‘What’s it for? So you can go home when the show’s over, strut before your wives and sweethearts and play at being the stronger sex for a minute?’

The high kicking crown jewel of Dorothy Arzner’s oeuvre, Dance Girl Dance played a key role in the filmmaker’s rediscovery in the 1970s after it was reclaimed by a new generation of feminist critics drawn to the film’s subversive take on the male gaze. This wildly enjoyable curtain-raiser melodrama hinges on the competitive relationship between two ambitious chorus girls, doe-eyed ballerina Judy O’Brien (Maureen O’Hara) and sharp witted bombshell Bubbles (a sensational, pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball), as the pair are pitted against each other as rivals in both their professional and personal lives. Still remarkable for both its full-blooded exploration of the complexities of female friendship and its fourth-wall breaking critique of the exploitative dynamics of spectatorship, Dance Girl Dance is a must-see, a radical glitter bomb ignited in the heart of classic Hollywood.

Screening as part of our CineMasters: Dorothy Arzner season, curated by archive activists Invisible Women