Dorothy Arzner (January 3, 1897 – October 1, 1979) was a film director from the late 1920s until the early 1940s, a period in which there were few if any other women directors. January 3 is the 3rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1897 (MDCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... October 1 is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the song by the Smashing Pumpkins, see 1979 (song). ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ...

Biography

Born on 3 January 1897 in San Francisco, California, Arzner grew up in Los Angeles, where her father owned a restaurant frequented by many Hollywood celebrities. After finishing high school, she enrolled at the university of Southern California with the hope of becoming a doctor. During World War I, she left school to work for an ambulance corps but was never sent into the field. When the war ended, she decided against returning to her studies and, after a visit to a film studio, decided to pursue a career as a film director. She began her Hollywood career as a script writer and editor, and eventually was promoted to directing. Nickname: The City by the Bay; Fog City; The City; Baghdad by the Bay Location of the City and County of San Francisco, California Coordinates: Country United States of America State California City-County San Francisco Government  - Mayor Gavin Newsom Area  - City  47 sq mi (122 km²)  - Land  46. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... ... Downtown Los Angeles Skyline Southern California, also colloquially referred to as SoCal, is an informal name for the megalopolis and nearby desert that occupies the southern-most quarter of the U.S. state of California. ... Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nikolay II Aleksey Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Robert Nivelle Herbert H. Asquith D. Lloyd George Sir Douglas Haig Sir John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna...

Arzner did indeed start at the very bottom of her profession: she went to the noted, flamboyant film director Cecil B. De Mille and applied for a job as a script girl. De Mille hired her, and within six months she was reassigned to work as a film cutter at a Paramount subsidiary, a job she later maintained taught her more about filmmaking than any other she held. She was then promoted to film editor at Paramount, her first assignment being the renowned classic Blood and Sand, starring Rudolph Valentino. As before, she quickly mastered the job and was soon receiving accolades for the quality of her work. During this period, Arzner also began writing film scripts, sometimes in collaboration with others. Cecil Blount DeMille (August 12, 1881 - January 21, 1959) was one of the most successful filmmakers during the first half of the 20th century. ... Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American motion picture production and distribution company, based in Hollywood, California. ...

However, Arzner faced significant hurdles to fully capitalizing on her skills and talents. In addition to being a woman, she was lesbian who was unwilling or unable to disguise her sexuality (Joan Crawford once quipped, "I think all my directors fell in love with me; I know Dorothy Arzner did!"), which made it additionally difficult for Arzner to succeed, and may have contributed to her departure from Hollywood. A lesbian is a woman who is romantically and sexually attracted only to other women. ... Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905[1]– May 10, 1977) was an acclaimed, iconic, Academy Award-winning American actress, arguably one of the greatest from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. ... ...

Nonetheless, she frequently worked with first-rate actors and often was one to help a talent become a star, such as with Sylvia Sidney whom Arzner directed in Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) , and whose talent and mettle she recognized under Sidney's frail appearance, although Sidney could be difficult to work with, a fact Sidney herself acknowledged late in life blaming it on her early movie fame which she was not ready to handle. Arzner also had some difficulties with the notoriously headstrong Katharine Hepburn until Hepburn "was told by the front office who was the film's director". Sylvia Sidney (August 8, 1910 - July 1, 1999) was an American actress. ... Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was a four-time Academy Award-winning American star of film, television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit, New England gentility and fierce independence. ...

The films often depict women seeking independence through career--a burlesque queen and an aspiring ballerina (Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)), a world-champion aviatrix (Christopher Strong (1933)). Alternatively, the escape route can be through exit from accepted female positions in the hierarchy--a rich daughter "escaping" into marriage with a poverty-stricken drunk (Merrily We Go to Hell). Even excess can be a way of asserting independence, as with the obsessive housekeeper rejecting family relationships in favor of a passion for domesticity and the home (Craig's Wife(1936)). Christopher Strong a 1933 RKO film directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Katharine Hepburn in her second screen role. ...

The films frequently play with notions of female stereotyping (most notably in Dance, Girl, Dance, with its two central female types of Nice Girl and Vamp). Arzner's "nice girls" are likely to have desires that conflict with male desires, while narrative requirements will demand that they still please the male. While these tensions are not always resolved, Arzner's strategies in underlining these opposing desires are almost gleeful at times.

In addition, Arzner's films offer contradictions that disturb the spectator's accepted relationship with what is on screen--most notably in Dance, Girl, Dance, when dancer Judy O'Brien turns on her burlesque (male) audience and berates them for their voyeurism. This scene has been the focus for much debate about the role of the spectator in relation to the woman as spectacle (notably in the work of Laura Mulvey). Laura Mulvey (born August 15, 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. ...

Although the conventions of plot and development are present in Arzner's films, Claire Johnston sees these elements as subverted by a "women's discourse": the films may offer us the kinds of narrative closure we expect from the classic Hollywood text--the "happy" or the "tragic" ending--but Arzner's insistence on this female discourse gives the films an exciting and unsettling quality. In Arzner's work, Johnston argues, it is the male universe which invites scrutiny and which is "rendered strange." Claire Johnston (1940-1987) was a feminist film theoretician. ...

Dorothy Arzner's position inside the studio system has made her a unique subject for debate. As the women's movement set about reassessing the role of women in history, so feminist film theorists began not only to reexamine the role of women as a creative force in cinema, but also to consider the implications behind the notion of women as spectacle. The work of Dorothy Arzner has proved a rich area for investigation into both these questions. Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ... Film theory debates the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding films relationship to reality, the other arts, individual viewers, and society at large. ...

Most feminists would recognize that the mere reinsertion of women into a dominant version of film history is a dubious activity, even while asserting that women's contributions to cinema have been excluded from most historical accounts. Recognition of the work of a "popular" director such as Arzner and an evaluation of her contribution to Hollywood cinema must be set against an awareness of her place in the dominant patriarchal ideology of classic Hollywood cinema. Arzner's work is particularly interesting in that it was produced within the Hollywood system with all its inherent constraints (time, budget, traditional content requirements of particular genres, etc.).

While Arzner directed "women's pictures"--classic Hollywood fare--she differed from other directors of the genre in that, in place of a narrative seen simply from a female point of view, she actually succeeded in challenging the orthodoxy of Hollywood from within, offering perspectives that questioned the dominant order.

Dorothy Arzner's career as a commercial Hollywood director covered little more than a decade, but she had prepared for it by extensive editing and script-writing work. Ill health forced her to abandon a career that might eventually have led to the recognition she deserved from her contemporaries. One of only a handful of women operating within the structure of Hollywood's post-silent boom, Arzner has been the subject of feminist critical attention, with film retrospectives of her work both in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s, when her work was "rediscovered."

"Sometimes," Arzner told interviewers a number of years later, "I think pride is the greatest obstacle to success. A silly false pride, that keeps people from being willing to learn, from starting at the bottom no matter how far down it may be, and learning every step of the way up. When I went to work in a studio, I took my pride and made a nice little ball of it and threw it right out the window."

Dorothy Arzner, who never married or had children, died at the age of 82 in La Quinta, California. La Quinta is a resort city located in Riverside County, California, specifically in the Coachella Valley between Indian Wells and Indio. ... Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ...

Partial Filmography

• First Comes Courage (1943) with Merle Oberon and Brian Aherne
• Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) with Lucille Ball and Maureen O'Hara
• The Bride Wore Red (1937) with Crawford and Franchot Tone
• The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) with Joan Crawford and William Powell, uncredited
• Craig's Wife (1936) with Rosalind Russell
• Nana (1934)
• Christopher Strong (1933) with Katharine Hepburn
• Merrily We Go to Hell (1932) with Sylvia Sidney and March
• Working Girls (1931) with Frances Dee
• Honor Among Lovers (1931) with Claudette Colbert and March
• Anybody's Woman (1930) with Chatterton and Clive Brook
• Paramount on Parade (1930) co-director with several others
• Sarah and Son (1930) with Ruth Chatterton and March
• Behind the Make-Up (1930) (uncredited)
• The Wild Party (1929) with Bow and Fredric March
• Manhattan Cocktail (1928) with Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen
• Get Your Man (1927) with Clara Bow
• Ten Modern Commandments (1927) with Ralston
• Fashions for Women (1927) with Esther Ralston
• Blood and Sand (1922) (additional footage) (uncredited)

Actress Merle Oberon in Berlin Express (1948) Merle Oberon (February 19, 1911 – November 23, 1979), born Estelle Merle OBrien Thompson, was a film actress, known for her sultry looks. ... Brian Aherne (May 2, 1902 – February 10, 1986) was an English film actor who found success in Hollywood. ... Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an iconic American actor, comedian and star of the landmark sitcom I Love Lucy, a four time Emmy Award winner (awarded 1953, 1956, 1967, 1968) and charter member of the Television Hall of Fame. ... Maureen OHara Maureen OHara (born Maureen FitzSimons) on August 17, 1920 is an Irish film actress. ... Franchot Tone Franchot Tone (February 27, 1905 – September 18, 1968) was an American actor. ... Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905[1]– May 10, 1977) was an acclaimed, iconic, Academy Award-winning American actress, arguably one of the greatest from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. ... William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 - March 5, 1984) was an American actor, noted for his sophisticated, cynical roles. ... Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 - November 28, 1976) was a four-time Academy Award nominated and Tony Award winning American film, stage actress. ... Nana may refer to: Look up Nana in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Christopher Strong a 1933 RKO film directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Katharine Hepburn in her second screen role. ... Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was a four-time Academy Award-winning American star of film, television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit, New England gentility and fierce independence. ... Sylvia Sidney (August 8, 1910 - July 1, 1999) was an American actress. ... Frances Dee in Becky Sharp (1935) Frances Dee (born November 26, 1909 (sources used to cite 1907 as her year of birth while she was alive); died March 6, 2004) was an actress. ... Claudette Colbert (September 13, 1903 - July 30, 1996) was an Academy Award-winning and Golden Globe-winning French-American actress in Hollywood film, stage, television and radio. ... Clive Brook (1 June 1887 - 17 November 1974) was a British actor. ... Ruth Chatterton Ruth Chatterton (December 24, 1893 - November 24, 1961) was an American actress. ... // Original Text The Wild Party, a classic epic poem, is Joseph Moncure Marchs first published work. ... Fredric March photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Fredric March (August 31, 1897 – April 14, 1975) was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actor. ... Nancy Carroll (November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress. ... Richard Arlen Richard Arlen (September 1, 1898 – March 28, 1976) was an American actor. ... Clara Gordon Bow (July 29, 1905 − September 27, 1965) was an American actress and sex symbol, best known for her silent film work in the 1920s. ... Esther Ralston (September 17, 1902 - January 14, 1994) was a popular American movie actress. ...

Further reading

• Claire Johnston (Editor), The Work of Dorothy Arzner: Towards a Feminist Cinema (London: British Film Institute, 1975)
• Judith Mayne, Directed by Dorothy Arzner (Indiana University Press, 1994)

Claire Johnston (1940-1987) was a feminist film theoretician. ... The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to encourage the development of the arts of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom, to promote their use as a record of contemporary life and manners, to promote education about film, television and... Indiana University, founded in 1820, is a nine-campus university system in the state of Indiana. ...

See also

• Women's Cinema

The term womens cinema usually refers to the work of women film directors. ...

External links

• Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
• Dorothy Arzner on Find-A-Grave
• Dorothy Arzner at the Internet Movie Database