Dorothy Arzner

Interviews

Martin F. Norden

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781496848260
• eBook ISBN: 9781496848277
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Through dozens of interviews, a detailed chronology and filmography, and a selection of Dorothy Arzner's own writings—including her unfinished autobiography—Dorothy Arzner: Interviews offers major insights into and an in-depth examination of the life and career of one of the few women to direct films during Hollywood's Golden Age. A key figure in Hollywood for decades, she directed more studio films than any other woman in history. Her movies often focused on courageous women who must make difficult decisions to remain true to themselves—women not unlike Arzner herself, who once said that "all we can ever do in our work is write our own biography."

Dorothy Arzner (1897–1979) began her film career in 1919 as a script typist for the Famous Players-Lasky company, which later became Paramount Pictures. She quickly rose through the ranks to become a script supervisor, screenwriter, and editor before directing her first film, Fashions for Women, in 1927. After the release of her final Hollywood film, First Comes Courage, in 1943, Arzner changed directions in her professional life. She made several training films for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during World War II and directed many television commercials for Pepsi-Cola in the 1950s. She concluded her career by serving as a filmmaking instructor at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts and UCLA, where she helped launch the first wave of college-trained moviemakers.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology
• Filmography
• Leave Sex Out, Says Director
• Camera!
• Do Ladies Prefer Brunettes?
• Only Woman Director
• “Dot” Arzner Proves Talker Ability
• Hollywood’s One Woman Director
• Directed by Dorothy Arzner!
• Custom Restricts Women
• Hard for Girl to Become Film Director, Dorothy Arzner Says
• Woman Movie Picture Director
• Meeting Miss Dorothy Arzner, Screen’s Only Woman Director
• She Thanks Her Lucky Stars
• The Secret of Personality
• Do You Want a Studio Job?
• Clara Bow to Recover Fame, Director Says
• How to Become a Woman Director
• “Get Me Dorothy Arzner!”—Samuel Goldwyn
• Clothes Do Not Make the Stars
• Silk Underwear Feelings and Nail Polish Effects
• Women Directors Are the Outlook, Says the Only One
• Woman among the Mighty
• The Screen’s Only Woman Director
• Would You Be Master of Your Fate?
• Hilltop Tenant: Dorothy Arzner Thus Looks at Films with a Clear Eye
• Woman Film Director Needs Tact
• A Woman’s Touch
• Woman Director!
• Starlight
• Dorothy Arzner 1970 Interview
• Approaching the Art of Arzner
• The Best Love Story on the Screen
• Dorothy Arzner Interview
• Film Director Dorothy Arzner: Tribute to an Unsung Pioneer
• Famous Filmmaker Is No Feminist
• Interview with Director Dorothy Arzner
• Dorothy Arzner
• Appendix: The Unfinished Autobiography of Dorothy Arzner
• Index
• About the Editor