Twenty years ago, Ethel Westcourt was the toast of the New York nightlife, squired around all the clubs by the handsomest of men. Now she spends her nights alone while her husband carries out illicit affairs and their daughter, Catherine (or "Kittens") paints the town red. A chance meeting with Kittens' latest crush, sophisticated older businessman Jerry Naughton, inspires Ethel to take action before she becomes a spinster for life. Emboldened, she takes on the new identity of French opera singer Yvonne de Bresac and begins an affair of her own with Naughton. Scandalously, she has been brought into competition with her own daughter. This love triangle can only end in tears - but when Ethel's infidelity is revealed to both her husband and daughter, the outcome is not what anyone expects.

At the time a popular play on Broadway, the rights to Dancing Mothers were purchased by Paramount for $45,000. The role of the wayward daughter - played by Helen Hayes on Broadway - was offered to Clara Bow, then being courted by the studio. Herbert Brenon had wanted Betty Bronson (the star of his 1925 hit Peter Pan) for the part, but as another director commented, "When she tried to be sexy, she looked like a little girl who wanted to go to the bathroom." Though Hayes had played Kittens in the stage version as an entitled, self-absorbed socialite, Clara made her into a fun-loving party girl covering up a secret sorrow, switching the audience's sympathies from Alice Joyce's suffering matriarch to Bow. Louise Brooks later recalled, "She was absolutely a sensation in Dancing Mothers. Everybody forgot Alice Joyce, because Clara was so marvelous."