Directed by Dorothy Arzner
January 23–26
Five films by the director Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979)
are repeated, having been canceled in August 2003 because
of the citywide blackout. Arzner forged a unique niche
in a field wholly dominated by men, as the sole female
director in the Hollywood studio system. This retrospective celebrates
the accomplishments of the trailblazing filmmaker, who arrived
on the scene just before the coming of sound and stayed through the
early 1940s. Entertaining products of the Hollywood mainstream, Arzner’s
films are distinguished by their subtle exploration of relations among
women living communally, the pressures of a male-dominated society,
and the balance between career and family in women’s
lives.
Directed by Dorothy Arzner was conceived by
the UCLA Film and Television Archive and organized for The
Museum of Modern Art by Jytte Jensen, Curator, and John
Migliore, intern, Department of Film and Media. UCLA has
collaborated with Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios to preserve
from nitrate projection prints or acetate positives the six extant
films Arzner
made for Paramount. None of the original negatives have survived.
Preservation of the films was made possible with generous support
from the
David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Myra Reinhard Family Foundation, and Jodie Foster.
.
1930. USA. Directed by Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Edmund Goulding.
Screenplay
by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With
Clara Bow, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, Kay Francis,
Fredric March, William Powell, Fay Wray. Following the arrival of
sound, every Hollywood studio made a musical review to showcase its
contract stars’ ease with the dreaded microphone. Paramount
on Parade was the most cinematic of these, with sequences directed
by eleven of the studio’s top directors, including Arzner’s
with Bow. Print courtesy UCLA Film and Television Archive. 102 min.
. 1930. USA. Directed by Dorothy Arzner.
Screenplay by Zoë Akins, Doris Anderson. With Ruth Chatterton,
Clive Brook, Paul Lukas. After drunkenly marrying a wealthy lawyer
during a wild night out, a strong-willed chorus girl confronts the
gossip and disapproval of an entire community—including her
servants. Without sacrificing the expected touches of early 1930s
raciness, Anybody’s Woman reveals the tension of class
snobbery on every social level. Restored by the UCLA Film and Television
Archive. 80 min.
. 1930. USA. Directed by Dorothy
Arzner. Screenplay by Zoë Akins, based on the novel by Timothy Shea. With Ruth
Chatterton, Fredric March, Doris Lloyd. This melodrama about an opera
singer’s search for her lost son allowed Arzner to make some
telling points about the tension between motherhood and career while
still working within the soap-operatic confines of the “woman’s
picture.” Chatterton gives an Oscar-nominated performance of
astonishing range, an alternately tough and tender reminder of why
she was known to writers of the early 1930s as the “Queen of
the Talking Screen.” Restored by the UCLA Film and Television
Archive. 86 min.
. 1936. USA. Directed by
Dorothy Arzner. Screenplay by Mary C. McCall, Jr.,
based on the play by George Kelly. With Rosalind
Russell, John Boles, Billie Burke. Russell’s breakout role,
as a domineering wife who places her immaculately appointed home
ahead of her marriage. Arzner examines the ways in which social pressure
and the need for financial security entrap women. Print courtesy
Sony Columbia Repertory, Los Angeles. 73 min.
.
1937. USA. Directed by Dorothy Arzner. Screenplay by Tess Slesinger,
Bradbury Foote, based
on the play by Ferenc Molnár.
With Joan Crawford, Robert Young, Franchot Tone. Arzner’s second
(and only credited) Crawford film explores the effects that external
appearance can have on men’s perception of women. A poor café singer
spends two weeks masquerading as an heiress at a posh resort, only
to find herself falling in love with the local postman while being
courted by a rich playboy. 103 min. Print courtesy Warner Bros.
top
|
|
