We Were Dancing

Open the champagne! Put silk sheets on the guest-room beds! Princess Victoria Wilomirska and Baron Nicholas Prax are coming for the weekend. Who are they? My dear, they're real live European aristocrats. With titles. They don't have a dime, of course - but, oh the social sensation!

In a romantic romp based in part on Noel Coward's Tonight at 8:30, Norma Shearer is the princess and Melvyn Douglas the baron, a ne'er-do-well making his living as a professional guest in the homes of awe-struck Americans. But when the two fall in love and marry, the jig is up. It seems the baron's hostesses much preferred him single. Could it be that one of these pampered patricians will have to get... a job?

Strange but true: Norma Shearer turned down the title role in MRS. MINIVER to star instead in the insignificant trifle WE WERE DANCING. Loosely based on two Noel Coward playlets originally presented as part of the omnibus production TONIGHT AT 8:30, the story concerns the romance between socialite Vicki Wilomirsky (Norma Shearer) and Nicki Prax (Melvyn Douglas), an impoverished baron who supports himself as a "professional guest." Nicki steals Vicki away from her stuffy attorney fiance Hubert Tyler (Lee Bowman), but their subsequent marriage comes to an end when Vicki spots Nicki in the arms of his ex-lover Linda Wayne (Gail Patrick). Returning to Tyler, Vicki is on the verge of a second marriage, when Nicki once again waltzes into her life'.and on and on it goes, where it will stop, nobody knows.