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Dance, Girl, Dance

1940, Movie, NR, 88 mins

Dance, Girl, Dance: Review

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An unusual backstage musical where O'Hara, a budding ballerina, is forced to find work in burlesque houses. She becomes a stooge for stripper Ball while both compete for the affections of playboy Hayward. Ball plays it crassy and brassy all the way, hip-grinding to stardom while O'Hara is the butt of on-stage jokes as she attempts to perform ballet for lowbrow audiences jeering and taunting her artistic efforts. At one point she stops mid-way during an act and reads the riot act to the mostly males present, a hortatory tirade that seems out-of-place in this otherwise humdrum and hokey programmer. Today the film is a feminist cult product, especially because it was directed by Arzner, Hollywood's lone female director for decades, but the production was never her brainchild. Roy Del Ruth began directing DANCE, GIRL, DANCE, but quit after two weeks of shooting because the script was so miserable he thought it beyond repair. Arzner scrapped his footage and started over again but she too sank deep into the boggy story where Ball stole almost every scene as the man-eating exploiter and O'Hara came off as a rather simpy and decidedly stupid victim who twirls through her degradations with almost endless abandon. Everyone else in the cast appears lethargic and unenthusiastic in delivering their lines which were banal at best. Condemned as bad filmmaking when released, this oddball creation lost more than $400,000 for RKO. Songs include: "Jitterbug Bite," "Morning Star" (Edward Ward, Chet Forrest, Bob Wright), "Mother, What Do I Do Now?" (Forrest, Wright). leave a comment
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