Dance, Girl, Dance

Arzner lambasts the male gaze in her backstage study of friendship, ambition and jealousy.

  • Director

    Dorothy Arzner

  • With

    Maureen O’Hara, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, Louis Hayward

  • USA 1940. 89min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    PG

  • A BFI National Archive print

‘No one seemed to know what the script was about… I decided the theme should be “the art spirit” versus the commercial “go-getter”,’ wrote Arzner of this part-peppy RKO musical, part-subversive feminist melodrama. In their struggle for self-actualisation, the virtuous Judy, an aspiring ballerina, and the brassy Bubbles, a burlesque queen, find themselves rivals – both on the stage and in love.

See Dance, Girl, Dance with intro by academic Lucy Bolton on Tuesday 27 February.

See our related Philosophical Screens event.

Film on Film