After returning home from the first World War where she worked in the ambulance corps DOROTHY ARZNER decided against medical studies and chose to pursue a career in film directing. She began her career as a writer and editor at Paramount Pictures and eventually leveraged her success in those arenas by telling the powers that be at Paramount if they didn’t give her a directing opportunity she would move to rival studio Columbia.
Paramount gave her Fashions for Women (1927) to direct which was a financial success and led to her being the only woman working as a director in the studio system at the time.
Tying a microphone to a pole during a scene in an attempt to get better sound she invented what is now known as the boom!
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Where to watch her films:
AMAZON (DVDs/BluRays for PURCHASE)
Read more about her:
BOOKS
Directed by Dorothy Arzner by Judith Mayne
ONLINE
Columbia University Women Film Pioneers Project
Dorothy Arzner is the focus of a retrospective by UCLA Film and Television Archive
UCLA
Sense of Cinema
Sophisticated: The Hollywood Story of Miss Dorothy Arzner
Wikipedia