Review of Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) by Bob V — 27 Mar 2011

A camp film with a familiar sounding plot about a talented yet poor dancer who has to demean herself in a burlesque show to pay the bills, whilst competing for love, and yadda yadda yadda...

Although Maureen O'Hara is the leading role as the long-suffering (and in my opinion annoyingly simpering) ballerina, it is Lucille Ball who pretty much walks away with the film. Ball at this point was still trying to escape the B-pictures mold Hollywood had forced her in, but every so often she did get a good one, be it often as a secondary character, and this is definitely one of them. Ball would, of course, give up on Hollywood eventually and go see what television was all about, with a career as the Queen of Television spanning several decades as the result. A further result was also that she eventually became the owner of RKO, the studio that made this film. Good on her.

One of Old Hollywood's few high-profile female directors, Dorothy Azner does attempt to deliver a message that was rather novel in its day, by having her ballerina shame the crowd at the burlesque house, and making a statement about female empowerment. Perhaps therefore it's ironic that Lucille Ball's anti-thesis to this message is actually the most memorable character.