In celebration of film pioneer Dorothy Arzner’s birthday this month, the AFI Catalog shines a spotlight on her life and her indelible contributions to film history. In a Hollywood career spanning nearly a quarter of a century (1919-1943) – from typist to “script girl,” to editor to director, to being the first woman member of the DGA – Arzner remains the most prolific woman ever to work within the studio system. She is credited as a director on more than 20 features, including THE WILD PARTY (1929) with Clara Bow, CHRISTOPHER STRONG (1933) starring a young Katharine Hepburn in her first lead role, and DANCE, GIRL, DANCE (1940) featuring Lucille Ball, plus many other productions she worked on as a writer and editor (with and without credit).[i] While the silent era was a remarkably prosperous time for women filmmakers, few were able to maintain their roles behind the camera when sound technology came to the fore, and Arzner was one of only several women to helm studio productions in the 1930s and 1940s (writer Wanda Tuchock co-directed one feature in 1934 and Ida Lupino later directed eight films, starting in 1949). The success of Arzner’s pictures and the magnitude of her output set her apart, and she continues to be one of America’s top women directors of all time. Arzner’s body of work, as well as her relative transparency about her lesbian sexuality for the times, transcended the silver screen and became a catalyst for feminist and queer scholarship worldwide.
Born on January 3, 1897, Arzner spent her early days in San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake, which prompted her family to move to Los Angeles.[ii] There, Arzner’s father ran a famous German café next to a theater that was frequented by Hollywood luminaries, but Arzner was unimpressed by her access to stars because they were “too familiar to me.”[iii] Although Arzner first pursued a career in medicine while studying at USC, she gave up her vocation after spending the summer working for a surgeon and opted to be a volunteer paramedic, instead.[iv] When World War I came to a close in 1918, a promising Hollywood revival was impeded by the flu pandemic. This led to a toll on the workforce and, according to Arzner in a 1974 interview, studios were eager to hire new talent.[v] Seizing the opportunity, Arzner went to Famous Players-Lasky (before it became Paramount) to meet with director William C. de Mille, who was also the head of the Los Angeles Emergency Ambulance Corps where she volunteered, as well as the brother of the legendary Cecil B. DeMille. After trial and error, working in several departments, Arzner ultimately convinced de Mille to let her start, in her words, “at the bottom,” typing scripts;[vi] [vii] she later told writer Adela Rogers St. Johns that “pride is the greatest obstacle to success.”[viii] Within only half a year, however, Arzner became a “cutter,” editing film at Realart (a Paramount subsidiary), and by her own account working on 52 films, mainly uncredited.[ix] Arzner worked her way up to be chief editor at Realart, and by 1922 she was called back to Paramount to cut BLOOD AND SAND (1922), a Rudolph Valentino vehicle that solidified his celebrity and ranked as one of the highest-grossing films of 1922. At that time, editing was done entirely by hand, and Arzner’s resourceful approach to the film, which started out as “hundreds of thousands of feet,” saved the studio money and proved Arzner’s merits.[x]
One of Arzner’s biggest champions at Paramount was director James Cruze, who entrusted her to edit the big-budget Western epic THE COVERED WAGON (1923) as her next project. The picture, advertised as “the most gigantic motion picture undertaking ever attempted,” led to further work with Cruze, but Arzner also picked up jobs writing scenarios for Columbia, a “poverty row” studio that eventually offered her the chance to direct.[xi] On the very day she was preparing to leave Paramount, executives implored her to stay and finally capitulated to her demands by hiring her to helm a woman-themed “A”-picture, FASHIONS FOR WOMEN (1927).[xii] Despite Arzner’s lack of experience as a director, the movie was a box-office hit, and its success prompted Paramount to let her direct two more features that year. By 1928, Arzner rose further in the ranks by being put in charge of THE WILD PARTY (1929), one of the studio’s first all-sound films and superstar Clara Bow’s premier talkie. During production, Bow accidentally damaged the microphone when speaking her first lines, and Arzner adroitly invented a boom mic by rigging the device to a fishing pole, revolutionizing film production by allowing actors to move freely on set.[xiii]
Of the 11 features Arzner directed for Paramount, many showcased the talent of women writers and editors, including SARAH AND SON (1930), which also garnered a Best Actress Oscar® nomination for leading lady Ruth Chatterton. Arzner later revealed that she was given the authority to select her own crews at Paramount and worked with very little interference, as she was unwilling to compromise her vision and her penchant for promoting women, both onscreen and behind the camera.[xiv] In 1932, however, Arzner went out on her own due to a shift in Paramount’s leadership and directed a body of work that was particularly exemplary of her skill at launching young actresses’ careers. Pictures such as CHRISTOPHER STRONG (1933) and DANCE, GIRL, DANCE (1940) became her most familiar over time due to their enduring legacy as extant films that can be viewed today, as well as for their famous female stars.[xv] Arzner was also rumored to be romantically involved with some of Hollywood’s biggest icons, including Alla Nazimova, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford and Billie Burke (who famously performed in THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) as Glinda, the good witch), but she remained in a long-term, nearly 50-year partnership with choreographer Marion Morgan until Morgan’s death in 1971.[xvi] [xvii]
Little is known to explain why Arzner left Hollywood in 1943, and modern sources generally disagree, attributing her departure to health issues, such as pneumonia, or her conflicts with Louis B. Mayer.[xviii] [xix] It has been suggested that Arzner quit in repudiation of the Hays Code, which strictly limited the creative freedom of filmmakers in an effort to uphold deeply conservative values that repressed female autonomy and queer inclusion.[xx] The Code contradicted the main feminist themes of Arzner’s work, both in the stories of her films and in her efforts to hire women. Still, Arzner’s feminism continues to be a subject of debate among scholars, as she was reluctant to embrace the role of a trailblazer and later reflected that her male colleagues were more supportive of her career than women.[xxi] Questions remain about why other women filmmakers were not given the same opportunities to direct major studio productions, both historically and even today, when women directors make up only 6% of the workforce on top-grossing Hollywood films.[xxii]
While Arzner declined to continue making features, her love of filmmaking endured. As well as producing training films for the Women’s Army Corps and a multitude of Pepsi commercials for Joan Crawford (an executive and spokesperson for the company), Arzner pursued a career in educating young storytellers; with her own funds, she started the first film program at the Pasadena Playhouse and taught at UCLA’s new cinema school, mentoring, inspiring and ushering in new talent such as Francis Ford Coppola, the 2025 recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award.[xxiii] [xxiv] Arzner, herself, received very few awards and accolades before her death in 1979, but as the industry strives for greater gender parity and inclusion, her contributions have become more widely lauded in the enduring legacy of film history.
