Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Directed by

Dorothy Arzner

Genre

drama film, musical film, comedy drama

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 30m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.4 of 10 from 73 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

Two dancers compete for stage success and a wealthy man's attention. One wants to be a serious artist and the other a commercial showgirl. The film contrasts their different paths and personal struggles.

upbeatslightly melodramaticaspirationalromanticbittersweetperformer-focusedensemble-driven

What happens

Dance, Girl, Dance is a 1940 American comedy-drama film directed by Dorothy Arzner and starring Maureen O'Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball, and Ralph Bellamy. The film follows two dancers who strive to preserve their own integrity while fighting for their place in the spotlight and for the affections of a wealthy young suitor. In the decades following its release, the film was subject of critical reassessment and began to garner a reputation as a feminist film. In 2007, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", describing it as Arzner's "most intriguing film" and a "meditation on the disparity between art and commerce. Dance, Girl, Dance was edited by Robert Wise, whose next film as editor was Citizen Kane and who later won Oscars as director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Hit Parade of 1941 (1940)
• Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
• Star Dust (1940)
• I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby (1940)
• A Night at Earl Carroll's (1940)
• Melody and Moonlight (1940)
• Dancing on a Dime (1940)
• It's a Date (1940)