AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

morrison-dylan-fan To finish Father's Day me and my dad watched the sweet Comedy Drama Never a Dull Moment on BBC iPlayer. Checking the next day to see what else was on the service,I was happy to spot a second rare RKO title,which led to me putting my dancing shoes on.The plot:Dreaming of being a ballerina, Judy O'Brien joins a struggling dance troupe. Being the other side of the coin to O'Brien, Bubbles/Tiger Lily White is vocal on her boredom at the classes. Playing the last dance,O'Brien is left shaken when their music teacher is run over. Grabbing a job in a burlesque bar,White pulls weak O'Brien in as her stage stooge. During the performances, Jimmy Harris catches the eyes of both ladies,which leads to O'Brien and White doing their own dance number against each other. View on the film:Co-starring with someone soon to be a close friend and her future husband, Lucille Ball gives a sparkling performance as Bubbles/Tiger Lily White,thanks to the happiness behind the scenes coming across in Ball giving White a gliding diva elegance. Up against ultra glamour puss White, Maureen O'Hara gives an earthy performance as Judy O'Brien,with O'Hara giving Judy a tough perfection edge to dance White off the stage. Bouncing between the ladies, Louis Hayward lays out dashing light Screwball Comedy charm as James 'Jimmy' Harris Jr.Replacing original director Roy Del Ruth two weeks into production,director Dorothy Arzner and her long-time lover Marion Morgan stage the song and dance numbers with a classy shadow-lit backdrop,which never quite escapes the stage origins of the project. Working with editor Robert Wise, Arzner sets off some Broadway sparks on the film with criss-crossing dance/singing exchanges between the ladies and a refreshingly risqué side to Judy and White putting any hecklers in their place,as the audience yell dance,girl dance.

talisencrw A really fun film that I found in my Maureen O'Hara TCM 4-pack that I highly recommend if you enjoy films from that era. I like the two films I've seen so far from Arzner, who was one of the earliest and most successful of female directors and I believe the first openly lesbian one--the other work I've seen of hers is the great pre-Code look at alcoholism, 'Merrily We Go to Hell'.This is great if you either like musicals from the era, are a Maureen O'Hara or Lucille Ball enthusiast (holy, she was unbelievably a knockout in her early filmic days!) or are simply curious about the works of early female and/or lesbian directors. Arzner--at least in the two films I have seen from her thus far--showed she truly deserved to be successful in the industry.

secondtake Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) This competent if unremarkable film was directed by Dorothy Arzner, Hollywood's one female director of note between the silent years and Ida Lupino. It's a package of different kinds of dance numbers, from show girl to burlesque to high art ballet. The thread that keeps it going is the usual: girls trying to make it in one show or another.Lucille Ball, famous for her television shows of the 1950s and 60s, might seem to be making an early appearance in this 1940 song and dance drama. But she had made fifty (fifty!) films before this one. She's no a remarkable dancer by any means, nor singer, but she has personality to spare, and she's fun, period. She plays the worldly girl who will dance anywhere, anyhow. In contrast is the Maureen O'Hara character, sweet and restrained. She's rather humiliated in the movie, and you can feel her pain, but it's a forced contrast.Musical numbers intersperse the thin plot, and those might or might not be your taste. I found even the ballet, which looked like a serious ballet troupe in action, pedestrian. And it was poorly filmed: the camera sat at the edge of the stage and watched. In truth, the movie as a whole was functional, not reaching for the stars, and not getting any. The one surprise, for me, was the ease and presence of Louis Hayward as a kind of good guy leading man who appeared now and then to properly show his love for O'Hara's struggling character.

Syl Film director, Dorothy Arzner, was perhaps one of the first women directors in male Hollywood. Maybe her lesbianism helped in others forgetting that she was a female. Anyway this cast included Maureen O'Hara, Lucille Ball, Ralph Bellamy, and others who would have fabulous careers in Hollywood at the time. Dance, Girl, Dance is nothing more than a comedy and melodrama. Of course, Arzner's direction is not inspiring because she has such a wonderful cast. Who would have thought that Lucille Ball could have had a dramatic role for a change before her own hit show on television? Maureen O'Hara is truly an Irish beauty who is still with us for now while most of the cast have gone to a better place. Dorothy Arzner paved the way for other women directors, lesbian or not, to put their stamp on Hollywood. Sadly, this film is not the greatest or worst film of all time but you can still watch it and debate on whether women have come so far in Hollywood.