ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Prismark10 Dorothy Arzner one of the few female directors of the era injects a feminist subtext at the conclusion of this rather formulaic movie. I think she was also lucky to get around the censor with some of the cheeky and revealing stage routines.The film is about a troupe of dancers struggling in the depression. Bubbles (Lucille Ball) is sultry and sexy, a wow in the burlesque scene. Judy (Maureen O'Hara) aspires to be a serious dancer, a ballerina but ends up being Bubbles stooge in her stage show suffering humiliation each night as the audience jeer at her classical dance routine.Both become interested in wealthy playboy Jimmy (Louis Hayward) who is going through a divorce and who once helped Judy out when they were left stranded with no money in a police raid. Bubbles wants his money, Judy prefers his personality even though Jimmy likes a drink.The films sparkles with Ball being brassy and sexy, O'Hara striving to be independent, sensitive and striving to succeed as an artist. Both end up being vindictive with each other as they get involved in a cat fight as both desire Jimmy. Ralph Bellamy plays a Broadway choreographer who also gets interested in Judy.It is not a plausible film, I can see why Bubbles would become a hit with the revue audience but I can also understand them booing Judy's ballet routine. The film is rather clichéd and the male characters seem to be too thinly drawn.

mark.waltz The Lucille Ball of "Dance Girl Dance" is a mean, nasty character-Selfish, vindictive, and quite trashy. While Lucy wasn't so nice in "The Big Street", you did understand the selfish nightclub singer she was playing, and you got to see her repent. Here, Lucy does not repent; She just gets meaner and meaner. That would be O.K., but the storyline surrounding her is totally absurd. Maureen O'Sullivan is the top billed star of this drama with a few musical numbers thrown in. She is a chorus girl in a gambling joint that is busted, leaving her and fellow dancer Lucy out of a job. O'Sullivan wants to become a ballerina, and returns to the troop run by the very masculine Maria Ouspenskaya, seen in a man's suit, much like the film's director, Dorothy Arzner. Ball becomes the star in a burlesque show, and in her effort to help out former roommate O'Sullivan has her hired as the "stooge" in her act---a classy dancer that will get the audience booing and begging Ball's "Bubbles" to return. The act is a hit (with the on-screen audience, not the viewer), and Ball ascends to stardom while O'Sullivan makes money becoming a huge joke. As O'Sullivan gets some off-stage publicity, Ball becomes vindictive, and before you know it the two are getting into it right in front of the audience.This ridiculous set-up expects us to believe that a burlesque show like this could be a smash hit and pack in high society. Yes, there were burlesque shows on Broadway in the 1940's ("Sons O' Guns", "Star and Garter"), but those were the few and the exception, classy all-star revues with a variety of acts, not just burlesque. The fact that this gets so ugly with its boring oh-so-sweet "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth" heroine, and the vicious Lucy really defys reality. Ball's first big number, "My Mama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This" is alright, but the other numbers are poor, and the sight of the unfortunate O'Sullivan fluttering around like a ballerina is silly as well. Louis Hayward and Ralph Bellamy are the poor unfortunate men involved in this mess which only comes alive in the fight scene between the two women. I must admit though while watching Lucy's strip number, I fantasized about her character in "The Fuller Brush Girl" coming out afterwards with her overlong eye lashes and strange hoochie coochie dance to get the audience riled up even more.

dsewizzrd-1 This confused film appears to be made from the traditional "Girl's Own" type story, butchered inexpertly to make a marketable film.Maureen O'Hara plays the heroine, a "Grade A" pill, who weeps and bawls her way through the film, performing as a ballerina (badly !) at a burlesque show in contrast to the main act (Lucille Ball as "Tiger Lily").Like all these girl's stories, it begins when a good person is run down by a tram (sorry, a bus this time). The raucous burlesque show scenes fit badly with the "poor but innocent girl" story and the wonderfully daft (contemporary) interpretative ballet company acts.Both dancers vie for the affections of a playboy - who frankly is a bit of a dope - and the traditional ending has been altered to give the "good girl" a happy (sort of) ending.

blanche-2 As one of the industry's few female directors, Dorothy Arzner's participation in this film is, I would guess, the main reason this movie is still known today. One wonders what Arzner could have accomplished if she lived in today's times, free of studio intervention. Arzner was able to direct this when Roy del Ruth had problems with the producer, Erich Pommer, and left.The story is about two dancers - one a burlesque queen (Lucille Ball) and one an aspiring ballerina (Maureen O'Hara) -- commercialism versus art. Bubbles (Ball) goes for the money both in her work and in her search for a man, while Judy (O'Hara) attempts to be independent, even turning down Ralph Bellamy when he wants her to stand under his umbrella in the pouring rain.The lives of these two women intertwine in work and in personal life -- Judy becomes a "stooge," a ballet dancing set-up as the burlesque audience screams for Bubbles; and they both take up with the same man, Jimmy (Louis Hayward) who's rich and conflicted. Judy understands him; Bubbles understands his wallet.The cast is wonderful, with the O'Hara as a gentle, refined woman with the soul of an artist and accompanying sensitivity, and Ball as a classless sex bomb with a flashy personality. Both are gorgeous and play off one another beautifully.The men make less of an impression -- this is, after all, a woman's picture. Louis Hayward as a tortured man going through a divorce somehow disrupts the flow of the film; and Ralph Bellamy is charming but doesn't have much to do.A little slow but very entertaining and well worth seeing. Dorothy Arzner was a remarkable woman who survived in a man's world and made some excellent films, finishing her career as a teacher at UCLA. Her work is definitely worth checking out.