Made on behalf of Cambridge University’s Varsity Dance Club and designed to be screened at local cinemas, What Do You Do on Friday Night? seems to be primarily aimed at female spectators, who are exhorted to join the men on Friday nights at the “Rendezvous” for a “very good time”. The advertisement captures the lively atmosphere of a 1920s party by alternating exclamatory artwork intertitles with close-ups of a rousing jazz band and couples dancing. The emphasis is on the musicians, with close-ups of the banjo and piano being played, providing rhythm and emotion. The identity of the two dancing couples is hidden; the camera’s low angle only allows us to see up to their knees. Cinema copied the below-the-knee images of dance manuals and magazines, using it in instructional films in which famous teachers demonstrated the do’s and don’ts of the dance floor, encouraging audiences to try the steps they saw in the cinema.
Though the content of this amateur publicity spot is lighthearted, it also seems to parody the famous World War I posters of Lord Kitchener and Uncle Sam, recruiting campaigns which usually targeted men. Here an underlying layer evokes newspaper “personal” ads for men seeking women.
In Britain, cinema and social dance were the most widespread leisure activities after the First World War, and the thriving dance-hall industry – which involved teachers, promoters, specialized magazines, and radio – endeavoured to get the public interested in the ballroom, especially women, who frequently were the most devoted and skilled dancers. As James Nott argues in Going to the Palais: A Social and Cultural History of Dancing and Dance Halls in Britain, 1918-1960, ballrooms could be considered “a ‘key’ female public space”, where women could exercise their independence and individuality. Yet many traditional conventions remained: “A good male dancer, by proper control and guidance, should be able to make any woman adapt herself to his style, while a perfect woman dancer is she who submits herself to the man’s guidance, be it good or bad.” (George Grossmith, introduction to A.M. Cree’s Handbook of Ball-Room Dancing, 1920).

Virginia Bonilla Durán, Shanice Martin