Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner

Dorothy Arzner (1900-79), b. San Francisco 1927: Fashions for Women; Ten Modern Commandments; Get Your Man. 1928: Manhattan Cocktail 1929: The Wild Party. 1930: Sarah and Son; Anybody's Woman; Behind the Makeup (eodireeted with Robert Milton); an episode from Paramount on Parade. 1931: Honor Among Lovers; Worfcing Girls. 1932: Merrily We Go to Hell. 1933: Christopher Strong. 1934; Nona. 1936: Craig's Wife. 1937: The Bride Wore Red. 1940; Dance, Girl, Dance. 1943: First Conies Courage. Dorothy Arzner was a professional director of American movies who worked regularly for over a decade, and was a woman. (Only Lois Weber could have made the same claim.) She was not a great filmmaker, and her pioneering should not inflate her reputation. But she turned out some fascinating pictures and clearly was able to pursue a personal if undoc-trinaire interest in the issue of women's identity. That said, one has to confess that she generally played according to the Hollywood concept of "a woman's picture." She did not stretch or threaten the system, as Barbara Loden did with Wanda; hut that is also a sign of how far the 1930s romance was susceptible to a feminist sensibility. And Dorothy Arzner made more films than ever came from Barbara Loden. Ar/ne-r got into pictures through hard work and paying her dues, and she stayed near the top long enough for her retirement to be an act of choice. All of which says very little about why she was unique. The daughter of a Hollywood restaurateur, she dropped out of the University of Southern California and worked her way up at Paramount from typist to cutter to editor to director's assistant.