Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Film: Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)

Stars: Maureen O'Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy

Director: Dorothy Arzner

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2022 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different Classical Hollywood star who made their name in the early days of television.  This month, our focus is on Lucille Ball click here to learn more about Ms. Ball (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to start our look at Lucille Ball's career a bit later in her career than she started making movies.  Ball moved from New York to Hollywood in the early 1930's as a Goldwyn Girl, and started getting bit parts in a number of movies including a lot of films with Ginger Rogers, one of which, Stage Door, gave her a larger part & put her in the company of people like Katharine Hepburn & Eve Arden.  After Stage Door Ball would start to get leading roles, albeit in properties that weren't particularly important to the studio's bottom line.  RKO at this time frame would've cared primarily about Ginger Rogers and Maureen O'Hara, the latter of whom teamed up with Ball in what would become one of the more important films in Ball's career at the studio, 1940's Dance, Girl, Dance.

(Spoilers Ahead) Dance, Girl, Dance is a dramedy focused primarily on two women: Judy (O'Hara), an aspiring ballerina who can't find success in that world, and Bubbles (Ball), a beautiful blonde chorus girl who only dreams of making money & finding stardom.  When Bubbles is discovered by a night club owner for a burlesque show, she jumps at the opportunity (even though Judy finds the prospect to be demeaning), and Bubbles turns out to be correct-she is rebranded as "Tiger Lily White," and suddenly finds herself the toast of New York City.  Bubbles incorporates Judy into her act to dance & essentially "act the stooge" to get the audience excited for Bubbles to return to the stage.  Judy resents Bubbles doing this to her, but she needs the money, and she goes along with it.  While this is happening, Judy is chased by an eccentric, emotionally-damaged (but very rich) man named Jimmy Harris (Hayward), fresh out of a relationship & looking for a rebound.  He initially sets his sites on Judy, but after Bubbles realizes he's loaded, she tricks him into marrying her, and gets a fortune in order to grant him a divorce. The film ends with Bubbles getting her act booed after Judy chastises the audience for reveling in her humiliation and the fleshy exposure of the dancers, but still getting her payday, and Judy finally becoming a proper star, one that will be famous for ballet & not for burlesque.

Dance, Girl, Dance was not a hit at the time, either critically or commercially, but it's grown in stature since it was first released, thanks in large part to the reputation of its director, Dorothy Arzner.  For those unfamiliar, that's not a typo-a woman was directing a major studio's films in 1940, and indeed Arzner regularly worked with key stars of that era (until the 1970's, she was one of only two women, the other being Ida Lupino, who had been an active member of the DGA).

This critical rescue is justified because Dance, Girl, Dance is pretty darn great.  The movie never talks down to its two leads.  While there is some sexually conservative messages toward the end of the film (it's always clear that the audience is supposed to be cheering for Judy), it never really shames Bubbles, and in fact in the end of the movie Bubbles gets everything she wanted-headlines & cash, even if she doesn't get her man.  The film also has some really fascinating sexual politics, not just in the way that Bubbles doesn't feel ashamed of cashing in, or the way that it calls out the audience (both onscreen & off) for celebrating these women who don't really have another option given to them to make this kind of money, but also in the bizarre way it makes Louis Hayward's Jimmy into a bizarre, sexually-obsessed loose cannon.  He screams in an early scene at Maureen O'Hara because he doesn't like her eye color, and it's clear throughout the film that he's basically just trying to find a replacement for his emotionally-manipulative wife.  The film is from 1940, but it's easy to see what Arzner is doing here, trying to show that a rich man can get away with such oddities because he's rich...but that doesn't mean he's not bizarre & potentially dangerous.

It's also worth noting that Lucille Ball is incredible in this movie.  O'Hara is badly miscast, not able to make Judy seem like anything other than a doormat, but Ball steals every scene she's in wholesale.  Bubbles in her hands is someone who knows when an opportunity shows up, milks it for all it's worth, and doesn't apologize.  Yes, she's a bit of a backstabber (basically tricking Judy into doing her show), but she also is a backstabber who isn't afraid to take the low road if it means she reaches her destination.  All of the trademark physical comedy skills Ball would later use in television are employed here, but so are some fine acting chops.  Lucille Ball, who would spend the next ten years as the "Queen of the B's" definitely deserved better.