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LONGING FOR WOMEN

A FILM BY

In the summer of 1982, we flew from
Los Angeles to the desert, to La Quinta,

north of Palm Springs,

where Dorothy Arzner spent
the last 20 years of her life.

Three years earlier,
when I first wanted to visit her,

I wrote her letters
that remained unanswered.

I had a feeling she may be sick
and went to see her.

When I arrived, it was too late.

Dorothy Arzner had already passed away.

Her house in the desert
looked lonely in the blazing sun,

with a sun porch
reminiscent of ancient architecture,

like a temple from a faraway world.

Dorothy Arzner built this house
in the early '60s

for her longtime friend Marion Morgan

who was very ill at the time.

She believed the dry desert air
could extend her life.

Nevertheless, she survived her
by several years.

Dorothy Arzner died at the age of 81,

on October 11, 1979,

from injuries suffered
in a bad car accident.

Looking at this desert landscape,
so quiet and reserved,

with its colors that seem
even more muted from a distance

like an artist's watercolor painting,

I understood why Dorothy Arzner
left Hollywood for the desert

toward the end of her life.

When I first visited,
the house was still untouched.

The furniture, the grand piano
that she liked to play,

her personal things —
everything was still there.

The set where Dorothy Arzner's life
was played out.

It was as if she had only left
for a moment.

Despite her invisible presence,
I realized then,

no matter how much I draw
on my intuition and empathy,

her thoughts and feelings
will remain hidden from me forever.

In her office, there were only books.

She adapted Zola's Nana
for the screen in 1934.

The book is dedicated
to her by George Fitzmaurice,

who was originally hired
to direct the film.

"For Dorothy, hoping her Nana
will be a great success."

Many years later,
Dorothy Arzner said in an interview,

"Goldwyn gave me everything I needed
in terms of sets, lighting,

cameramen and costumes.

But he wanted me
to make Anna Sten a star.

He prepped her for the role for a year

and promised everyone
she'd be greater than Dietrich and Garbo.

But when she opened her mouth,
only one-syllable words came out.

The only thing I could do for her was to
give her as little dialogue as possible."

Still, Dorothy Arzner managed, thanks to
the excellent camerawork of Gregg Toland —

who also shot
Orson Welles's Citizen Kane —

to create a breathtakingly beautiful
adaptation of a literary work.

Anna Sten as Nana

has something in common
with Dorothy Arzner's other film heroines.

She is an outsider.

Nana enjoys the power
her body gives her over men.

But for her, that's not enough.

She falls in love and wants also
to be loved for who she is.

This longing drives her to her death.

Critics praised
Anna Sten's acting performance.

But the audience didn't like her.

Starring Joan Crawford,
Dorothy Arzner directed, in 1937,

the movie The Bride Wore Red,

a film she was never very proud of

despite its big budget
and star-studded cast.

An obscure and psychologically
sophisticated play by Ferenc Molnár —

The Bride from Trieste —

was turned into a decorative melodrama

where Joan Crawford, a nightclub singer,

ascends to Tyrol's high society.

She conquers Robert Young,
a young millionaire.

But when her background is discovered,
she marries Franchot Tone, a mail carrier.

Dorothy Arzner was a lot luckier
with the young actress Katharine Hepburn

whom she directed
in the film Christopher Strong.

In close cooperation
with the screenwriter, Zoe Akins,

an unusual female character was created.

Lady Cynthia Darrington is a pilot.

She breaks world records and lives
and fights in a male-dominated world.

She falls in love with Christopher Strong,
a married man,

and sacrifices her career for him.

The relationship leaves her
feeling unsettled,

especially when Strong is with his family.

It was for him
that she gave up flying and her friends.

When she becomes pregnant with his child,
she wants a normal life,

but marriage as the end
of such a great love scares her.

She longs to break
one more world record in aviation.

In the claustrophobic confinement
of the cockpit,

she realizes
the hopelessness of her situation

and rips the oxygen mask from her face.

Almost all the women
in Dorothy Arzner's films

make decisions that go against
contemporary moral standards,

which drive them
either to isolation or death.

Dorothy Arzner's love for Marion Morgan
also makes her a Hollywood outsider.

After the death of her girlfriend,
Dorothy Arzner retreats from the world.

Among her letters,
I found a quote from ancient Greece.

"Imagine you have to sail away,
and I sit here and cry

because I feel lonely and abandoned.

What kind of loneliness is this,
what kind of poverty?

Just like a bad actor cannot sing alone
but only as part of the chorus,

some people cannot walk alone.

My friend, if you want to be someone,
walk alone.

Speak to yourself
and don't hide in the chorus.

Reflect, look around.

Look at yourself
so that you may know what you are."

Full of memories
from my first trip to La Quinta,

I entered the large construction site
of a new hotel complex,

searching in vain
for Dorothy Arzner's house.

I would have never recognized it
without the help of the sheriff.

While the site management
didn't tear the house down,

it did build 200 bungalows
around the house

for the exclusive guests
who want to escape Palm Springs.

The beautiful desert landscape
was now only glimpsed above the rooftops.

All traces of Dorothy Arzner's life
had disappeared.

Her neighbor, Evelyn Scott,

Dorothy Arzner's authorized biographer,

moved to Ventura shortly after her death
where I went to see her.

After her parents' divorce,
Dorothy never saw her mother again.

She stays with her aunt,
who passes away shortly after.

Her father brings her to Los Angeles
where he owns a successful restaurant,

the Hoffmann Café.

Without preparing her in any way,
he introduces her to his second wife.

Dorothy is desperate.

She rejects this woman, who is
a stranger to her, and becomes hysterical.

She is so disturbed

that her father sends her
to her step-grandmother in Oakland.

She withdraws
and develops her own strong inner life.

After the San Francisco earthquake,

the father brings her and her brother
to Los Angeles.

The step-grandmother follows as well.

Her love saves Dorothy's childhood.

Dorothy finds peace
in the comfort of their relationship.

She attends Westlake School for Girls,
an all-girl institution,

graduating at the top of her class.

She begins her medical studies,

but World War I changes her plans.

She registers for military service
and becomes a courier in Los Angeles.

This is how she meets William de Mille
at the old Lasky Studios

and starts working in the film business.

First she works as a shorthand typist.

She types up screenplays
and learns about dramatic composition.

As a script girl, she gains insight
into directing and editing.

She enjoys the work.

She has an excellent memory,
observational skills

and an intense interest
in everything technical related to film.

She also learns to be an editor
and edits 30 films a year.

One of her greatest successes
is her work on Valentino's Blood and Sand,

where she directs
the bullfighting scenes herself.

She becomes an assistant director
and editor under James Cruze.

He shoots his great Western,
The Covered Wagon, in the Utah desert.

It's a stress test for Dorothy
which she passes with flying colors.

In the film Old Ironsides,

James Cruze lets her direct
a love scene.

She realizes that she is ready
to make movies on her own.

The road to Hollywood star Esther Ralston,
lead actress in Arzner's first two films,

today leads to a small trailer park
in Ventura.

Esther Ralston told me about
a beautiful mansion in Hollywood

that Dorothy Arzner built
after her first directorial hits.

I followed her directions
and first drove through Beverly Hills,

passing the fancy mansions of
many established stars and producers.

Dorothy Arzner didn't want to build here.

She didn't connect with its cold grandeur.

For a long time, she looked
for an isolated property

until she found Mountain Oak Drive
high above Griffith Park,

back then, an undeveloped hillside.

Here she built an art deco mansion
with Greek columns

where she lived
with her girlfriend Marion Morgan.

Dorothy Arzner and Marion Morgan
were so fascinated

by classic ideals of Greek beauty

that they designed this house
and its gardens based on them.

It was their spiritual child.

In this way, Dorothy Arzner
was able to align her intellectual life

with her emotional needs as a woman.

Dorothy Arzner's life partner,
Marion Morgan,

was a famous
theater and film choreographer.

The movements of her dancers

mirror the ancient Greek ideal
of feminine sweetness,

fragility of feeling, but also male Eros —

a body language inspired
by the love of women for women.

Hollywood is entering a new era.

The introduction of talkies costs
many big directors and stars their jobs.

Audiences find new idols overnight.

The moviegoer is fascinated
by the new talking pictures.

Dorothy Arzner makes her last silent movie
with Clara Bow and Charles Rogers —

Get Your Man.

Paramount is planning a brilliant
talking comedy with her and Clara Bow,

and Dorothy Arzner dives deep
into technical preparations.

Later, she regretted
that Paramount didn't provide

any kind of voice training for Clara

and just threw her into the new medium.

Dorothy Arzner found her to be
a very beautiful and very natural actress

who was maybe not so well suited
for the talkies

because she was too spontaneous.

Manhattan Cocktail
with Nancy Carroll and Richard Arlen

is her next step toward talking pictures.

Nancy Carroll's songs and the show numbers
with Marion Morgan's dancers

are dubbed in.

The rest of the movie retains
the structure of a silent movie.

Marion Morgan's brilliant choreography
turns the film into a blockbuster.

In 1929, Dorothy Arzner
films her first talkie

with Clara Bow and Fredric March
in The Wild Party,

about the love affair between
a professor and his student.

This film proves her talent
as a director of talking pictures,

and she is able to shoot Sarah and Son
the following year.

Ruth Chatterton, the great
New York stage actress, plays the lead.

Her partner is Fredric March, who Arzner
brought from Broadway to film.

Sarah and Son is an emotional story about
a mother who is looking for her son

whom she had to abandon as a child.

The film was named
one of the top ten movies of the year.

Despite the tough competition
from the best Hollywood directors,

she was voted Best Director of the Year.

The successful collaboration
with Ruth Chatterton

led to another film, Anybody's Woman,

the story of a prostitute who gets married
to a distinguished lawyer

in a moment of drunkenness.

One of her great discoveries
is Ginger Rogers.

She has a small part
in Honor Among Lovers

starring Fredric March
and Claudette Colbert.

Together with star cinematographer
Harry Fischbeck,

she directed her favorite project —
Working Girls.

Judith Wood and Dorothy Hall
play the leads.

Zoe Akins, the screenwriter
of Sarah and Sons,

Anybody's Woman and Christopher Strong,

is open to all her suggestions.

Dorothy Arzner enjoys her freedom
of decision in the creative process.

However, Paramount was
so disappointed with the result

that Dorothy Arzner was told it would be
best to forget the film was ever made.

In Merrily We Go to Hell, Sylvia Sidney
falls in love with Fredric March.

She's the daughter
of a rich industrialist,

but she marries
an unemployed writer and alcoholic

in this drawing room comedy
in the tradition of the 1930s.

Five years later, after the success
of Christopher Strong and Nana,

she shoots Craig's Wife,
which she considered to be her best film.

Rosalind Russell plays
Harriet Craig with great nuance.

Harriet is obsessed
with keeping her house spotless —

leading a perfect marriage
in the eyes of society —

which ends up destroying her family life.

The extraordinary acting performance
of Rosalind Russell

fascinates both the audience and critics.

In 1940, Erich Pommer produces
Dance, Girl, Dance.

After the shoot goes sideways,
he hires Dorothy Arzner to direct.

She reduces the story to the characters
of the two very different dancers.

Maureen O'Hara dreams of becoming
a classical ballerina.

Lucille Ball doesn't need any dreams.

She enjoys success
as a lusty burlesque star.

Tiger Lily is dynamite
to the male audience.

Lucille Ball's performances
are even more successful

when Maureen O'Hara, with her
innocent body and classical dance moves

warms up the audience during intermission.

Maureen receives applause too
as Lucille's class clown,

but she feels deeply humiliated
by this role.

In 1943, Dorothy Arzner
directs an antiwar film,

First Comes Courage.

Merle Oberon plays a Norwegian spy.

She marries a German commander

in order to get at important information
for the Norwegian resistance.

She loves Brian Aherne, a British officer.

But when he wants
to leave Norway with her,

she decides against love
and for the fight.

She returns to the cold loneliness
of life as a spy.

While filming
in the northern California mountains,

Dorothy Arzner contracts pneumonia
and collapses.

This encounter with death makes her think.

After 20 years of tirelessly working
in the film industry,

she says goodbye to Hollywood forever.

She is bedridden for over a year,
cared for by Marion Morgan.

She was a loyal girlfriend.

When asked what she thought
was most important in life,

she said friendship.

She didn't say movies
or directing or writing —

just to be a decent human being.

Her greatest vanity was her
gorgeous black hair and her blue eyes.

She was very sad
when the light left her blue eyes

and her hair turned gray.

She dyed it terra-cotta red,

a color I also saw in the desert

when the sun set behind the hills
at dusk

just before nightfall.

LONGING FOR WOMEN

NARRATION

SOUND

EDITED BY

CINEMATOGRAPHY AND PRODUCTION

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY

EDITING

PRODUCED BY