Collections/September 2020

Two by Dorothy Arzner

Featuring a documentary on Arzner by Katja Raganelli The only woman to work as a director within the studio system of 1930s Hollywood, Dorothy Arzner was a trailblazer whose fascinating, often subversive films were the product of a sophisticated, queer, protofeminist sensibility that managed to assert itself in spite of the limitations of commercial moviemaking. Both made during the early 1930s at Paramount, where Arzner worked first as an editor before establishing herself as a director during the silent era, these pre-Code gems are two of her finest and most neglected films: Working Girls , a witty and complex tale of female ambition set in a women’s boarding house, and Merrily We Go to Hell , an alcohol-soaked portrait of an open marriage on a downward spiral. Added on Wednesday, 2 September 2020

2 films — 1 on the Channel, 1 unavailable