
Dance, Girl, Dance
Director: Dorothy Arzner, Roy Del Ruth Run Time: 90 min. Format: 35mm Rating: NR Release Year: 1940
Starring: Maureen O’Hara, Louis Hayward, Lucille Ball, Virginia Field, Ralph Bellamy
Years before her comedic mugging in I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball shook her stuff as Bubbles in Dorothy Arzner’s Dance, Girl, Dance. Co-star Maureen O’Hara is Judy, a talented dancer with artistic ambitions who clashes with the flashy, fame-hungry Bubbles. Tensions rise as they not only compete for the spotlight, but also the affections of a wealthy suitor. But this isn’t a cat fight – instead the friendship of the two women is treated with complexity, and the film highlights the divide of commercially popular but artistically compromised performances versus work that forgoes the splashy in favor of creative integrity, while not judging the choices of either character.