For most of the years it has existed, Hollywood has been a boys’ club with women limited to a few jobs including actor, hair and makeup, costume designer, and script girl. Even today, men dominate directing and many of the other jobs, including cinematography, screenwriting, editing, and sound.
It might be natural, therefore, to assume that it has always been thus. Clara and Julia Kuperberg would beg to differ, and make their case convincingly in their documentary Women Who Run Hollywood, which is available from Kino Lorber along with three documentaries by the Kuperberg sisters about three women pioneers of film: Mary Pickford, a star of the silent era and a pioneering businesswoman in Hollywood; Dorothy Arzner, the only women director in the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s; and Ida Lupino, an actress who directed several films on controversial topics in the post-World War II era.
Women Who Run Hollywood (2016) is full of startling facts that often get left out of film histories. For instance, half of films made before 1925 were written by women, and many women also edited and directed films in the silent era (their small hands and expertise at tasks like sewing was thought to give them an advantage in the former profession). Several interviewees note that women, like Eastern European Jewish immigrants, were attracted to working in Hollywood because they had limited choices elsewhere in the workforce but had better luck breaking into film because it was a brand-new industry and everyone was making things up as they go. That all changed for women in the sound era: as the industry got bigger, jobs paid better, and many jobs were organized through unions that did not allow women to join.
The French title, which translates to And Women Created Hollywood, gives a better indication of the content of this documentary, since its focus is on the early years of Hollywood (with a nod to France in the person of pioneering silents director Alice Guy Blache). Like the other three films in this set, it runs a bit under an hour and is a straightforward and traditional documentary, made up of talking-head interviews, films clips, and archival images, but the content and the spirit of the interview subjects (some of whom, like producer Paul Wagner and screenwriter Robin Swicord, speak of their own struggles breaking into Hollywood), make it an enjoyable and informative watch.
Ida Lupino: Gentlemen and Miss Lupino (2021; 54 min.) takes its title from the customary opening for Directors’ Guild Meetings in the 1950s, when Lupino was the only female member of the Director’s Guild in the 1950s alongside about 1300 male members). She took up directing after a successful acting career (They Drive By Night, High Sierra, Road House) and was the first woman to direct a film noir (The Hitch-Hiker, starring Edmond O’Brien, William Talman, and Frank Lovejoy, in 1953). Several of her other films broach taboo topics like unwed motherhood (Not Wanted, 1949; she was uncredited as director), rape (Outrage, 1950), and The Bigamist (1953; the title is self-explanatory). Lupino directed over 100 television episodes.
Among the three single-focus films in this collection, the subject of Dorothy Arzner: Pioneer, Queer, Feminist (2023; 53 min.) has the most unusual story to tell, because she didn’t start out as an actress and made the least effort to conform to conventional expectations of femininity. Arzner entered college intending to become a physician, then left to join an ambulance corps in World War I. School was less attractive after that experience and she began working in Hollywood as a “cutter” (film editor) at age 19 and worked her way up through the system. Her directorial credits include The Wild Party (1929; Clara Bow’s first talkie), Christopher Strong (1933; starring Katharine Hepburn and Colin Clive), The Bride Wore Red (1937; starring Joan Crawford, Franchot Tone, and Robert Young), and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940; starring Maureen O’Hara and Lucille Ball). She also had numerous relationships with women, and while she didn’t publicize them, she also refused to conform to the contemporary expectations for female appearance.
Mary Pickford: A Blessing and a Curse (2023; 53 min.) offers an overview of the career of the Canadian-born silent film star known as “America’s Sweetheart” who developed a naturalistic acting style for film (as opposed to the melodramatic style with its roots in stage performance) and became one of the first actors to become a star with name recognition (which producers hated, since it meant she could demand more money). Pickford recognized her own worth and moved quickly to take creative control of her career, which led her to co-found United Artists (with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith). She was also one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. | Sarah Boslaugh
Women Who Run Hollywood is distributed as a two-disc DVD set by Kino Lorber. Extras on the discs include an introduction by the filmmakers and the trailers for three of the films.
