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| Image: Dorothy Arzner (right) |
Renowned for discovering such stars as Katharine Hepburn and Lucille Ball, and rediscovered in the 70s for the proto-feminist gender roles in her films, don't miss this focus season of works by Dorothy Arzner.
These rarely-screened and newly restored early sound features have been imported from the UCLA Archive.
Wednesday 15 December 2004, 7pm
The Wild Party
Dorothy Arzner, 77 mins, USA, 1929
The 'It' girl talks, with silent superstar Clara Bow as the most popular party girl in a woman's college dorm full of high-spirited flapper co-eds. The film's critical and box office success confirmed Arzner's career as a director of A-list melodramas and specialist in star-making actress vehicles. With Fredric March, Shirley O'Hara and Jack Oakie.
Merrily We Go To Hell
PG
Dorothy Arzner, 78 mins, USA, 1932
Fredric March stars as dissolute writer Jerry, wooing and wedding Joan, a naïve young socialite played by Sylvia Sidney, whose marital ideals crumble as her husband reverts to his self-loathing nature. Arzner cannily reverses her usual barracking for underclass women's upward mobility by sympathetically looking at the coddled world-view of high society's young women. Features an early performance by Cary Grant.
The Bride Wore Red
Dorothy Arzner, 100 mins, USA, 1937
Taken from Molnár's play, Arzner's Joan Crawford-vehicle was her most deluxe work, a Cinderella story of a barmaid who poses as an aristocratic lady at a posh hotel in the Alps. The film can now be recognised as an eloquent commentary on social class and identity, articulated in elaborate codes of décor, costume and scenic artifice.
Wednesday 22 December 2004, 8pm
(Screening with Eames Shorts at 7pm)
Working Girls
Dorothy Arzner, 77 mins, USA, 1931
Like Sex in the City for the Great Depression, Arzner charts the adventures of two Indiana sisters who come to New York City searching for work, love and the right man. A subversive, gendered view of marriage, work, class and the social typing of 'Good' and 'Bad' girls, described by Judith Mayne as perhaps Arzner's "most daring and innovative film."
Dance, Girl, Dance
Dorothy Arzner, 89 mins, USA, 1940
Arzner's masterpiece. A hard-hitting, Code-breaking backstage musical features a budding ballerina who goes to work in a burlesque show alongside brassy stripper Lucille Ball (in a film-stealing performance). A feminist cult classic not only because of Arzner's direction but also for the famous, male-gaze defying scene where Maureen O'Hara speaks back to an all-male audience.
