -- one of *four* films that Harry Beaumont directed in 1931 -- is barely 80 minutes long, yet its characters are well developed, its story never seems rushed, and despite its many twists in plot, the audience is never left behind.
With the lone exception of Lester Vail as flaccid love interest Bob Townsend, the supporting cast is uniformly strong. Worthy of note are William Bakewell as Crawford's brother, Cliff Edwards (best known as the voice of Jiminy Cricket) as reporter Bert Scranton, and Clark Gable in an early supporting role as gangster Jake Luva.
But this is Joan Crawford's film, and she absolutely shines in it. Made when she was just 27, this lesser-known version of Crawford will probably be unrecognizable to those more familiar with her later work. However, here is proof that long before she took home an Oscar for Mildred Pierce, Crawford was a star in the true sense of the word, a terrific actress with the charisma to carry a picture all by herself.
Score: EIGHT out of TEN

This is not a very good movie, but it's not a stinker either. It is very confusing and unnecessarily long so rent it at your own risk.
My GF and I have figured this movie out (we think) so here it is:
***MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW***
Firstly, this movie is actually quite simple after you remove all of the confusing unconscious-dream-state junk (95% of the movie.)
Ignoring the junk, what REALLY happened is this: A group of school friends go to a rave one night. They leave and get into a car accident where everyone but Cassie and Sean die. That's the simple cut down version. (That's right, I said Sean, bear with me)
Right after the accident, Cassie lays in the hospital stuck in between life & death right up until the very end of the movie. This is where the dream part starts.
The movie is called SOUL Survivors, right? Cassie's mind and soul carries on after the accident interacting with the other souls (Annie, Matt, Raven, the 2 weirdos and Jude) along with images conjured up by her mind (Sean, school and everything else around her). The souls continue doing what they were defined as: Annie the rave-going chick, the 2 weirdo-killers (from opening scene), Father Jude still helping people etc.
We are then taken on a very long ride, shown lots of images (many of which my GF and I still can't tie in) but it all boils down to it not being Cassie's time to die.
At the end, Cassie wakes up in the hospital after being "dead" for a while. Her family and Sean are there. This is reality again. She's OK.
Then the director adds a little extra spice by trying to confuse us again by showing a little dream snippet of her in the wheelchair being strangled. But this part is really just a nightmare, and she wakes up beside Sean, obviously still dealing with her traumatic experience.
Due to space restrictions, we didn't cover every little thing, but feel free to drop us an e-mail if you want to.