RKO Studios - 780 N. Gower Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

W.C. Fields, Una Merkel, and Cora Witherspoon in The Bank Dick (1940)

Katharine Hepburn and Colin Clive in Christopher Strong (1933)

Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney in Merrily We Go to Hell (1932)

Mae Busch, Evalyn Knapp, Edward J. Nugent, and Gloria Shea in Dance, Girl, Dance (1933)

James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in The Mortal Storm (1940)

Lucille Ball, Richard Carlson, and Ann Miller in Too Many Girls (1940)

James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell in Footlight Parade (1933)

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Gay Divorcee (1934)

Erik 'Bullen' Berglund, Hugo Björne, Dagmar Ebbesen, Eva Henning, Torsten Hillberg, Sture Lagerwall, Sven Lindberg, Mimi Nelson, Hjördis Petterson, Sif Ruud, Georg Rydeberg, Erik Strandmark, and Sonja Wigert in Hidden in the Fog (1953)

Ginger Rogers in Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)

Maureen O'Hara, Lucille Ball, and Louis Hayward in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Go on, laugh, get your money's worth. No-one's going to hurt you. I know you want me to tear my clothes off so you can look your fifty cents' worth. Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wives won't let you. What do you suppose we think of you up here with your silly smirks your mothers would be ashamed of? We know it'd the thing of the moment for the dress suits to come and laugh at us too. We'd laugh right back at the lot of you, only we're paid to let you sit there and roll your eyes and make your screamingly clever remarks. What's it for? So you can go home when the show's over, strut before your wives and sweethearts and play at being the stronger sex for a minute? I'm sure they see through you. I'm sure they see through you just like we do!

Maureen O'Hara, Lucille Ball, Mary Carlisle, Louis Hayward, and Lorraine Krueger in Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Maureen O&apos;Hara

Louis Hayward

Lucille Ball

Tess Slesinger

Frank Davis

Vicki Baum

After a troupe of danseuses becomes unemployed, one of them takes up burlesque dancing while another dreams of performing ballet.

Dorothy Arzner

Roy Del Ruth

Dance, Girl, Dance

More than a film about dancers. It is, under a simple facade, a story of women&apos;s empowerment.

Bosley Crowther, the New York Times&apos; arbiter of cinematic art in 1940, dismissed this film out of hand: &quot;a cliché-ridden garbled repetition of the story of the aches and pains of a dancer&apos;s rise to fame.&quot; It is astounding that an astute critic, a man moreover of progressive insight, could so badly miss the point. Perhaps the fact that he missed the point makes the point. &quot;Dance, Girl, Dance&quot; transcends a simple dancer&apos;s story. It is, if anything, the least cliché-ridden film imaginable. If it wanted clichés it would have had the heroine (Maureen O&apos;Hara) walk off happily with her handsome suitor (Louis Hayward). The ex-wife (Virginia Field) would surely have been presented as a meddlesome shrew. The conniving rival (Lucille Ball) would have come to a deservedly bad end. None of that happens. Having digested more than a quote of clichéd Hollywood plots, I was amazed each time this movie violated the conventions. All this is in addition to the true point of the film, which is, certainly, to explore the exploitation and degradation of women and look forward to their empowerment. That point, one may feel, is a cliché today. It certainly was not in 1940.

How much of this is due to the work of Dorothy Arzner? &quot;Dance, Girl, Dance&quot; has made it into the National Film Registry. I suspect that, partly at least, the choice was to honor the only woman director of Hollywood&apos;s golden age. But take Dorothy Arzner out of the mix. The film still delivers its message thanks to the screenplay of Tess Slesinger. Her words - she was a socialist and a feminist - are the essential ingredients in the mix. Director and screenwriter stir a powerful cocktail. The humiliation of the women in some scenes is painful. In the famous hula scene, watch the camera linger, prolonged close-ups, on the leering, cigar-chewing (a long, rigid cigar pointed at the viewer, and at the dancing girls), practically salivating Hoboken pornographer played marvelously by Harold Huber. The scene of Judy&apos;s first humiliation as a burlesque stooge is literally harrowing. Yet she endures it night after night. &quot;Who says I&apos;m quitting!&quot; she declares - another close-up. Her final speech from the burlesque stage gives the jeering, cat-calling male audience its own taste of humiliation. (The cinematography of that scene is suggestive. Maureen O&apos;Hara in a bouffant ballet dress is lit partly from below, as if from lights in the orchestra pit. She resembles Edgar Degas&apos; paintings of tutu-clad dancers similarly lit by footlights. Degas&apos; ballerinas were not ingenues. In Zola&apos;s &quot;Nana&quot; a patron compliments an impresario on the quality of his theater; he replies, &quot;you mean my bordello.&quot;)

Women endure humiliation. Yet throughout the story women are in power. They are in power though they are not, officially, empowered. They dominate, though they must do it behind the men&apos;s backs, men who are too oblivious to notice. Some of the women act brazenly. Lucille Ball&apos;s Bubbles extracts whatever she wants, free car-rides from Akron, an immense divorce settlement from a bamboozled millionaire. Others do it softly, with a wink and a nod. Katharine Alexander as the secretary, Miss Olmstead, is clearly the brains of Ralph Bellamy&apos;s modern dance company. He can&apos;t write a memo that she doesn&apos;t rewrite for him. He can&apos;t recruit a new dancer without begging her to accompany him for support. The subtlest role - and, in my opinion, the best piece of acting - is that of Virginia Field (the same year she did her splendid turn as Vivian Leigh&apos;s devoted companion in &quot;Waterloo Bridge&quot;). As Elinor, the ex-wife, she is brash and capricious. We can comprehend why there was marital friction. Yet she is sympathetic, caring. We can understand why her ex-husband is still smitten. She dangles herself. She collects then dismisses replaceable, recyclable men. She leaves sad-sack &quot;Puss &apos;n Boots&quot; (Sidney Blackmer) openmouthed on their wedding night: &quot;You&apos;re a lawyer; get yourself an annulment.&quot; Exploitation and denigration the women suffer. They give as good as they get.

A comparison. One cannot see this film without recalling Emeric Pressberger&apos;s ballet story &quot;The Red Shoes&quot; that came out a few years later. Certainly, there are differences. Moira Shearer&apos;s aspiring ballerina is nothing like Maureen O&apos;Hara&apos;s struggling dance-hall girl. Anton Walbrook&apos;s terrifyingly tyrannical impresario is no likeness of Ralph Bellamy&apos;s placidly incompetent entrepreneur. But Bosley Crowther was right in this at least. It is the same story, a dancer&apos;s rise to fame. Except for this. The message is completely different: empowerment in one case, &quot;Dance, Girl, Dance;&quot; degradation in the other, &quot;The Red Shoes.&quot; The discordance is striking. The heroine - or perhaps we had best call her the protagonist, for there is little heroic about her - in &quot;Red shoes&quot; is a weak, almost pathetic woman. She bounces like a yo-yo, alternately tossed out and reeled in by the men she is desperate to please. One tells her she can live only for art, his art, the art he dominates. She must abandon all hope of love or companionship; sacrifice everything for the dance. The other tells her she must abandon her art. She must give up her career, dance no more, devote herself entirely to him, accommodate his domestic desire (though he has no thought of abandoning his artistic career for her). One or the other, so the men inform her (though the same rule need not apply to them). Decide! She can&apos;t decide. So she decides to kill herself. What kind of message is that? Woman defined by man&apos;s will. One would advise Moira Shearer&apos;s cringingly confused Victoria to watch a screening of &quot;Dance, Girl, Dance.&quot; Maureen O&apos;Hara&apos;s Judy faces the same existential choice and she resolves it. A woman can have independence. She can follow her art. And she can pursue love, if she chooses. As the choice approaches, Judy addresses the morning star. She wishes for love: &quot;starlight, starbright ...&quot; She concludes with a second sidereal request: &quot;please make me a dancer too.&quot;

The film featured Louis Hayward. He was married to Ida Lupino. A decade later Dorothy Arzner had departed. Ida Lupino stepped into her place, the second woman to break Hollywood&apos;s glass ceiling. Ida contemplated a move behind the camera long before she undertook it. She haunted the sets, learning from the great directors the techniques of the craft. Was her interest perhaps inspired by &quot;Dance, Girl, Dance,&quot; by her husband&apos;s accounts of his experience under the hand of a woman director?

In celebration of Pride, we recognize these unsung heroes of LGBTQ+ film history and the movies that changed the face of the film industry forever.

Unsung Heroes of LGBTQ+ Film History

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More than a film about dancers. It is, under a simple facade, a story of women's empowerment.

Bosley Crowther, the New York Times' arbiter of cinematic art in 1940, dismissed this film out of hand: "a cliché-ridden garbled repetition of the story of the aches and pains of a dancer's rise to fame." It is astounding that an astute critic, a man moreover of progressive insight, could so badly miss the point. Perhaps the fact that he missed the point makes the point. "Dance, Girl, Dance" transcends a simple dancer's story. It is, if anything, the least cliché-ridden film imaginable. If it wanted clichés it would have had the heroine (Maureen O'Hara) walk off happily with her handsome suitor (Louis Hayward). The ex-wife (Virginia Field) would surely have been presented as a meddlesome shrew. The conniving rival (Lucille Ball) would have come to a deservedly bad end. None of that happens. Having digested more than a quote of clichéd Hollywood plots, I was amazed each time this movie violated the conventions. All this is in addition to the true point of the film, which is, certainly, to explore the exploitation and degradation of women and look forward to their empowerment. That point, one may feel, is a cliché today. It certainly was not in 1940.

How much of this is due to the work of Dorothy Arzner? "Dance, Girl, Dance" has made it into the National Film Registry. I suspect that, partly at least, the choice was to honor the only woman director of Hollywood's golden age. But take Dorothy Arzner out of the mix. The film still delivers its message thanks to the screenplay of Tess Slesinger. Her words - she was a socialist and a feminist - are the essential ingredients in the mix. Director and screenwriter stir a powerful cocktail. The humiliation of the women in some scenes is painful. In the famous hula scene, watch the camera linger, prolonged close-ups, on the leering, cigar-chewing (a long, rigid cigar pointed at the viewer, and at the dancing girls), practically salivating Hoboken pornographer played marvelously by Harold Huber. The scene of Judy's first humiliation as a burlesque stooge is literally harrowing. Yet she endures it night after night. "Who says I'm quitting!" she declares - another close-up. Her final speech from the burlesque stage gives the jeering, cat-calling male audience its own taste of humiliation. (The cinematography of that scene is suggestive. Maureen O'Hara in a bouffant ballet dress is lit partly from below, as if from lights in the orchestra pit. She resembles Edgar Degas' paintings of tutu-clad dancers similarly lit by footlights. Degas' ballerinas were not ingenues. In Zola's "Nana" a patron compliments an impresario on the quality of his theater; he replies, "you mean my bordello.")

Women endure humiliation. Yet throughout the story women are in power. They are in power though they are not, officially, empowered. They dominate, though they must do it behind the men's backs, men who are too oblivious to notice. Some of the women act brazenly. Lucille Ball's Bubbles extracts whatever she wants, free car-rides from Akron, an immense divorce settlement from a bamboozled millionaire. Others do it softly, with a wink and a nod. Katharine Alexander as the secretary, Miss Olmstead, is clearly the brains of Ralph Bellamy's modern dance company. He can't write a memo that she doesn't rewrite for him. He can't recruit a new dancer without begging her to accompany him for support. The subtlest role - and, in my opinion, the best piece of acting - is that of Virginia Field (the same year she did her splendid turn as Vivian Leigh's devoted companion in "Waterloo Bridge"). As Elinor, the ex-wife, she is brash and capricious. We can comprehend why there was marital friction. Yet she is sympathetic, caring. We can understand why her ex-husband is still smitten. She dangles herself. She collects then dismisses replaceable, recyclable men. She leaves sad-sack "Puss 'n Boots" (Sidney Blackmer) openmouthed on their wedding night: "You're a lawyer; get yourself an annulment." Exploitation and denigration the women suffer. They give as good as they get.

A comparison. One cannot see this film without recalling Emeric Pressberger's ballet story "The Red Shoes" that came out a few years later. Certainly, there are differences. Moira Shearer's aspiring ballerina is nothing like Maureen O'Hara's struggling dance-hall girl. Anton Walbrook's terrifyingly tyrannical impresario is no likeness of Ralph Bellamy's placidly incompetent entrepreneur. But Bosley Crowther was right in this at least. It is the same story, a dancer's rise to fame. Except for this. The message is completely different: empowerment in one case, "Dance, Girl, Dance;" degradation in the other, "The Red Shoes." The discordance is striking. The heroine - or perhaps we had best call her the protagonist, for there is little heroic about her - in "Red shoes" is a weak, almost pathetic woman. She bounces like a yo-yo, alternately tossed out and reeled in by the men she is desperate to please. One tells her she can live only for art, his art, the art he dominates. She must abandon all hope of love or companionship; sacrifice everything for the dance. The other tells her she must abandon her art. She must give up her career, dance no more, devote herself entirely to him, accommodate his domestic desire (though he has no thought of abandoning his artistic career for her). One or the other, so the men inform her (though the same rule need not apply to them). Decide! She can't decide. So she decides to kill herself. What kind of message is that? Woman defined by man's will. One would advise Moira Shearer's cringingly confused Victoria to watch a screening of "Dance, Girl, Dance." Maureen O'Hara's Judy faces the same existential choice and she resolves it. A woman can have independence. She can follow her art. And she can pursue love, if she chooses. As the choice approaches, Judy addresses the morning star. She wishes for love: "starlight, starbright ..." She concludes with a second sidereal request: "please make me a dancer too."

The film featured Louis Hayward. He was married to Ida Lupino. A decade later Dorothy Arzner had departed. Ida Lupino stepped into her place, the second woman to break Hollywood's glass ceiling. Ida contemplated a move behind the camera long before she undertook it. She haunted the sets, learning from the great directors the techniques of the craft. Was her interest perhaps inspired by "Dance, Girl, Dance," by her husband's accounts of his experience under the hand of a woman director?

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