Balla, ragazza, balla

Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

This competent if unremarkable film was directed by Dorothy Arzner, Hollywood's one female director of note between the silent years and Ida Lupino. It's a package of different kinds of dance numbers, from show girl to burlesque to high art ballet. The thread that keeps it going is the usual: girls trying to make it in one show or another.

Lucille Ball, famous for her television shows of the 1950s and 60s, might seem to be making an early appearance in this 1940 song and dance drama. But she had made fifty (fifty!) films before this one. She's no a remarkable dancer by any means, nor singer, but she has personality to spare, and she's fun, period. She plays the worldly girl who will dance anywhere, anyhow. In contrast is the Maureen O'Hara character, sweet and restrained. She's rather humiliated in the movie, and you can feel her pain, but it's a forced contrast.

Musical numbers intersperse the thin plot, and those might or might not be your taste. I found even the ballet, which looked like a serious ballet troupe in action, pedestrian. And it was poorly filmed: the camera sat at the edge of the stage and watched. In truth, the movie as a whole was functional, not reaching for the stars, and not getting any. The one surprise, for me, was the ease and presence of Louis Hayward as a kind of good guy leading man who appeared now and then to properly show his love for O'Hara's struggling character.

Is it unfair to judge a film by the gender politics suggested by its director? I walked into a screening of this film tonight (free at a library branch) knowing only that it starred Maureen O'Hara and was directed by Dorothy Arzner. Yet it seems impossible to react to the the film without factoring in the subtle yet remarkable effect on its content that Arzner's participation represents.

Though thoroughly in a B-movie mold (back projections and modest decor abound), the film has a distinctively assured "feel" and personality, seems photographed intimately and with distinction and even boasts one ambitious "modern ballet" production number that must have borrowed one of those RKO Fred Astaire soundstages for a few days.

Grittily rather than luminously shot, Maureen O'Hara still manages to look astonishingly lovely throughout, whether in occasional soft-focus moments or in dramatic shots and contexts. Lucille Ball comes off extremely well in a relentlessly "bad girl" role, though while some claim she steals the picture, I wouldn't agree. Bellamy and Hayward are effective, though clearly subsidiary in importance and focus.

The whole proceeding seems to unfold metaphorically, almost like a fable, as though no one really expects us to find it believable for a minute. No-one behaves realistically, yet neither is it a farce. Nor is it a conventional "romance," since Judy (O'Hara) ends up transcending the whole issue of love "saving" her; when she is seen embracing Steve at film's end, it can be easily seen as an expression of relief or exhaustion after all the preceding duress, of accepting the new professional direction in her life rather than in any way being "saved" by anyone but herself, despite a brief unconvincing flurry of conventional "you listen to ME now" dialogue from Ralph Bellamy that Judy doesn't seem to be heeding anyway.

In fact, Judy walks a refreshingly hybrid line between enlightened self-determination, pluck, and competence tempered by a gentler, luminous femininity. Every character of any real dignity or depth or dramatic power is female, and the male characters are truly secondary in their dimensionality.

Judy's old Russian dance mentor Basilova (representing another weird parallel to FLASHDANCE, wherein a real-life Alexandra Danilova played the old Russian dance mentor to Jennifer Beals) is a striking catalyst in this context, rendered initially as very masculine by starkly drawn-back hair and male clothing (she's always seen in a suit and tie). We could easily be unsure of her gender in her first scene (on the phone) though gradually and knowingly she is "softened" by Arzner (we see the severity of the hair is a result of her dancer's "bun", she gradually morphs to a more maternal role after her initial mercenary businesslike impression, etc.).

Judy has the upper hand, ultimately, in every situation. Wonderful moments include the scene where she confronts a brusque audience in a burlesque theater, her cogent assessment of the nature of Jimmy's heart in a warmly realized courtroom scene, and yes, even that famous catfight with Ms. Ball. Many scenes require O'Hara to react in ways where certain complex emotions need to be communicated wordlessly. She does not fail us, in reaction shots throughout the picture to injustices, frustrations, assessments of people's true personalities, her indignance and misunderstanding of Steve's motives, "awe" at the ballet company and even her association of a kind of idealised love with the little "Ferdinand" stuffed bull (one of two unabashed examples of RKO's nearly exploitatitive relationship to Disney at the time).

Yet the "Ferdinand" subplot is handled with real aplomb by both writers and director. Judy associates the little bull (clearly a masculine image) with a kind of idealized love, and while it ulimately isn't a love in which she participates, her instinctive take on it proves authentic as an image which connects two other characters.

Another recurring image is starlight: Judy dreams of a ballet about a star, then when she visits "Club Ferdinand" with Jimmy, a singer sings of starlight (in a song by Wright & Forrest). At the close of that evening, she wishes upon a star in one of the film's more romanticized views of New York City.

Ultimately though, this film is more "about" the disparity between art and commerce than it is about love. Ball's "Bubbles" character is a financial success while Judy's ballet dancing is maligned completely. An issue that remains unresolved in our own cultural lives, over 60 years later, "Art" still lumbers along, clumsily out of the mainstream, ignored by a public which embraces well-crafted junk and rewards the less challenging with higher ratings and plenty of dough.

And yet Steve's "populist ballet" number is nothing to write home about. Then, as now, the dilemna still exists when so much "art" seems more pretentious and less well-crafted than a good vaudeville act. It's goal is higher, but it can be irrelevant to a public clamoring for ready-made fun.

However all this plays out as aesthetic philosophy, Ms. Arzner has achieved a unique and decidedly pro-woman tour-de-force within this little forgotten RKO classic. While closer in spirit of imagery to STAGE DOOR than any other film that I can think of, it creates its own small symbolic world full of not-quite-real characters telling a fable-like structure. And although at some point, someone in the film (I can't remember now who!) says "I don't believe in fairy tales!" -- that's exactly what this film is, in its accomplished, proto-feminist way. Judy is our Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, but triumphs not through being "saved by a man" but by her own integrity, adherence to a dream and inner strength of conviction and values.

That alone makes this oddly compelling little film well worth seeing.

Considering the fact that Lucille Ball has the third name in this movie, she has a very noticeable role that proves she is a great actress. Of course, everybody knows that Lucille Ball is best known for her character in "I Love Lucy," but watching this movie would really surprise you. She does a terrific job as a vain and conceited girl who wants to be on top of everyone. Not to mention, she is very attractive and alluring in this movie. I personally believe that this movie focuses a great deal on Lucille Ball, and that's the best part. "Dance, Girl, Dance" would probably be one of the few movies, where Lucille Ball fans can actually see her terrific talent as an actress on the big screens and on television.

Of all Maureen O'hara's pictures, this is definitely one of her best. How good would Lucille Ball have been as the streetwise floozy without Maureen's counter-role as a decent and moral girl struggling to overcome obstacles to fulfill her dream of becoming a dancer. Not once does her performance stray into the realm of treacle, her character, though perhaps a little naive never becomes timid to the point where she can't take care of herself in the clutch. She handles Lucy quite admirably in the latter stages of this film. Tis true Lucille Ball does her fair share of scene stealing and her performance is effective, but this is still Maureen's picture all the way. Also good performances by Louis Hayward (his only good role?) and Ralph Bellamy ensure this movie is well worth sitting through.

A really fun film that I found in my Maureen O'Hara TCM 4-pack that I highly recommend if you enjoy films from that era. I like the two films I've seen so far from Arzner, who was one of the earliest and most successful of female directors and I believe the first openly lesbian one--the other work I've seen of hers is the great pre-Code look at alcoholism, 'Merrily We Go to Hell'.

This is great if you either like musicals from the era, are a Maureen O'Hara or Lucille Ball enthusiast (holy, she was unbelievably a knockout in her early filmic days!) or are simply curious about the works of early female and/or lesbian directors. Arzner--at least in the two films I have seen from her thus far--showed she truly deserved to be successful in the industry.