Love on Tap

Starring: Mary Howard, Truman Bradley, Merriel Abbott Dancers
Directed by: George Sidney
Rating: Passed
Genre: Musical, Short
Length: 11 minutes
1939

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A man (Truman Bradley) gets increasingly frustrated with his fiancee (Mary Howard), as her job as manager of the Merriel Abbott Dancers continually takes her away from him.

Review:

Tim: While I always enjoy watching short films from the earlier days of cinema, I can't say I was a huge fan of Love on Tap. The movie is really a showcase for the Merriel Abbott Dancers, with an average story interwoven into it. There's a few dances sequences in between the main story about a couple and how the dancers continually come between their marriage.

My biggest problem with the film is that the main character isn't very sympathetic. Mary Howard plays the manager of the dancers and she's an annoying, workaholic woman who continually puts her career ahead of her family (it is an interesting twist for this film from the 1930s to reverse the typical gender roles here). My issue isn't that the woman put her career first (I'd have the same issues int her roles were reversed). My issue is with any character who continually makes choices that causes their partner suffering. In this case, her fiance is incredibly patient and you just end up feeling bad for the guy. It would be different if the needs of the dancers were legitimate, but the short goes to great lengths to let us know that most of the dancers' needs are meaningless wastes of time. This is all supposed to be played for laughs, but I didn't find it especially entertaining. Why would I be interested in a short film about a woman who continually places the meaningless needs of her dancers above the desire to marry the man she loves? It just wasn't very interesting to me.

Luckily, even the less effective short films are still short. It's not like this was a terrible short, but it's not one I'd be interested in watching again.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



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