Dorothy Arzner (Pride pt. XVII)

Merrily We Go to Hell

Dance, Girl, Dance

Hi, gay! And happy Pride Month!!! As the resident film critic / obnoxious ally on your Instagram feed, I am once again so happy to spend the month watching queer films that are new to me. I may suffer from seasonal affective disorder in the summertime, but Pride Month makes things a lot brighter and more exciting—even to this silly straight. I have loved LGBTQ+ people and media since I was a baby, and I’m immensely proud to call myself an ally—not just for my queer friends and family, but for every person who identifies as queer in our persistently-oppressive world. People in the LGBTQ+ community make up approximately 10% of the world’s population, and yet republican lawmakers and other close-minded people seem to use queer people as their scapegoat for every single issue. Left-handed people also make up about 10% of the world’s population, and I’m not just saying this as a lefty, these minorities are simply not the cause. I could rattle off a never-ending list of the problems with this country, and with society as a whole—gun violence, homelessness, abysmal healthcare, climate change—and not a single one of these very pressing problems can be blamed on any one group of people, except, for maybe the hateful legislators who make important decisions but instead spin these ludicrous narratives. At this point, this is more than a soapbox, this is more than a trendy issue to amplify, it is about protecting queer people from the people who want them dead—who, by the way, are coming for us next. Queer rights and trans rights are human rights, and human rights are constantly under attack—it just so happens that the main person attacking them currently, is our first gay president. (I am fully being honest and sincere here, btw. Gay people can be evil too.) I’ll never shut up about how much I love queer people, and I’ll never stop watching queer movies. Now, there are countless ways to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and there are countless reasons a film can be classified as queer or queer-coded. Given that this is part seventeen of my dedicated double features for Pride, I think I’ve spent more time covering queer films than I have any other—including David Cronenberg’s (whose repertoire is also preeeeetty queer.) I always try my best to explore legendary Pride films as well as the lesser-known ones, to further my cinematic education as well as my human education, and this month I’ll be celebrating works made by queer filmmakers exclusively. For this first week, I wanted to dive into the wild, unwieldy, early days of Hollywood—where the silents, the talkies, and their creators were full of subversive surprises. Before the Hays Code was enforced in the entertainment business in 1934, before an air of stuffy conservatism and respectability politics informed the culture in America, the films being produced were boundless in their expressions of sex, violence, and other topics deemed “indecent.” It may have been “indecent” to some, but it was an honest reflection of the rebellious, cynical tendencies of a nation stifled by prohibition, the Great Depression, and general post-war malaise. One of the most significant auteurs of this era, whom I truly only just learned about (which pisses me off), is the iconic lesbian filmmaker Dorothy Arzner. WWI had left the film business in desperate need of workers, which Arzner took advantage of swiftly. She met with the famous director William DeMille, found her way into the script department, and within six months she became an editor at a subsidiary of Paramount, Realart Studios—where she edited 52 films. Her first few directing jobs were uncredited, but she was able to prove herself enough to impress Walter Wanger, the head of Paramount’s NYC studio, who allegedly told her they could discuss her directing “sometime in the future.” Arzner replied, “Not unless I can be on a set in two weeks with an A picture. I’d rather do a picture for a small company and have my own way than a B picture for Paramount.” Wanger then offered her a chance to direct a comedy titled Fashions for Women. This was Arzner’s first job as director, “In fact, I hadn't told anyone to do anything before" she once remarked. She directed several hit films, including The Wild Party—Clara Bow’s first talkie. She wasn’t just a trailblazer in her career, but in her personal life—Dorothy Arzner was a proud, out lesbian who maintained a 40-year relationship with her partner, Marion Morgan, a dancer and choreographer. It’s fairly well-known, though, that Arzner was romantically-linked to several actresses including Alla Nazimova, Billie Burke (aka the OG Glinda), and—allegedly—Katherine Hepburn and Joan Crawford. Arzner retired from the film industry in the 40s, but she is credited with launching several careers, influencing several films, and creating the first-ever boom mic. Feminist critics have noted how fascinating and transgressive Arzner’s films are, particularly in their depictions of women operating underneath the male gaze. She often centered her stories upon love triangles and other unconventional relationships, making for some truly saucy and compelling films, like the ones I watched this evening.

Up first is a picture based off of Cleo Lucas’ 1931 novel, I, Jerry, Take Thee, Joan, this is the 1932 dramadey Merrily We Go to Hell. This is one of those sneakily feminist films which at first presents its story from a man’s perspective, then switches it up halfway through. We open on a glitzy party, where douchebag Frederic March, is playing yet another difficult man (shocker) named Jerry Corbett, a reporter and wannabe playwright, who is evidently more interested in getting to the bottom of a bottle than getting to the bottom of his problems. Immediately we can tell that Jerry is an alcoholic, a loner, and a menace, by the way he tries to charm his way through a conversation with rich girl Joan Prentice (Sylvia Sidney.) Because things moved at the speed of light back then, Jerry and Joan kiss, become girlfriend-and-boyfriend, and clink their drinks together as Jerry says, the first of many times, “merrily we go to hell!” A heavy-handed foreshadowing if I ever saw one. Joan wants Jerry to meet her rich dad the next day, and even though he is horrendously late and makes a terrible first impression, Joan forgives him because she is lonely and in love and rich. Even Jerry is surprised that their feelings are mutual, as he says, rather drunkenly and homosexually, “I don’t think of women often… I prefer the company of men, especially if they're a bartender.” We blink and suddenly Jerry is telling every speakeasy in town that they’re getting married, and talking shit about his ex, Claire (Adrianne Allen), all the while refusing to say “I love you” back to Joan, and only ever saying, “I think you’re swell.” We blink again and Joan is throwing an engagement party, which Jerry is late to. When he does show up, he’s so drunk that he passes out. We blink again and they’re at the altar, where Jerry forgets his own name and even the ring, and yet they still get married. In their wedded bliss, Jerry is trying his best to be sober and to finally complete a play, but even his number one cheerleader Joan can’t save him from the piles of rejection letters he eventually receives. When he finally does get accepted at a theater, his ex-girlfriend Claire is cast as the lead, and she has many notes to give him. Claire threatens not only Jerry’s sobriety, but also his marriage, as the two can’t help falling back into old habits like blacking out and doing the Charleston. And when a bitter divorcee warns Joan to either fix things or get out while she can, Joan pleads with Jerry, “You love me enough to keep me just as I am, right?” to which Jerry responds, “I think you’re swell.” I don’t need to run through any more plot details for you to understand how messy and insolent Jerry is, because his despicableness is clear from the first two minutes of meeting him, but I do recommend watching Merrily We Go to Hell if you’re looking for a clearcut depiction of manipulation, emotional abuse, and general man-whorishness and alcoholism. The film also stars a very young Cary Grant, in a brief but memorable role, and it stars someone named Skeets Gallagher—a name I can’t stop saying. The sensationalized title of this movie caused quite the controversy, as several newspapers refused to even publicize it, and this film also features one of the first instances of product placement, with a close-up of a bottle of Hennessy “Three Star” Brandy as a punch line. I won’t give anything else away, but I will say that I was delighted to see that Joan does stop taking the high road, and eventually indulges in her own alcoholic cuntiness. The whole film descends into an almost Tyler Perry-esque drama as it reaches its climax, but they just moved differently in the 1930s, as I’m coming to learn (no thanks to Babylon.)

The next film that I watched also proved the cheeky yet revolutionary nature of Arzner’s films, this is her 1940 cult-classic film Dance, Girl, Dance. Just eight years later, but with a definite vibe shift and a young Lucille Ball with 3rd billing, Dance, Girl, Dance follows two roommates and dancers who love what they do but barely make any money. We open on their travelling dance troupe, all moving in sync for ungrateful drunkards at a venue in Akron, Ohio until the place is shut down by the police. Our leads, a good girl named Judy (Maureen O’Hara) and a real piece of work named Bubbles (Lucille Ball), are equally appalled, and exclaim how they haven’t even been paid yet. Suddenly, a particularly blitzed patron (Louis Hayward) gets up in outrage and sends his hat around the bar like a collection plate so these dancers can make their money. It’s a generous, albeit slightly self-serving, gesture that impresses Judy and Bubbles, and though he starts to dance with Judy, he ends up leaving with Bubbles. Back in New York, Judy is practicing her dancing well past her bedtime, and Bubbles comes home, annoyed as hell, with only a stuffed bull to commemorate her night with this mysterious lush. “You’ve got ambition, even if it’s dumb” Bubbles says to Judy, before gifting her this stuffed bull. Suddenly, Judy, Bubbles, and the rest of the troupe are auditioning for a Hoboken club owner, but only Bubbles and her sultry style of moving books the job. Fortunately, the old, butch, downright witchy dance instructor tells Judy that with Bubbles gone, she’s the best dancer, and takes her to audition for a big-time ballet impresario. But on the way to their meeting, the dance instructor is struck and killed by a car, leaving the meek Judy to advocate for herself with the pretentious ballet people—which doesn’t go well. Later on, a dejected Judy is being comforted by her other roommate when Bubbles comes flying through the front door. Now donning a fur coat, an expensive puppy, and a new name—Tiger Lily White—she is there, not just to rub it in her old friends’ faces, but to offer Judy a job at the burlesque house where she now works. Judy is hesitant, but it turns out this job isn’t to be a burlesque dancer, but to be Tiger Lily’s stooge—to dance in between the main attraction’s numbers and make the audience want her more. Night after night, Tiger Lily performs a silly, sexy number that the crowd of horny men goes wild for, and night after night, Judy has to follow up this popular performance with a dainty, wholesome joke of a dance, designed to make the audience boo and chant “We want Lily! We want Lily!” It’s even more demeaning than Judy feared, but for $25 a week, Judy can’t say no, even when a certain handsome and mysterious drunkard attends the show and causes another scene. Judy and Bubbles/Tiger Lily both recognize him, and even though he promises Tiger Lily he’ll wait for her, he leaves that night with Judy. We come to learn that his name is Jimmy Harris, and he’s not just a womanizing boozer, he’s also the scion of a rather wealthy family. Hijinks and hypocrisy and haywire antics continue to ensue in Dance, Girl, Dance, but scandalous love triangle aside, this film is shockingly real and wonderfully feminist. The frenemy/coworker rivalry between Judy and Bubbles is hardly cut-and-dry—they’re both complex women with aspirations and feelings and wisdom and chutzpah. Much like Merrily We Go to Hell, Dance, Girl, Dance is a distinct display of how awful straight men are, which may not have been Dorothy Arzner’s sole intention, but I doubt she’d disagree with this being one of my main takeaways. Even more distinct than the buffoonish, entitled bacchanals in these films, though, are the portrayals of complex women and their desires. Judy and Bubbles in particular are fascinating, because I’ve never seen a film from this era with such a believable yet unpredictable dynamic between women. Maureen O’Hara and Lucille Ball formed a lifelong friendship while filming this, and allegedly, the two were having lunch together when Lucy saw Desi Arnaz for the very first time. In a meta turn of events, Lucille Ball is clearly the standout star here, but the entire ensemble of Dance, Girl, Dance is surprisingly memorable—particularly the ballet impresario played by Ralph Bellamy, and his assistant played by Katharine Alexander. I didn’t expect to be this blown away by tonight’s two films, but after seeing Ryan Coogler’s 1930s-set vampire classic Sinners in theaters three times, I should’ve known that this era was worth further exploring. Well, my good Judys, that’s about all the time I have this week, but whether or not you’re a friend of Dorothy, I hope I’ve made you a fan of Dorothy Arzner’s. Until next time, dance, girl, dance you betta werk mama slay!