Dance, Fools, Dance
Dance, Fools, Dance is a 1931 pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer drama film starring Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and Lester Vail in a story about a reporter investigating the murder of a colleague. Story and dialogue were created by Aurania Rouverol, and the film was directed by Harry Beaumont. Dance, Fools, Dance was the first of eight movies featuring Crawford and Gable.
Plot
The lives of socialite Bonnie Jordan and her brother, Rodney, are turned upside down when their father loses his fortune in the stock-market crash and subsequently dies of a heart attack.The siblings are forced to fire their servants, sell their belongings, and work to earn a living.
Bonnie winds up as a cub reporter for a newspaper, while Rodney gets involved with a beer-running gang, but things begin to escalate for him quickly.
On one caper, Rodney drives the getaway car after his gang guns down a rival group, leaving Rodney emotionally scarred. Things worsen when Bonnie's colleague Bert Scranton finds out too much, and gang chief Jake Luva orders Rodney to murder him under threat of death.
Bonnie is given the task of investigating the murder of her colleague, and she infiltrates Jake Luva’s club as a dancer, eventually learning the horrifying truth that her brother is the murderer during an evening at Luva's apartment. She slips out and goes to see her brother, then returns to her own apartment -- where Jake and another gang member are lying in wait for her.
However, Rodney arrives just in time and a shootout occurs. As the authorities arrive, Jake and his henchman are dead, but so is Rodney; Bonnie cradles his head and cries. Pulling herself together, Bonnie phones the paper and through tears she reveals the truth about Bert's death and her brother's role.
Despite the paper's wanting to keep her on, Bonnie decides that she no longer wants to work for the paper. As she leaves the office, she's met by a former beau who is still rich, and the movie ends as the two kiss, with the implication that they later marry.