Dorothy Arzner — One Up for Women (1927) 🇺🇸
Dorothy Arzner grew up in the motion-picture business. And now she is a director — one of the few women directors in the industry.
Her first film, “Fashions for Women,” starring Esther Ralston, turned out so amazingly well, that there’s no doubt that she will be given many others to direct.
Only one other woman thus far has had any success as a director of films. That is Lois Weber. Other women have undertaken to direct from time to time, including Frances Marion, the scenarist, but the studios haven’t been very eager to encourage them. Directing is generally considered too exacting a task for a woman.
Paramount, however, decided to give Dorothy Arzner a try at it, and the fact that she has succeeded so beautifully may bring similar chances to other women.
Miss Arzner was born in San Francisco, went to school in Los Angeles, and then to the University of Southern California. Her father owned a famous café in Los Angeles that was actively patronized by film folk in the early days, and there Miss Arzner first became acquainted with picture people. They used to congregate there to talk over their pictures, and she listened in on their conversations. Among those with whom she became acquainted were William S. Hart, Constance Talmadge, Raymond Griffith, and various directors and scenario writers.
It was after the war that she really started to work in the movie industry — she had been in the ambulance service during the conflict. She took a position with Paramount as a script typist, and a few months later was employed with a Nazimova company as script holder. Still later she became a film cutter.
Though these titles may mean little or nothing in print, they represented steady advancement for young Miss Arzner. She had a hand in such productions as Blood and Sand, The Covered Wagon, and more recently, Old Ironsides.
Her ambition, however, was to become a director, and eventually the Paramount executives began to pay some attention to her plea to be given a chance in the directorial field. The ability she had already demonstrated in other lines went far to persuade them to grant her her wish. She had almost given up hope, however, when one day, quite to her surprise, she was called into the “front office” and told that she had been assigned to direct Fashions for Women. And now that that has been completed and released, she is at work on “Ten Modern Commandments.”
Miss Arzner is very keen and serious-minded, and has marked executive ability. She has a very creditable past behind her, and should have a glowing future ahead of her.
—
—
Movie Shows at Home
We’ve heard about the postman who on his day off goes on a hiking trip, and also of the taxi driver who goes for a bus ride during his hours of recreation, so it oughtn’t to be surprising to learn that the screen folk derive much of their entertainment from looking at pictures.
But instead of going downtown to the local theaters, as you and I do, many of them have miniature theaters in their own homes. Two or three nights a week will find a group of relatives and friends assembled to watch the latest film of their host or hostess, or some other pictures of especial interest. The films are obtained at a nominal rental from the various studios.
These theaters range all the way from perfectly appointed vestpocket replicas of big commercial theaters to portable projection machines which can be moved at will from room to room and flash their films on an accompanying portable board.
There are some forty of these private machines and projection rooms in the picture colony, but the number is increasing constantly as the plans for most of the new homes display as much care in the arrangement and position of the projection room as of the breakfast nook.
Among the most enthusiastic of Hollywood’s projectionists are Colleen Moore, Corinne Griffith, Lewis Stone, Reginald Denny, Alexander Carr, Doug and Mary [Douglas Fairbanks Sr. | Mary Pickford], Charlie Chaplin, Pola Negri, Antonio Moreno, Theodore Roberts, Douglas MacLean, Harry Carey, Tom Mix, May McAvoy, Harold Lloyd, Jack Holt, Syd Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch, Noah Beery [Noah Beery Sr.], Kathlyn Williams and her husband Charles Eyton [Charles F. Eyton], Betty Compson and James Cruze.
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, August 1927