The Classic Movie Blog Association Hidden Classics Blogathon

One of the greatest love stories ever filmed is barely known. Its director Max Ophuls and co-producer John Houseman are masters. And its cast of Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan are an Oscar winner and an international star. The film story is based on a novella by Stefan Zweig, one of the most popular writers in the world in the 1920s-1930s,  and adapted by Howard Koch who was one of the scriptwriters of Casablanca and The Letter.

The story starts in Vienna circa 1900. It is night and men are discussing a duel in a carriage. Louis Jourdan as Stefan Brand exits the carriage and enters his house. He tells his mute valet that he will be packing and leaving soon, with no intentions of dueling.  His valet gives him a letter which Brand opens. “By the time you read this letter I may be dead, ” it said, the cursive hand written on St. Catherine’s Hospital Stationary. The letter is narrated in voiceover by Joan Fontaine. “I have so much to tell you.” The movie goes into flashback as we see a  teenage Fontaine as Lisa  Berndle, and a young friend in a courtyard. Lisa lives in an apartment there with her mother. Lisa becomes entranced by the  music coming from another room upstairs, played by the famous pianist Stefan Brand. Lisa is  enchanted by him and takes dance lessons and learns about music, all so she could someday impress Brand, with whom she has fallen in love. Helping his valet move rugs inside Brand’s house one day, she even sneaks into his study to  gaze lovingly at his piano and belongings, running out as John the valet sees her. But Lisa is panicked when her mother says she has accepted an offer of marriage, saying they must move to Linz. Lisa refuses, and then accepts, and then runs away at the train station. Loitering by Stefan’s house, she sees him arrive with a woman, shattering her illusions. She goes to Linz where she turns eighteen and is courted but refuses to marry.  The course of the flashback is broken as we see Brand reading the letter in astonishment as the night goes by and the woman’s life is explained.

Lisa returns to Vienna, where she finds a job as a model in a dressmaker’s shop. She models beautiful gowns for the upper class.  She still loves Stefan, and visits his apartment building, where one evening she listens to street musicians when he walks by.  He notices her direct stare, and he asks her out to dinner. At dinner she struck a chord with him when she said his music sounded like he was searching for something he hadn’t found yet. After dinner they spend the night at an amusement park, endlessly riding a make-believe train, then dance to a women’s band until the dance hall closed down. Afterwards they go to his house.

The next day he lovingly told her he needed to go to Milan with the orchestra and he would return. They went to the train station where she tearfully sees him off. She did not see him again for nine years — until they see each other at the Opera – he alone and Lisa with her husband. Some people talk about how Stefan’s promise as a musician had faded. Lisa could not bear to see him and got up to leave. Stefan from the seats below saw her leave and followed, wanting suddenly to take her away from her husband. At the exit he stops her to talk,  although he did not seem to recognize her. Will Lisa trust Stefan after what he has done before, leaving her alone  with a child? Even though he never knew about the boy? Could she possibly leave her settled and comfortable life in society?  The love of Lisa for Stefan is unfathomable, but in this remarkable film, it leads not to a Hollywood ending.

Joan Fontaine was a perfect choice for the lead, although she was older than Jourdan who played the older man. Her face can always portray the look of innocence and earnestness, so well acted in Rebecca, Suspicion, and Jane Eyre. Her lover was played by the  handsome French star Louis Jourdan in his second film in the U.S.  Fontaine’s then husband William Crozier was the executive producer.  Amazingly, the content of the letter and its ending, which was central to the plot, was objected to by the censor’s office, saying it, “… romanticized the characters’ illicit relationship.” And the censor’s office had their own language to substitute in the letter, which completely transformed its meaning. Crozier had to appeal this decision in order to keep the original language.

Hollywood’s Golden Age costume designer Travis Banton designed the costumes. His contract ended at Universal with this film, and he only designed  for a few more movies before retiring.  He had designed the glamorous gowns for Carole Lombard, Marlene Dietrich, Claudette Colbert, and the other stars of Paramount.

Letter from an Unknown Woman was selected in 1992 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”  The film has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, with funding provided by The Film Foundation.

The following commentary contains spoilers. Letter from an Unknown Woman has been considered by many to be the most tragic love story ever filmed. It does not have the southing closing shot of Wuthering Heights, nor the peace-making consequences of Romeo and Juliet. Lisa has spent a lifetime fanning the embers of Stefan’s flaming and dying passion for her, hence, the letter from an unknown woman. Unknown because, when he came back into her life and she was ready to throw everything away for him (again), he didn’t even remember who she was.

Lisa remembered every detail of their time together, and even of all the time they were not together — staring at his rooms, listening to his music, or longing to be with him. The film makes clear that Stefan thinks often about his own enjoyment – living moment to moment. Dennis Grunes has written an excellent article on Letter From an Unknown Woman, about how its was not well received in 1948, and especially about the theme of memory that haunts the story’s original writer Stefan Zweig and the film’s director Max Ophuls. Both men were Jews from either Austria or Germany. The ruins of the pre-Nazi and pre-Holocaust world they came from forms the  foundation that the story, and Lisa’s memory, tries hopelessly to recreate. For Lisa, she was creating, recreating in the letter, a world of love she lived, a world Stefan could have shared with her and his son. But oblivious of this world, even of their brief loving affair, and of his second chance, Stefan reads the entire story when it is too late, written as Lisa died before she finished it — or signed it. Thus it was a letter from an unknown woman, concluding with these words:

“If only you could have recognized what was always yours. If only you could have found what was never lost, If only….”

The blog post is part off the CMBA HIDEN CLASSICS BLOGATHON   Please see the other excellent entries on Hidden Classics.

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Alfred Hitchcock never admitted that he used any symbolism in his masterpiece, Vertigo, let alone incorporating any mythic elements. Yet this film, obsessed with the hopeless task of bringing a lost love back from the dead, leads to such interpretation. Indeed, the very premise is rooted in the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus travels to the underworld to retrieve his dead wife. His love was so strong that the god Hades let her go, on condition that Orpheus be patient and not look at her until they exit. On their journey out, Orpheus thought he was fooled, he looked back at Eurydice before they reached the light, and Eurydice was pulled back among the dead. This myth has inspired countless works of literature and art. In the case of Hitchcock, his film was based on the book D’Entre les Morts (Between Deaths) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, where the same obsessive search for a dead love  then creates the makeover of the same/different woman. In writing the script for Vertigo, many screenwriters were involved, and versions changed. During preparation of the last version involving Hitchcock and Samuel Taylor, Hitchcock was hospitalized twice in two months for a naval hernia and then serious gallstone surgery. He was in the hospital for a month for the latter, where he contemplated his own death. “The only way to get rid of my fears is to make a film about them,” he once said.

It was not only fear Hitchcock was trying to excise in Vertigo, but his own obsessions and subconscious feelings. Rather than communicate them in scripted dialogue, these elements were communicated symbolically and visually. Hitchcock had started as a silent filmmaker and believed that in many ways it was superior form of film making. In his interviews with Francois Truffaut he stated, “The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema.” Vertigo was filmed with long stretches of silence, but scored by the brilliant Bernard Herrmann: scenes of the introductory chase, Scottie’s tailing of Madeleine with drives through San Francisco streets, through a flower shop, at the cemetery of the Mission Dolores, and at the Art Gallery at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. Scottie voyeuristically watches her gazing at the portrait of Carlotta Valdez, whose gravestone she had just visited. Just enough dialogue elicited information on the painting from a museum guard. Madeleine’s husband had told Scottie that she thought she was Carlotta’s reincarnation. Hence the identical twirl to their hair-buns, and the same flower “nosegay’ they hold. As a main character, the beautiful Madeleine is also obsessed with death. We as the audience perceive, without dialogue, Scottie’s obsessive love begin. A mere private detective job of tailing a man’s wife changes completely. Scottie’s walk through the very dark tunnel-like back of the Podesta Baldocchi flower shop, then as he opens its rear door, magnificent full colors of flowers fill the screen, with a radiant Kim Novak as Madeleine turns and appears to walk toward him. Then as he follows her to the Mission and through its cemetery, his curiosity is heightened beyond where his reason finds answers. And finally on their third stop at the Art Gallery his attraction to her beauty is magnified by her unexplainable aura of mystery.

Chris Marker was a big fan of Vertigo, having watched it nineteen times. He said about Vertigo in his film Sans Soleil, in part, “….It seems to be a question of trailing of enigma, of murder, but in truth it’s a question of melancholy and dazzlement…so confidently coded within the spiral that you could miss it, and  not discover immediately that this vertigo of space in reality stands for the vertigo of time.”

Immemorial time is likely what Marker meant and can be inferred by the symbolism and myths in Vertigo. Scottie is fascinated by Madeleine, who says she is the reincarnation of a woman from the old Californio days of California, a theme reinforced by the visuals from two old missions. This is further reinforced by their trip to the Sequoia Redwood forest. The visual here shows their tiny size compared to a giant sequoia and the forest, reinforced by Scottie saying the tree is two-thousand years or older. Their name is, “Sequoia sempervirens — ‘always green, ever-living,’” Scottie explains. Madeleine views that as how many lives have come and gone in that time. This is emphasized visually by her looking at the tree rings of a sequoia. “This is where I was born,” Madeleine tells Scottie, pointing to a ring from the 1800s, “and this is where I died.” On the trip she also explains how she feels like she is walking down a long corridor that is covered with mirrored fragments. She feels the life she sees is not her own.

In Jean Cocteau’s great film Orpheus (Orphée) Jean Marais as Orphée walks through a mirror to reach the underworld. Mirrors serve as a symbol of duality throughout Vertigo. From the scene where Scottie first sees Madeleine at Ernie’s restaurant, as she and Gavin Elster are walking toward the bar, and then leaving, their duplicity is emphasized by their double images in the mirror. Earlier at the flower shop, Scottie’s best view of Madeleine was in the mirror. And later, with Judy, we see her often in the mirror, “putting on her face.” The other woman in Scottie’s life was Midge, the woman who cared for him the most and took care of him after his breakdowns. She knew too well about his obsession, but like a mother she was always there for him but could do little to divert his attention. Her warmth was symbolized by her red and yellow sweaters, and her work illustrating bras.

The symbolic meanings of the colors used in Vertigo have been written about at length. Starting with Madeleine’s gray suit, a fixation for Scottie, and more so for Hitchcock. He insisted Edith Head design one for Kim Novak despite her objections. Gray represented modesty, and the gray was perhaps an association with a nun’s habit. Combined with Kim Novak’s blond hair it gave the image of the woman of mystery – the figure-hugging suit on a cool woman with fiery insides. Her car is green, and Judy’s first costume is a bright green color. While green normally denotes evergreens and life, Hitchcock’s strong association with green started in the theater in London as a youth, where ghostly representations were depicted in lime green. See for example the greenish gown and make-up of the ghostly character Elvira in the 1945 British film Blithe Spirit directed by David Lean.

After Scottie saves Madeleine’s life after she jumps into the bay, he becomes obsessed with her. And when later he is powerless to save her from jumping to her death, powerless because of his vertigo, he enters those dark places of the mind. This is exacerbated by his trial for her death. “The freedom and the power is something men once had,” Pop Leiber said in the Argosy book shop. Rather than a philosophy of the film or of Hitchcock, I believe this was used as a method to further symbolized Scottie’s weakness.

 

Vertigo is full of symbols. After Scottie has finally persuaded the character Judy to be made over in the image of Madeleine, she emerges from her bathroom and we see the bed as she approaches Scottie, which was barely seen before. Scottie’s own apartment window has a clear view of the phallic Coit Tower. The Mission Dolores, as it was commonly known, plays an important role, an old and historic building, named after the nearby Creek of Sorrows.  Then there is the double itself, always a bad sign in mythology, and the basis of so much of Vertigo. The movie is structured as two halves, or a doubling of Scottie obtaining and then losing his love by “death.”  And there is that great symbol of the Lissajous spiral, that swirling vortex that sucks in our main characters and serves as the graphic symbol of the movie’s opening title sequence. Death permeates Vertigo, alongside re-birth and reincarnation. Scottie has met Judy and begun a relationship – a relationship where he needs to change her into the lost love Madeleine. “Can’t you just love me for who I am?” Judy asks Scottie. But her need for love and his obsession results in the makeover. That miraculous final transformation takes place when Judy emerges, seemingly from the haze of time and green light in her apartment, as the very image of Madeleine, gray suit and blond hair in spiral bun. Scottie is transfixed, his eyes dazzling, and as they embrace and kiss, the camera captures a rotating scene of them at San Juan Bautista Mission. Seemingly spinning through time and memory, a “vertigo of time” as Chris Marker stated.

But as we know, Scottie has been duped in the story’s plot. Judy really was Madeleine all along, or rather Madeleine was Judy. Scottie discovers this when, as Judy dresses for dinner, she puts on the Carlotta Valdez necklace. So instead of going out to dinner Scottie takes her on a long drive, back to San Juan Bautista, back to the scene of the crime. Judy is bewildered at first, but she sees Scottie’s hostility as he pushes her up the bell tower stairs. “He made you over just like I made you over,” he says accusingly to Judy. Only Elster had made her over first, and thus Scottie had been pursuing the hollow goal of recreating another man’s fantasy. And then he accused her of being “an apt pupil,” for Elster, which he repeats twice – something she hadn’t been for him. That demonstrated to Scottie, and served as the film’s underlying theme, that the pursuit of an empty ideal is futile. For Hitchcock, it was a deeply ingrained motif, one that would keep repeating itself as he tried to mold one of his blonds after another into his fantasy, only to have her leave him for one reason or another. With the character Scottie, this creation and possession fantasy was played out not as a means of domination, but rather one where we could believe that once his fantasy woman was created, he could surrender and succumb to her. She could have been his Madeleine/Midge.  But alas we know that that that too would have been another fantasy – another beguiling but untrustworthy image reflected in a mirror. But such was Scottie’s anger that he overcame his vertigo to go all the way up the stairs, dragging Judy to the top of the bell tower where “Madeleine” had fallen, or rather had been pushed to her death. In the book D’Entre les Morts, Roger Flavières strangles “Madeleine.”  the woman who had duped him, out of jealousy, and knowing what he had transformed her double into was an illusion of lost love. Scottie wants to do Judy harm, although Judy shows her honest emotion. The ending seems clumsy, an accidental fall off the tower, but caused by the dark appearance of a nun announcing, “I heard voices.” For the Catholic Hitchcock, a director that never had anything in his films not carefully considered, this must have been a sort of absolution for Scottie (Hitch’s alter ego?). Yet we start off nearly where we began. Orpheus caused Eurydice to fall back to the underworld by his carelessness. Roger Flavières is sent to the mad house. Scottie would no doubt have returned to a clinic, forever damaged, perpetually seeing the loving, imploring eyes of Judy/Madeleine staring into his. Vertigo is not Hitchcock’s greatest mystery, but rather his greatest tragedy.

See other post in the ALFRED HITCHCOCK Blogathon sponsored by maddylovesclassicfilms.com

 

 

 

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Classic films abound in comforting stories and feel-good endings that are right for our times. After years of dystopian movies it’s great to have a plot that doesn’t have everybody dying. During  years of the Great Depression, war years, and finally getting back to normal in the 1950s, many movies wanted to look at the sunny side of the street. The Classic Movie Blog Association’s Spring Blogathon is now Classics for Comfort.  My five recommended favorites are listed below:

ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (1948) Warner Bros, Directed by Michael Curtiz.  If you haven’t been anywhere and haven’t had a laugh in weeks – you’ll be vicariously voyaging and belly laughing with this movie. Romance on the High Seas was Doris Day’s film debut, and it also starred Jack Carson, Oscar Levant, Janis Page and S.Z Sakall. It’s a real screwball comedy, and here the joke is on some of the characters. Doris Day as Georgia Garrett, is a nightclub singer aching to take a ship cruise. Instead she just takes out travel brochures since she can’t afford a trip. Janis Page as Elvira Kent is well-off but jealous of her husband, who is always cancelling their honeymoon trips and now has a new attractive secretary. Elvira and Georgia bump into each other at the travel agency and exchange stories. Elvira is booking a cruise to Rio with her husband, which then gets cancelled. Her uncle Lazlo (S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall), tells her just to go alone. Elvira then schemes to stay in town where she can spy on her husband, and she asks Georgia to take her place, which Georgia is thrilled to do. But Georgia is told that she must uphold Elvira’s proper high society reputation since Georgia will be travelling under Elvira’s name – so no flirting with male travelers. Meanwhile Elvira’s husband is equally jealous, and he hires a private detective to take the voyage and spy on “Elvira.” The P.I. is played by Jack Carson, who in no time once shipboard falls for Georgia/Elvira and vice-versa. The shipboard fun is enlivened by Latin-inspired music and Doris’s singing. The  late 1940s wardrobe designed by Milo Anderson and the 1940’s Deco sets make for smashing visuals. The romantic confusion continues however, as Georgia’s old boyfriend (Oscar Levant) appears from a port of call, and then Elvira’s jealous husband flies to Rio, where by then everybody is either dodging each other or trying to make up with their permanent mate.  Michael Curtiz directed the film. Doris Day was not happy with her acting and asked Curtiz where she could get a drama coach.  “No, no!” Curtiz replied, “You’re a natural just as you are, if you learn how to act, you’ll ruin everything.”

 

MY MAN GODFREY (1936) Universal. Directed by Gregory La Cava. If you don’t think there’s salvation and the plot of a screwball comedy in a homeless camp during the Great Depression, you haven’t seen My Man Godfrey. The story starts in New York as two rich sisters, Cornelia and Irene Bullock played by Gail Patrick and Carole Lombard, go to the city dump to obtain a “forgotten man” for a scavenger hunt party. Cornelia offers $5 to the down-and-out Godfrey Parke played by William Powell. The well-spoken Godfrey is offended by her snobbish manner and pushes Cordelia into a trash heap. Irene thinks that’s funny. Godfrey is charmed by Irene and agrees to play along. He is such a refined homeless character that Irene wins the scavenger hunt game at the Waldorf-Ritz Hotel. But Godfrey is disgusted with the whole idea and wants to return to his homeless camp. Irene is so smitten with him that she offers him a job as their family butler. Once at their mansion, the absent-minded society Mom and Papa Bullock, are charmed too. The couple are played by Alice Brady and Eugene Palette. Mother Angelica is always distracted and father Alexander can’t believe he lives with this bunch and worries about money. But mean sister Cornelia thinks about how to get back at Godfrey, and then there’s a free-loading protégé named Carlos who adds to the wackiness of the household. Godfrey carries out his butler duties with great skill and polish. At a tea party thrown by Irene, one of the guests recognizes Godfrey as a fellow Harvard man. Godfrey silences him, but it seems that our butler is not who he seems to be. Between Irene’s crush on him and his unflappable demeanor, Cornelia decides to play dirty. She plants her pearls under his mattress and says they were stolen. But Godfrey is a clever man. He not only graduated from Harvard, but he lived on the streets. This family may be wacky and have a mean-spirited daughter, but maybe he can do some good. And the homeless camp at the dump might just become useful.

 

STAGE DOOR (1937) RKO. Directed by Gregory La Cava. The 1930s were the era of “women’s films,” and here’s a perfect movie of the type. It is witty, it has an all-star women’s cast, and it is simply unforgettable and comforting  in its resolution of the conflicts inherent in a boarding house full of struggling actresses. The 1930s were also the era of wise-cracking dames. And the snappy dialogue launches you right into the story. The cast includes Katharine Hepburn as Terry Randall, an aspiring actress from a rich Midwestern family. The haughty Terry lands in a group of world-weary actresses and chorus girls boarding at the Footlights Club in New York. From the beginning Terry antagonizes Jean Maitland as played by Ginger Rogers. Then they find out they’ll be roommates. The other wise-cracking boarders were also like oil and water with Terry. Except for Gail Patrick as the ambitious sophisticate and venomous Linda Shaw. The super cast included Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, and a very young Ann Miller. The “house mother” and acting advisor is played by Constance Collier, an actress famous in the silent era. A very earnest member of the house is loved by all, Kay Hamilton, played by Andrea Leeds. Kay had starred in a play the previous year, but now can’t find a role. The key theatrical producer is played by Adolphe Menjou as Anthony Powell. When the desperate and malnourished Kay visits his offices but is denied an appointment she faints. Terry (Katharine Hepburn) was also waiting and barges into Powell’s office to berate him for his callousness. He is unphased, until later he learns that Terry’s father wants to secretly bankroll a play, Enchanted April so she can get the lead role. If only things were that simple. Powell is a notorious womanizer, making advances on Terry and Jean. But Terry is weak as an actress and has bad rehearsals; and the lovable Kay had wanted that part. Kay is now giving Terry acting tips. Menjou/Anthony Powell sees a disastrous play in the works. It will take a tragedy for all of these disparate characters to come together in this bittersweet gem of a movie.

 

LADY FOR A DAY (1933) Columbia Pictures. Directed by Frank Capra

Apple Annie, played by May Robson, was  once a stage performer but has now fallen on hard times. She sent her daughter for schooling in a convent in Spain. She sends her the money she collects from selling apples on a street corner. Only now  her daughter is grown-up and making a surprise visit to see her mother in New York. Apple Annie has a network of friends in the neighborhood, one of which is the doorman at the Hotel Maybery. He provides her hotel stationary on which she writes her daughter under her assumed name of Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. But not only is Annie’s daughter coming for a visit, but she is bringing her fiancé  Carlos, and his father Count Romero.  Annie is beside herself, not knowing how she is ever going to keep from shaming her daughter. Ever since she got her daughter’s letter she has been drinking and not getting out of bed. This has been noticed by “Dave the Dude,” played by Warren William. He’s a racketeer and gambler who relies on buying Annie’s “lucky apples.” All of Annie’s neighborhood street friends are worried, and having heard of the problem, ask Dave the Dude to rent rooms at the Maybery so Anne can receive her daughter in style. They will even put up some of their meager earnings. When Dave visits Annie he sees a portrait of her beautiful daughter and understands her situation. He will put her up at the Maybery.  Dave gets his girlfriend Missouri Martin (Glenda Farrell) to dress Annie up as a society matron. She’ll have to have a husband so the Dude gets the pool shark, alias  Judge Henry D. Blake  (Guy Kibbee) for the part.

This assemblage is all lined up at the docks as Louise’s ship arrives and a tearful but happy reunion is celebrated and acquaintances made with the new  prospective in-laws. A journalist  happens to be there, however, and before the well-known “gangster” mug of Dave the Dude can be noted with the new arriving dignitaries, “Happy” his partner, kidnaps the reporter. And with cops around, the other street characters start a fight to divert the cops from the Dude’s presence. All is going well in this underworld scheme-for-the-good. But life is full of surprises, even a movie life. When all has gone smoothly and the visitors announce they are returning to Spain, “The Judge” announces he and “Mrs. Worthington Manville” will have a party for their departing guests. He has also asked the Dude to round up guests, meaning to turn Missouri’s “gals” and the Dude’s “mugs” into society people. Meanwhile, several more reporters have been kidnapped and the Police Commissioner, under pressure from the Mayer, is cracking down on Police Captains to find the missing reporters. Just when all the mugs and gals are at Missouri’s club rehearsing polite behavior  before going to the party,  the cops come in for a bust.  It looks like no one will show for Apple Annie’s  going-away party for her daughter, fiancé, and Spanish guest. Annie is thinking about confessing the whole charade to them. But life is full of surprises, especially movie lives.

 

YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU (1938) Columbia Pictures. Directed by Frank Capra.

There’s nothing like a great ensemble cast from the Golden Age of Hollywood – even when most of them play wacky members of an eccentric family.  The patriarch of this family is Grandpa Martin Vanderhof, played by Lionel Barrymore. He refuses to sell his house, the last property in the area, to tycoon, hard as nails,  Anthony P. Kirby, who wants to squeeze out his competitor’s factory. Kirby is played by Edward Arnold. Grandpa has a large household: his daughter Penny Sycamore (Spring Byington) and her husband Paul  Sycamore (Samuel S. Hinds); Their daughter  Essie (Anne Miller), married to Ed (Dub Taylor). Each one has followed their whims as far as avocation: Penny is a playwright (for no other reason than she was given a typewriter); Paul makes fireworks; their daughter Essie dances ballet around the house and makes candy, which her husband  Ed delivers  around town. Essie’s sister is Alice, who has a real job – she works for Tony Kirby, the tycoon’s son.  Alice, played by Jean Arthur, and Tony, played by Jimmy Stewart, love each other. Tony thinks that it’s time that their parents should meet each other,  Alice is nervous but agrees and sets a date. Mrs Kirby does not approve of her son’s choice for a love interest. Tony starts to think that Alice’s parents will start putting on a show trying to impress his parents (how little he knows) and therefore decides to visit the Vanderhof/Sycamore clan a day early. And so begins a whirlwind ride that starts literally when fireworks explode in the basement during dinner and continues in the jail and then at a courthouse. Mr Kirby is cantankerous to everybody the entire way, while Grandpa tries to tell him about the importance of having friends. Who’s going to win this battle, and is there any hope for Alice and Tom?  Watch this jewel of a romantic screwball comedy to find out.

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The Turner Classic Movies Classic  Film Festival celebrated its 10th  anniversary last year, 2019. And as with every film festival or other event this spring, the 2020 TCM Classic Film Festival had to be cancelled due to Covid-19. This year it will be presenting on-air through its cable station highlights from the past ten years of its festivals. This will start on Thursday April 16 at 8:00 p.m. EST and run through Sunday (actually early Monday morning) with its last  showing at a 3:30 a.m. start time.

The films begin with A Star is Born, (1954) which was the opening night event back in 2010. And the second showing will be of the  restored Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang, which closed that Festival.  Many great films will be shown, including some interviews and shots of stars that have since passed away, including Luise Rainer, Esther Williams, Peter O’Toole, Martin Landau, Burt Reynolds, Max von Sydow, and of course TCM’s long time host, Robert Osborne.

As a ten-year attendee of the TCM Classic Film Festivals, here are my own highlights and impressions from the Festivals. Given that events and screenings were concurrent, my selections were always too  limited.

The first TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL was held in 2010 in Hollywood, as have all subsequent festivals. The venues have remained with the core at the old Grauman Chinese Theatre (now the TCL Chinese), the adjacent multiplex, with the Egyptian Theatre and the headquarters at the Roosevelt Hotel. I didn’t attend the Opening Night screening of A Star is Born, but rather the Roosevelt  pool-side showing of Neptune’s Daughter (1949)with Esther Williams  and Betty Garrett in attendance and featuring a performance by the Aqualilies. Viewing many of these movie classics that year was a thrill, especially in the old movie palaces among rapt movie fans from around the country. My favorites were: In a Lonely Place; Casablanca; Sunset Blvd.; Leave Her to Heaven; The Graduate; and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Panel discussions were also held. Despite some glitches with finding where lines formed, this was a very enjoyable festival.

The TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL 2011 repeated the successful formula from the previous year. The use of themes was further developed, such as, “The Silent Legacy,” “The Music of Bernard Hermann,” “Disney’s Musical Legacy,” etc. One of the idols of my youth was in attendance and was interviewed as part of the screening of Parent Trap: Hayley Mills. Miss Mills revealed that she had been “discovered” by Walt Disney’s wife Lillian in London while on stage.  Walt brought her over to star in Pollyanna (1960), and later films. Peter O’Toole was also in attendance as part of the screening of Lawrence of Arabia, and for a special interview session. In those days at the festival Vanity Fair sponsored a party for Spotlight pass holders and he attended the party, but he was in a wheelchair at this point in his life and was in a cordoned off area with friends.

The Opening Night movie was An American in Paris (1951), and Leslie Caron was in attendance for an interview. Other highlights for me were: Gold Diggers of 1933; To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); with several members of the Peck family in attendance; Carousel (1956); Pennies From Heaven (1981); and The Unsinkable Molly Brown(1964), with an interview of Debbie Reynolds.

 

The 2012 TCMCFF was the biggest and best of the three annual festivals held thus  far. It was a classic movie lover’s paradise. The over-all theme was “Style in the Movies.” Costume design featured in the programming, with costume designer, author, and professor of the UCLA Copley Center for Costume Design, Deborah Nadoolman Landis.  She gave a   talk and visual presentation on “The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful,” a mini-history of costume design in film. Deborah showed us that not only is a Jean Harlow silk glamour gown a film costume, but so is Sylvester Stallone’s sweat-suit in Rocky. 

As the Festival began drawing more attendees, the lines became longer and some venues were filled before you could get in. . I did get to see the two most spectacular epics being offered, the three-hour The Longest Day, and the equally long How the West Was Won, the latter shown in the Cinerama format at the original Cinerama movie dome. Having seen both of the films on television only, I was unprepared for how spectacular they truly were. Showing the film in the original Cinerama format required three projectors and five personnel. How the West Was Won premiered at the very same theater 50 years earlier. It was the last epic that MGM was ever to produce. It was also costume designer Walter Plunkett’s last film at MGM. His contract had expired and was not being renewed. In another movie actor Richard Widmark gave a tour de force performance as Harry Fabian in the film noir classic, Night and the City. The film was directed by Jules Dassin, and is set in London, but it is otherwise full of noir essence, a film that Widmark makes incredibly palpable.

Grauman’s Chinese was the site for the screening of the bewitching Vertigo. And if this screening was not its own reward, Kim Novak was there being interviewed by Robert Osborne about her appraisal of the movie and her role. The next day Ms. Novak got her hand and foot-prints set  in concrete for the Grauman’s Chinese forecourt. The Festival included screenings of some of the Universal horror classics. The seminal Frankenstein was shown at the Egyptian Theater, which was also a Grauman’s Theater when it opened in 1922. The classic 1931 Frankenstein was introduced by director John Carpenter. It’s amazing how compact a thriller the movie is, still powerful after all these decades. It was an iconic movie, made so by director James Whale and the incredible acting of Boris Karloff.  And finally for me,  the screening of the newly restored, 60th Anniversary premiere of the beloved Singing in the Rain. It was shown at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where it had first premiered 60 years earlier and where the film’s opening scene was filmed. Debbie Reynolds was interviewed by Robert Osborne, and following the film, Patricia Ward Kelly, Gene Kelly’s widow, provided personal stories from the late Gene Kelly’s writings and recollections. She could have entertained us for hours, though time had run out, much too soon. The restored Singing in the Rain provided outstanding color – a marvel of fun and theatrical good times.

The 2013 TCMFF had the theme of TRAVEL, which hardly seemed to matter as the movies I picked to  watch were based on a mix of  proximity, old favorites, new discoveries, and star talent.

The Opening Night screening Thursday  was Funny Girl (1968), the classic musical based on the life of Ziegfeld star Fanny Brice, as played by Barbara Streisand in her film debut – inspired casting. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The screening was not attended by Barbara Streisand, but the audience was thrilled by the guest appearance of Cher, who was interviewed by Robert Osborne.

A classic not to be missed on the big screen was  the 1959 Ben Hur, probably the biggest film spectacle of the classic era. Indeed, the music and big screen of the Chinese Theater produced a completely different experience than seeing this film on a TV screen. The introduction to the Ben Hur screening was provided by David Wyler, son of the brilliant director William Wyler, who was also the director of Funny Girl. At this screening David Wyler regaled the audience with his stories about being a kid on the film lot in Italy.

Classic animation was also added to the line-up, in celebration of Bugs Bunny’s 75th anniversary. Leonard Maltin and animation historian Jerry Beck introduced a series of ten Bugs Bunny personal favorites, starting with A Wild Hare, Bugs’ first appearance in 1940. Another animation treat was getting to watch Lady and the Tramp (1955) on the big screen at the El Capitan Theater. This fun classic was also introduced by Leonard Maltin. I had not seen this Disney film since I was a kid. It was then and remains a sentimental favorite.

Silent film also had a strong showing at the festival, with silent film historians introducing or talking about some of the major silent classics. One particularly fascinating talk and slide show was presented by author and silent film historian John Bengston, who has researched and written, Silent Echoes,  about the outdoor Hollywood film scenes of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Bengston has used film grabs and old fashioned-shoe leather to track down the filming locations of many of the silent classics, finding them in miraculously still-existing buildings and the streets of modern Los Angeles and elsewhere in California. Much of his current research is now helped by Google street view.

Watching King Vidor’s The Big Parade, digitally restored, was a revelation.It first premiered at the Egyptian Theater in 1925, and it went on to become the most profitable MGM film of its day. The story is centered around World War I, and a young French peasant woman and an American doughboy who fall in love. John Gilbert plays the soldier, in the favorite role of his career, and Renee Adoree plays the Frenchwoman. It is a stirring depiction of the frustrations of love and the horrors of war. The silent film actor Karl Dane gave an impressive performance. I had seen several photos of him but never saw any of his movies or knew why he was a big star for a short period.. He had the kind of strong but pliable face that I can only compare to Lon Chaney’s. The strong emotions of the film were greatly enhanced through a new score composed by Carl Davis and played by the English Chamber Orchestra. The experience was enhanced by Kevin Brownlow’s introduction and his retelling of his student interview with King Vidor.

The TCM Festival included screenings of many great movies, including Giant, Gilda, The Birds, Shane, Cape Fear, Bonnie and Clyde, It Happened One Night, My Fair Lady, Lady Eve, Mildred Pierce, Ninotchka, Night of the Hunter, On Golden Pond, On the Waterfront, Notorious, and many more. One is definitely in cinema heaven at the TCM Classic Film Festival.

TCM’s 5th Annual Classic Film Festival was held  in Hollywood April 10-13, 2014, this was held concurrently with the 20th anniversary of Turner Classic Movies.  The Festival’s theme was “Family in the Movies: The Ties that Bind.” Actors that were celebrated were: Maureen O’Hara; Charlton Heston; Jerry Lewis; and Richard Dreyfuss. The Opening Night movie was Oklahoma (1955). But instead I was at the Roosevelt poolside watching American Graffiti (1973).  Zulu (1964) was screened the next morning, introduced by Alex Trebeck. This was Michael Caine’s first film. The next movie, the nostalgia- twinged Meet Me in St Louis (1944), starring Judy Garland.This screening was made very special by the appearance of Margaret O’Brien, who nearly stole the show as little Tootie. She not only still  looked young but could apparently still can fit in the coat she wore in the film as a 7 year old. The mood changed to film noir and pre-code as I watched Double Indemnity (1944) along with a nighttime wrap-up of Employees’ Entrance (1933). 

The next morning’s highlight was Mary Poppins  (1964) at the El Capitan. The line for the movie was jaw-dropping. Donald Bogle interviewed Richard Sherman, who along with his late older brother Robert composed the songs and wrote the lyrics to Mary Poppins and other Disney films.  The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964), played at the Chinese  Saturday night to a packed house. It was a great movie to watch on the big screen and to recapture the youth of the Beatles (and my own high school days), in this film from 1964. The songs that kept ringing in my head for the next several days were And I Love Her, and those beautiful harmonies by John and Paul in If I Fell (in love with you). Alec Baldwin provided a spirited introduction and interview with music producer Don Was. I closed out the Festival with two more musicals: Easter Parade (1948)and The Wizard of Oz (1939) . “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” filled my head as I drove home.

The 6th Annual TCMFF in 2015 drew some 20,000 people, The theme of this one was “History According to Hollywood,”And this year talent was very prominent, with Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Alec Baldwin, Shirley Jones, Ann-Margret,  Spike Lee, Peter Fonda, Keith Carradine, Robert Morse, William Daniels, Ken Howard, and others.  Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer were there as part of the Opening Night screening of The Sound of Music (1963).

The next morning featured a special showing of Lenny, about the radical stand-up comic Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman. Dustin Hoffman was interviewed, after the screening, by Alec Baldwin. But “interviewed” is really a misnomer as this was a wandering dialogue that was as fascinating as it was funny as each actor took turns mimicking comedian Buddy Hackett and trading show business lore. In the same Egyptian Theater, and with seemingly the same line length, The Cincinnati Kid followed. The Steve McQueen/Edward G. Robinson movie also starred Ann-Margret, who was in attendance and interviewed by Ben Mankiewicz. She let out that what was special about McQueen was his “animalism.” She shared his love of fast motorcycles.

I attended Rififi (1955)  which was  introduced by Eddie Muller who  complemented the audience for attending what he thought was the best movie of the whole festival, and “as perfect a movie as you can get.” Other great movies I attended were The Philadelphia Story, with a Q&A with Illianna Douglas and Madeleine Stowe; 42nd Street; The Smiling Lieutenant; 1776, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

The 7th Annual TCMFF 2016 had nine themes, among them animal movies, journalism, coming-of-age, and love and loss. Among the actor tributes were stars Faye Dunaway, Gina Lollobrigida, Eliott Gould, Carl Reiner. Director Francis Ford Coppola was also celebrated. The Opening Night movie was All the President’s Men (1976), with Carl Bernstein  interviewed along with Spotlight screenwriter Josh Singer and director Tom McCarthy.  A journalist movie of a different sort was the classic Ace in the Hole (1951) starring Kirk Douglas, screened on Saturday . Earlier Saturday morning Francis Ford Coppola was interviewed for the screening of The Conversation (1974), revealing he had been influenced by Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966).

Other notable movies I attended were Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) as part of An Afternoon with Carl Reiner.  This entertaining movie happened to be the last film whose costumes were designed by Edith Head before her death. And there was the silent The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), with live music from an orchestra conducted by Mark Sumner and a choir performing The Voices of Light composed by Richard Einhorn. This event at the Egyptian Theatre was truly unique. Also unforgettable was a long interview of Faye Dunaway  by Ben Mankiewicz at the Montalban Theatre. The discussion ran through most of her career. Although Mrs. Dunaway is known to be difficult, she was most gracious in her answers and to her audience.

TCMFF 2017 was the eighth annual Festival held April 6-9, 2017 in Hollywood. We missed the great Robert Osborne as MC the last couple of years. And this year TCM officially paid homage to him after his death on March 6. Without irony, and perhaps as Robert would have wanted it, the theme this year was Make em Laugh: Comedy in the Movies. With only a Classic Pass,  my choice for the Thursday night movie was the romantic-comedy Love Crazy (1941) with Myrna Loy and William Powell, their tenth and zaniest film together. With co-stars Gail Patrick and Jack Carson it’s a fast-clipped and wacky movie where love and marriage is tested but eventually wins out Fitting the Festival theme was Stanley Kramer’s It’s a Mad Mad, Mad Mad World (1963) . It was screened at the fabulous Cinerama Dome, built in 1963.  This crazy comedy of a film was beyond analysis, so instead the discussion was about the technical aspects of filming the climactic last scene at a supposed public square with lots of  traffic  and a tall building and a ladder fire truck rescuing people. All of this was actually shot on a studio back lot. Craig Barron and Ben Burtt were on hand to talk about the making of the film. Ben Burtt is a legendary movie sound designer, having created the voice of R2-D2 and Darth Vade. Probably my favorite film of the Festival was the French Noir Panique. This little known film gem is based on a Georges Simenon novel and stars the great French actor Michel Simon in the title role (the French title is Les Fiancailles de M. Hire). This is a very dark noir with an unblinking depiction of the cruelty of  mob mentality.

One of of the films I didn’t want to miss was The Last Picture Show.  Director Peter Bogdanovich was on hand to talk and answer Illeana Douglas’ questions about the 1971 film. It starred Timothy Bottoms, Cybil Shepherd, Ellen Burstyn, and Jeff Bridges among others and was a multi-Oscar nominee including Best Picture and Director. It won Best Supporting Actor Awards for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman. Bogdanovich related how he had wanted to make the film using deep-focus cinematography, like Citizen Kane. Orson Wells told him not to film it in color. And besides, he added. “All the best performances are in black and white.”  So Bogdanovich asked the producer and was told to go ahead. Bogdanovich was also a fan of the John Ford westerns, and wanted Ben Johnson to play the role of Sam the Lion. But Johnson turned him down. “Too many words,” he said about his part in the script. So Bogdanovich turned to Ford for help. Ford said Johnson always said that about a script. But after Ford called him, Johnson accepted and called to tell Bogdanovich he would accept. It would become the most iconic role of his career. The director’s cut was screened.

Among other films awaiting me were two memorable ones. One was The King of Hearts (Le Roi de Coeur) 1966. Directed by Philippe de Broca and starring Alan Bates and Genevieve Bujold along with a strong supporting cast. I hadn’t seen the movie since the late 60’s and I remembered it as a gem of social satire. During World War I the Germans occupy a small French town and leave munitions timed to blow it up as they leave. The locals get wind of this and leave town. Only those inhabiting an insane asylum are left behind. When a lone Scots Black Watch “bomb disposal expert” is sent in to the village he manages to escape the Germans by entering the asylum where the inmates crown him king. After they leave, the inmates get out and find costumes to wear and assume roles they always wanted in life – from the mayor and firefighters, to whores and hairdressers.

The other remarkable film was the screening at the Egyptian Theater of The Black Narcissus (1947). The fuss was about the projection of this Powell & Pressberger classic on nitrate film stock – a great early Technicolor copy owned by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. In order to show it, the projection room at the Egyptian had to be retrofitted, courtesy of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, TCM, the American Cinematheque, Academy Film Archive and George Eastman Museum. This work included having the room meet fire codes and installing a panic button in case of fire that would stop the projectors and drop metal louvers to encase them. The film itself was magnificent. It’s a gripping story of a group of nuns sent to the other-worldly Himalayas to open a convent.

The 9th Annual TCMFF was a full-card of film screenings and other events that thrilled every classic movie fan in attendance. The first film screening I attended was a surprise hit at the Fesival: Finishing School (1934). Frances Dee and Ginger Rogers starred. This was an RKO production, where Dee met Joel McRae and the two subsequently married. The classic  Stage Door (1937) was next. Gregory LaCava’s adaptation of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s play, with Anthony Veillor’s script (and ad-libbing), is a gem of a movie that everyone should watch. The all-star cast includes: Katharine Hepburn; Ginger Rogers; Lucille Ball; Eve Arden; Gail Patrick, Ann Miller; Andrea Leeds (steals your heart) Constance Collier; and Adolphe Menjou. This was The Women before there was The Women. It played at the American Cinematques’s GRAUMAN’S EGYPTIAN Theatre. It was preceded by The Letter, One of Bill Morrison’s unique films made of edited deteriorated remnants of silent films.  A unique event I attended was a cinematographers panel moderated by director Taylor Hackford. The panelists provided inside information on their art and many anecdotes about working with directors and actors, and the weather. The event was held at the historic American Society of Cinematographers Club House. Another fun screening was Cracking Wise, an edited medley of movie wise-cracks taken from dozens of films in the Paramount Archives. The clips came from Republic B pictures and were presented by Andrea Kalas.

Other great movies I saw were Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943),How to Marry a Millionaire (1953 in Cinemascope), Three Smart Girls (1936), Silk Stockings (1957), and Places in the Heart (1984), a special screening with both director Robert Benton and Sally Field in attendance. Sally Field received her second Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. They gave a lively remembrance of their working together on this excellent movie. She played a recent widower in  rural Texas trying against all odds to save her house and land by farming cotton with the help of an itinerant black man (Danny Glover) and blind roomer(John Malkovich).

 

The 2019 TCM Classic Film Festival celebrated love in all of its forms. This was the 10th annual Festival, and the 25th anniversary of TCM, The hosts and TCM made over the ten-time attendees such as myself. We were given special lanyards for our name badges and thus greeted warmly at each screening or event. There was also a Roosevelt Hotel Rooftop party for all the Ten-Timers.

The Opening Night Screening featured When Harry Met Sally (1989), with Rob Reiner as director and stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. talking about making the film. Carl Reiner revealed that the woman in the scene at Katz’s Deli that says “I’ll have what she’s having” after Meg Ryan acts out her fake orgasm was his mother Estelle.

There were many great movies to be seen over the week-end. Some of my favorites were: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, that made a star of 21 year old Catherine Deneuve; The Postman Always Rings Twice; The Clock (with Judy Garland); Day for Night, with Jacqueline Bisset in attendance; Love Affair; The Killers, the remake with Angie Dickenson in attendance, Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, and a special Fox: An Appreciation, this before  20th Century-Fox was absorbed by the Disney Company. This program was presented by Schawn Belston,the then Exec VP of 20th Century-Fox. And I also attended , as I usually do, Bonham’s Entertainment Exhibition and Appraisal. This is held Sunday morning and people bring in their collectible Entertainment memorabilia for appraisal. As a collector, I’m always interested in what turns up.

This wraps up my 10 years with the TCMFF, I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. THANK YOU TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES.

 

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Gene Kelly had a storied career as dancer, singer and choreographer. He also partnered with many of the greatest actresses and dancers in show business.  He taught dance at his family’s Pittsburgh dance school while attending college and then law school. He gave that up when he decided to act and choreograph on Broadway.  He had success acting in The Time of Your Life in 1939 and then Pal Joey. He came to Hollywood to make his first movie in 1941 for MGM, the soon to be classic For Me and My Gal with Judy Garland. With great chemistry, smashing good-looks, and his athletic dancing style, Kelly made a star of himself in this sentimental vaudeville-themed movie. What should have been obvious somehow eluded MGM, as he was next placed in straight roles as a pilot in WW II in Pilot #5  and then as Alec Howe/Black Arrow in DuBarry was a Lady, 

Columbia Pictures  knew exactly how to use Kelly in  his next movie: Cover Girl, co-starring Rita Hayworth in its first Technicolor film.  In this story of the  Hayworth character’s  yearning to make it as a star on Broadway, Kelly danced and choreographed as well. Although un-credited, Columbia and director Charles Vidor gave him license to choreograph and direct the “alter-ego” scene, assisted by Stanley Donen whom he had worked with on Broadway. In the scene he dances with  himself (his inner conscience) as partner. Cover Girl was a hit for Columbia. It won an Oscar for Best Musical Score and had three other nominations including for Best Song: Long Ago and Far Away.

With MGM’s Anchors Aweigh in 1945,  Gene Kelly hit full maturity on film. The movie co-starred Frank Sinatra and singer Kathryn Grayson. Kelly and Sinatra are two sailors on shore leave looking for fun and romance – and find so much more. In a scene that made movie history, Gene Kelly’s dance partner was Jerry the Mouse of the Tom and Jerry cartoon characters. MGM had wanted to use Mickey Mouse but Disney wouldn’t grant permission. Instead they developed their own animation unit. Stanley Donen worked for most of a year with the animators to animate Jerry’s dance with Gene Kelly.  Kelly appeared next in an all-star MGM musical, The Ziegfeld Follies in 1945. The movies didn’t have a plot but was a series of musical numbers and comedy skits much like an old Ziegfeld Revue. Gene Kelly’s dance partner in this movie was also a historic pairing: Fred Astaire. They only danced together twice in their career, and the second time was 31 years later for That’s Entertainment. In Ziegfeld Follies they danced in the The Babbitt and the Bromide number. The characters are personality types based on literary characters made into a Gershwin song. Gene and Fred pussy-footed around each other to work out a dance number, each used to being the lead. Gene showed deference to Fred’s seniority and they settled on this older number even though it wasn’t a stretch for either of them.

After Gene Kelly’s service during WWII and his starring in Living in a Big Way, his next starring role was The Pirate in 1948. Here he was reunited with Judy Garland in the Vincente Minnelli directed  romantic comedy. The movie was an ideal vehicle to showcase Kelly’s dancing, athleticism, and plain good looks in buccaneer costumes.  Kelly doesn’t really dance with Judy as the character Manuela in this movie, but as the character Serafin/Macoco he dances and performs for her to win her affection. He does dance with the amazing Nicholas Brothers, Harold and Fayard. And partners with Judy Garland in their wonderful Be a Clown number.  The latter’s melody was the same used as “Make em Laugh” by Donald O’Connor in Singing in the Rain. The following year, 1949, Kelly started with the dramatic dance number in Words and Music  to “Slaughter on 10th Avenue” with his dance partner Vera-Ellen. The movie was about the composing team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Helen Rose designed the women’s wardrobe and Valles designed the men’s. Although in their scene together both Gene Kelly’s costume and Vera-Ellen’s are smart and sexy, their colors don’t complement each other- neither opposites (complementary) nor matching. Gene was in black pants with a violet top. and Vera-Ellen had a scarlet dress with a striped yellow top.

 

 

Nineteen forty-nine was a good year for Gene Kelly. He next starred in Take Me Out to the Ball Game, co-starring Frank Sinatra , Esther Williams and Jules Munchin. The story was about early 1900s baseball players performing Vaudeville at night. The team’s owner K.C. Higgins just happens to be the beautiful Esther Williams. Since Vaudeville is part of the plot, many of the scenes are songs and skits. Kelly did a dance scene partnered with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was at a low ebb in his career at this point. Dancing was not one of his skills, but since Kelly had been a dance instructor he taught Sinatra some basic steps to keep up with him in their song and dance number, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” Gene Kelly and Esther Williams had one dance number together in “Baby Doll,” but it was cut for the final release.  Helen Rose designed the women’s wardrobe. She was particularly talented at designing turn-of the-20th century costumes, and did a fabulous job here. Valles likewise did a great job with the men’s outfits.  And then there was On the Town. The movie was based on the Jerome Robbins New York ballet from 1944. MGM bought the movie rights before the musical even opened, but then Louis B. Mayer didn’t like the results.  Betty Comden and Adolph Green had written the original book and were asked to re-write it for the movie. Leonard Bernstein composed the original score. Four of his songs were kept and he wrote six new ones for the movie.  For the first time, Stanley Donen directed the film, with Gene Kelly also credited. Kelly’s co-stars were Frank Sinatra, Vera-Ellen, Jules Munchin, Ann Miller, and Betty Garrett. The movie  also complement the story of Anchors Aweigh  of sailors Gene Kelly (Gabey) and Frank Sinatra (Chip) now joined  by Jules Munchin (Ozzie) on shore-leave. But here they have  leave in “New York, New York a helluva town,” only the censor wouldn’t allow them to sing “helluva” so the word was substituted by “wonderful.” Nonetheless, with Gene Kelly’s insistence, location shooting in New York was done for several scenes including  the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park and Fifth Avenue. The story line is sailors out to see New York but naturally they get sidetracked looking for women and getting into adventures. Kelly as Gabey can’t get past the subway without falling in love with a photo of “Miss Turnstiles” on a poster. His love interest is the lovely Vera-Ellen.  He catches up with her as she becomes his story dance partner in two of the several great dance numbers: “Main Street;” and the colorful “A Day in New York Ballet.” The latter number introduced the great dancer Carol Haney to film. Helen Rose designed the women’s wardrobe. The lead men stayed in their Navy whites, which made the colorful yellow, rose, and green costumes of the women stand out as an ideal choice.

 

In  1950 Gene Kelly did a favor to Judy Garland by starring in Summer Stock. Not that she asked for this favor, but she was starring in the movie coming off of a suspension from MGM and three months in a drug-cure clinic. She needed support and Kelly was there to give it to her as was friendly director Charles Walters. Even then it was rocky for Judy. She had gained weight in the clinic and costume designer Walter Plunkett designed loose blouses and dresses with open collars that emphasized her face. Since the story was about a theater summer stock company living and rehearsing in a farm barn owned by Judy’s character, she is often dressed in overalls. Town and country soon clash in the story but love also develops. The reason they came to the farm was because Judy’s  sister Abigail played by Gloria DeHaven wanted to be in show business and her boyfriend was the theater troupe manager. The character was Gene Kelly, and before long he was falling for Judy Garland (Jane). Jane had some talent too. Besides driving a tractor she could sing and dance. And in “Portland Fancy,” Gene and Judy do a great tap dance number for the far farm community. But Summer Stock also featured Judy’s finale number,, “Get Happy.”  It was filmed two months after principal photography was finished and a big closing number was sought. Judy had lost weight in the interval and looked very trim compared to the beginning of the movie. She wore just a black tuxedo jacket, white blouse, fedora, and black hose. The costume was a hold-over from a scene in Easter Parade  that had been deleted.  It was a knock-out number based on a Harold Arlen/Ted Koehler Christian revivalist song.  Gene Kelly never had high hopes for Summer Stock. Yet one of his best career numbers was his solo dance with a newspaper in a barn, and Judy’s “Get Happy” was a memorable number. As it happened, this was also Judy’s last movie for MGM.

 

Gene Kelly’s next movie was to be his most ambitious yet, and a highlight of his career: An American in Paris. Working closely with Vincente Minnelli, the movie would be about an American artist living in Paris, with many of its scenes danced through landscapes inspired by famous French and International painters.

The decision by producer Arthur Freed, Minnelli, and Gene Kelly to include a 17 minute  dance sequence was bold and risky. In 1948 the success of The Red Shoes filmed in England would serve as inspiration.  But in  An American in Paris, the art scenes as background depicted the emotional state of Kelly as the protagonist.    Further, the ballet was to be a realization on film of the artistic works of Impressionist and Post-Impressionistic painters. This feature would not only guide the nature of the choreography, but also of the set designs, cinematography, action sequences, and costumes. The ballet scene would be the heart and soul of the film. The music, of course, would be based on the haunting score of George Gershwin’s An American in Paris symphony, with the story for the film by Alan Jay Lerner.

Costume designer Irene Sharaff was one of three designers for the film. She had been a Broadway designer and  had worked for Minnelli at MGM previously.. Minnelli convinced her to come back from New York to design some 300 costumes for the ballet. While working on the costumes, Sharaff also started designing sketches for what the sets might look like for the various artist-inspired scenes. These sketches in fact were adapted by art director Preston Ames for the sets. Ames had been an architecture student in Paris, and could quickly envision the set designs. The sets would be based on the styles of Raoul Dufy; Henri Rousseau; Piere Auguste Renoir; Maurice Utrillo; Vincent Van Gogh; and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Not a bad set of artists from which to draw inspiration. But how would the ballet transition from one artist-styled set to the next?

Those transitions indeed became a high-point in Hollywood film arts and crafts.Some 30 painters worked six weeks to paint the backgrounds and sets. Irene Sharaff also came up with the idea of using certain dancers, characters she called Furies for the women and Pompiers (firemen) for the men. The Furies were dressed all in red ballet outfits and the Pompiers were dressed as traditional French firemen, with their brass helmets but also adorned in a military-inspired costume. Together they served as the “bridge” from one scene to the next, luring Kelly as Jerry Mulligan to pursue the ever-escaping Caron as Lise Bouvier. These transitions were also accomplished by using a “match-cutting” filming technique whereby the action of the dancer is exactly matched from the end of one scene to the beginning of the next. And so Gene Kelly dances through the various scenes, with Leslie Caron as his partner Lise Bouvier. The dance scene is not the entire movie, but it represents Kelly as Jerry Mulligan’s love for Lise, with a red rose as its symbol. 

In addition to Irene Sharaff, two other costume designers worked on the film: Orry-Kelly and Walter Plunkett.  Walter Plunkett designed the costumes for the “Black and White” Ball scene, including Kelly’s and Caron’s costumes, and Orry- Kelly designed the other costumes in the films. He also designed Leslie Caron’s green dance costume for the dance scene in the Fountain of the Concorde. Plunkett also designed one of Caron’s ballet costumes. An American in Paris was Gene Kelly’s favorite film. It won six Academy Awards for: Best Picture; Best Art Direction; Best Cinematography; Best Screenplay; Best Music Scoring; and Best Costume Design for Irene Sharaff, Orry-Kelly and Walter Plunkett.

More about Gene Kelly’s movies and dance partners will be covered in PART II  of SILVERSCREENMODES.COM

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Hollywood’s late costume designer Milo Anderson created looks for the stars that are icons of style. But ask anyone about him and blank stares are the response.  His name was simple, as were the styles he created: Joan Crawford’s waitress uniform in Mildred Pierce, Marlene Dietrich’s dark blue trench-coat, skirt and beret in Manpower, Lana Turner’s debut “sweater-girl” Angora sweater in They Won’t Forget, and the chorus girls’ costumes in 42nd Street.

 

Milo Anderson was born in Chicago on May 9, 1910. His parents moved to Los Angeles when Milo was 8, He attended Fairfax High School and during the summers worked at Western Costume.  He got to do some designing. One costume he was remembered for was Common Clay (1930), that starred Constance Bennett. One tip she gave him stayed with him throughout his career, “It’s not what you put on a costume, it’s what you take off that counts.”

 

When Milo had several costume sketches in a portfolio he took them to MGM’s head designer Adrian. Adrian was not encouraging. He did however recommend him to Samuel Goldwyn, who was then short of a designer since Coco Chanel had not finished the designs for the film The Greeks Had a Word for Them. So he was hired to finish that film and then to design the costumes for The Kid from Spain, a big musical. It was 1932 and he was too young to sign the contract, his mother had to do it.

 

Another unforgettable costume that Milo Anderson “designed” was for Joan Crawford in Rain, 1932. The movie was a re-make of Sadie Thompson that had starred Gloria Swanson, and also the Broadway play with Jeanne Eagels.  Joan Crawford had asked to be loaned out to United Artist to play the role. She wanted a change in her usual roles to play something more serious and less glamorous. She got more than she bargained for. The role of Sadie Thompson was that of a prostitute. Milo was told to make something quickly, even though Joan only had two costume changes in the entire movie, and she wore one through most of it. That costume was a checked suit with short sleeves that he bought at a shop on Hollywood Blvd. He bought it large enough for her shoulders and fitted the rest to her measurements.  It was perfect for her role, but the problem was she would have to wear it through the entire movie while it was undergoing through South Seas weather. Milo went back to the store but that had been the only model. Wardrobe ended up silk- screening the checks onto like fabric and tailoring duplicate suits.

 

Milo had been loaned out to United Artists as well as Joan Crawford for Rain. It was a pleasant experience. working with her at the time, although the film did poorly at the box office and it was too much out of character for Joan’s fans – or the critics. While at United Artists he also worked with Adrian designing Mary Pickford’s and the others cast’s costumes for Secrets (1933).

 

Milo started working at Warner Brothers in 1934. He had previously designed its production of Footlight Parade with Jimmy Cagney on loan-out the previous year. In 1935 he designed the costumes for Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland in Captain Blood, two stars he would work with repeatedly at Warner Bros. He also designed one of their most famous films together The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).  Milo cleverly devised the use of metallic painted rope to look like chain-mail for many of the costumes. This avoided the noisy clanking of metal and was of course lighter. At Warner Bothers Milo Anderson was working along side of the famous designer Orry-Kelly. Fortunately Milo did not have a big ego  or felt competitive. They split their assignments and there were plenty to go around.

The decade of the 1940s started with some big movies for Humphrey Bogart and his female co-stars at Warner’s. They Drive by Night (1940) gave him the opportunity to design for both Ann Sheridan again and with the new Warner Bros. star Ida Lupino.  This film about long-haul truckers and their dames (and a femme fatale) gave Milo a range of costume options. The following year Milo costumed another pairing of Bogart and Ida Lupino: High Sierra. All though it would become an all-time classic, it was not much of a costume movie.

That same year of 1941 presented him with the opportunity of dressing Marlene Dietrich in Manpower. Milo recalled that Marlene was very hard to satisfy – she had previously been dressed by Travis Banton and Irene. This film did not call for a glamorous wardrobe, but Milo Anderson created enticing costumes for Marlene and the two became good friends.

The U.S was now in WW II and movies took on different themes. Humphrey Bogart had another classic with To Have and Have Not in 1944. This was the film that introduced Lauren Bacall. Orry-Kelly was supposed to have designed it but he briefly served in the Army. In his autobiography he said he made the costume sketches for  Bacall. Milo Anderson stated he designed the costumes for the film and he is listed as the designer in the credits. At issue is the iconic hounds-tooth suit with the peplum jacket she wears in a key scene. That suit started a fashion trend. But the film’s director Howard Hawks also claimed credit, stating he wanted Bacall to wear the same type of suit his wife “Slim” Hawks was wearing. Milo Anderson said he actually had the idea of using Slim’s suit – fitting it for Bacall after nipping the waist and broadening the shoulders.

 

Milo then had the most difficult job of his career: working on Mildred Pierce. Joan Crawford had just moved over to Warner Bros. after 20 years at MGM. Director Michael Curtiz did not want her for the title role in that film, but he was obliged to have her do a screen test. With a hostile attitude, Curtiz yanked her blouse off, shouting, “You and your damned Adrian shoulder pads!” Only she had bought that outfit at Sears and there were no shoulder pads. She had wanted to appear in-character for the screen-test. Milo said she was very difficult to work with, unlike their first collaboration on Rain. He attributed that to her nervousness from being at Warner Bros and not knowing if she would have a future there. And she was constantly fighting with Curtiz.  She got along famously with Ann Blythe, who walloped her on the staircase scene.

 

 

 

Milo also created a stunning look for  Patricia Neal, not the typical Glamorous star, in The Fountainhead (1949).  She co-starred with Gary Cooper who played an architect. Milo dressed Patricia Neal in a black silk peignoir that she wore for her opening scene, and later a lace nightgown for a seduction scene.

By the early 1950s Milo Anderson became disillusioned with the state of designing costumes for Hollywood movies.  Warner Brothers wasn’t even giving him design credit half the time. He finished  designing So Big for Jane Wyman in 1953, who he had worked with since his first film, The Kid from Spain, in 1932. This was their 30th film together.  He left Warner Bros. after that and designed for Catalina swim wear. He designed the costumes for one more Jane Wyman movie, at her request , Miracle in the Rain (1956).

 

 

In an interview with the late movie costume historian David Chierichetti, Milo Anderson said about his time during the Golden Age of Hollywood, “We ran ourselves ragged trying to keep up with the demands of our jobs, but we had the best materials, the best craftsmen and the most glorious women to wear them. It was an unforgettable era.”

After he left Warner Brothers Milo Anderson joined the firm of Robert Muir & Associates as an interior designer.  He also taught classes periodically on costume design. He maintained a friendship with fellow costume designer Howard Shoup – “Shoupie” as his friends called him.

Milo Anderson died on November 10, 1984 at age 74 from emphysema.  Then and now he is little known despite the many stars he dressed and the beautiful iconic garments and costumes he designed.

 

 

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A convergence of world phenomena hit director Costa-Gavras  when he harnessed their energies to create his political masterpiece Z in 1969. In Paris and France, students and workers went on general strike and caused civil disorder in 1968. In the U.S. President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert F. Kennedy were all assassinated. The Vietnam war caused national protests. But the model for the film was the assassination in Costa-Gavras’ (Constantinos Gavras)  native Greece of the social democrat, pacifist legislator, and left-wing activist Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. And because of the WW II anti-Nazi, anti-fascist, resistance work and Communist membership of his father, Gavras junior was also branded as second class in the new right-wing Greece. So Gavras went to law school and then attended the national film school in Paris, where he was exposed to the New-Wave of French cinema.  He began working as an assistant to several directors and made his own first movie, The Sleeping Car Murders (Compartement Tuers) , in 1965.  The cast included  Jean-Louis Trintignant, Yves Montand, and Montand’s wife, Simone Signoret.

(This Post is part of the Vive la France Blogathon hosted by the Lady Eve’s Reel Life and Silverscreenmodes. See other entries here.)

 

What Gavras noticed in the film-making of the day, whether traditional or New Wave, was a lack of movies with any political plotting. A new book became his inspiration, Z by Vasilis Vasilikos, a fictional account of the murder of Grigoris Lambrakis. His brother, still living in Greece, had sent it to him. The Z in the title came from the ancient Greek verb zei, meaning “he lives.” Gavras teamed with screenwriter Jorge Semprun for the story, along with his producers including Jacques Perrin. Perrin would play the persistent photo-journalist in the film. There was very little financing for the film, and they would certainly not be able to film in Greece. Shooting in France could provide similar geography but was too expensive. Algeria was approached for funding, but could only provide facilities and location. The politically charged The Battle of Algiers had already been filmed there.  Costa-Gavras then employed Greece’s best musical composer, Mikis Theodorakis, composer of Zorba the Greek, to write Z‘s driving score.  This was just before he was imprisoned by the right-wing junta as a communist. Gavras also got the Greek actress Irene Papas to play Montand’s wife in Z .

Z starts off running, its music pulsating as scenes change with the beat. The backdrop could be in any country, although the film is in spoken French.  A group of military officers and civilians are explaining the need to eliminate a  disease of grape vines in a veiled analogy to the elimination of certain unwanted people.  In the next scene a  politician and member of the opposition played by Yves Montand  arrives in the city to give a speech. Almost immediately he receives a death threat. His inner circle, his apostles,  are divided and begin arguing whether to continue or abandon in the face of visible hostility.  The police, under the control of the military, are there to “protect” the politician from harm.  A rally and speech that were supposed to be in a large venue have now been forced into a 200 seat hall – all over “bureaucratic” reasons. The politician’s (Z) anti-government supporters are in the streets as are the anti-protesters and the hired thugs.  Filmed in cinéma vérité style by cinematographer Raoul Coutard, the fights that break-out have your heart racing from the first scene. The Algerian extras that were hired, either as police or protesters, already knew their sympathies from years of national strife, and got into their roles with vigor.  Montand’s character “Z” arrives and decides to press on, walking through crowds as he’s harassed and struck. He enters his hotel. The police did nothing.

The main characters are quickly delineated. The colonels who  control the police, the thugs planning chaos and worse, Z’s   increasingly powerless  inner circle.  And there is a photojournalist who is documenting every action, on who’s side we are unsure. Within minutes of the movie’s start Z makes the decision to carry out his plan –  his rendez-vous with fate. He and his group walk from their hotel to the hall, but before they get there he is struck on the head.  Woozy but determined, he continues and gives a speech in the hall. After this he will speak to his followers outside that couldn’t fit in the Hall.  But agitators are filling the square. His group enters the breech of chaos. The police are passive.

Complaining members of Z’s inner circles are attacked themselves.

 

After all the stunning events of the night. A magistrate of the Department of Justice must determine what happened and if anyone is guilty. Jean Louis Trintignant plays the magistrate. His disposition presents a mystery. He wears tinted glasses, giving him an elusive air reinforced by his poker-faced demeanor.  As thugs and colonels go about their self-satisfied ways, he soon begins his investigation. He is methodical and his questions have one of the thugs admitting to belonging to CROC, the Christian Royalist Organization against Communism. And Yago the thug admits that the cops use the organization to “keep order” during events such as  Z’s  visit.   Soon the accidents begin to look predetermined. Here Costa-Gavras’ film’s editing moves in rapid fire. The magistrate interviews various witnesses. No time elapses between these scenes, as we are shocked seeing a case build against the guilty. The wall of defense of the thugs, colonels and elites crumbles. The hooded schemes of the powerful seemingly undone by the straight-forward questioning of the magistrate: your name and profession? Then the charges brought against them., with a deconstruction of their defense. All of this proceeded by the indignity of being photographed by the press as they enter the magistrate’s office, with some  colonels chasing the photographers around the hall.

Yet absolute power corrupts absolutely. And the real end of the story needs a long view of progress. When released in the U.S., Z was like a shock for its viewers. Political thrillers were virtually unknown here in 1969. Critic Roger Ebert called it the best film of 1969. At a time  when assassinations had taken place in the U.S. – with no satisfactory answers for many – here was a film with a plot that seemed shockingly real. I remember attending Z’s opening with  a couple of friends. One of them didn’t attend college and rarely had any political thoughts. He left the theater shaken and for long after became distrustful of government and authority. Movie audiences were struck by its audacious film-making techniques coupled with the film’s political message.  It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and for Best Film Editing. Costa-Gavras  was also  nominated for Best Director.

Fifty years after its creation, Z  still stuns the viewer. It has influenced political thrillers ever since, from Parallax View (1974) to Enemy of the State (1998)  to State of Play (2008). Riots and large protests have grown around the world and in the U.S. – with increasing size offering some measure of protection to its participants. For filmmakers this has enhanced the need for even more realistic filming techniques. The riots in Greece in 2008 begun over the police killing of a young student and the state of the economy provided realistic film footage for the movie Jason Bourne (2016). The rise of protests themselves over the fight for liberties continue in the face of harsh crack-downs, as we have seen in Hong-Kong. The outline provided here for Z give’s only a hint of its power. Even in translation it is a remarkable and one-of-kind film. It is both a film of the 1960s – and a film for today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This blog post looks back at the history of Paramount Pictures’ Wardrobe Department, its Golden Age costume designers, and its current Archives. An interview with Randall Thropp, the Manager of the Costumes and Prop Archives at Paramount is also included.

Movie history permeates the air at the Paramount Pictures Studio Archives. It might be difficult to realize these days, but Paramount was not born in Hollywood, California, but rather in New York, where in 1912  Adolph Zukor released the first full-length drama shown in the U.S; the French-made Queen Elizabeth, starring Sarah Bernhardt. At the time Adolph Zukor’s company was called Famous Players Film Company, which merged with the Jesse Lasky Company in 1916, and thus became Famous Players – Lasky. It soon took on the name of Paramount Pictures when it merged with Paramount Pictures film distributors. Lasky was making movies in Hollywood, having produced the first feature-length Hollywood movie in 1914,  Cecil B. De Mille’s The Squaw Man. The latter  was the first movie made in Hollywood, shot in and around a barn on Vine St. (now moved to Highland Avenue as the Hollywood Heritage Museum).  Famous Players made its movies in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a thriving hub of studios in the early silent era, and in Astoria, New York. The new combined company took the name and logo of Paramount Pictures. Zukor followed Queen Elizabeth by hiring John Barrymore and Mary Pickford.

 

 

 

 

The wild 1919-1923 era of Hollywood costume design flowered when stars Leatrice Joy, Gloria Swanson and Pola Negri joined Paramount. The most lavish of costumes were invariably used in the De Mille spectaculars. Mitchell Leisen designed the Babylonian costumes for Gloria Swanson in  Male and Female.  Clare West and Howard Greer designed De Mille’s  The Ten Commandments (1923). Greer had been a Chicago and New York designer of Broadway shows and had designed for the famous Lady Duff Gordon, aka, Lucile couture.  Leisen  started working as an assistant director for De Mille, so Greer took over as head designer when Clare West left in 1923. Although Greer could illustrate his own costume designs, he advertised for a sketch artist/assistant in 1923  because he was too busy.  A young woman came in with “a carpetbag full of sketches.” Greer was very impressed by their diversity: architectural drawings, interior decoration, fashion design. etc. He hired her on the spot.  When a very nervous Edith Head  came in the next day she confessed and told him that she had borrowed the works from several of her fellow art students. Greer kept her anyway, no doubt remembering his own nervous first sketches for Lady Duff Gordon. Greer taught her how to illustrate fashion sketches – a necessity in showing the stars, directors, and producers, what the wardrobe would look like. And importantly, what the costume makers were going to be fabricating.

 

 

Not long after Edith Head joined Paramount, Travis Banton was hired to design the wardrobe for Leatrice Joy in  The Dressmaker from Paris in 1925. The film’s tag line was having, for the first time anywhere, “the 1926 Paris fashions.” Such was the importance movie marketing now placed on film fashion, and the influence of the studio costume designer.  Interestingly, Dressmaker was based on a scenario by Howard Hawks. It’s a curiosity that the director of such “manly” films as Scarface (the original version), The Big Sleep, and Rio Bravo wrote this script as well as Fig Leaves, (1926) which featured a fashion show designed by Adrian.  One might expect that Howard Greer would become jealous of a new designer – also coming from New York and with experience with Madame Frances couture, where he had designed Mary Pickford’s wedding dress. But Greer and Banton got along famously. Paramount was doing well too, with its new star, the “It” girl Clara Bow and her jazz age movies. It helped that both designers were paid handsomely.

Travis Banton had just settled in when Howard Greer decided to open his own couture business in Beverly Hills. Greer left in 1927 and had an instant clientele of Hollywood movie stars. Travis Banton now became the Head Designer and Edith Head began designing the B pictures and “Horse Operas,” as she called the western movies. And as the roaring 1920s turned into the 1930s, new fashions developed and a new bevy of movie stars crashed through the Paramount gates.

As big as the 1920s movie divas were at Paramount, the new stars of the 1930s proved just as bright and glamorous (and demanding).  At the end of the 1920s the flapper look suddenly became passé . Even the popular uneven hemline (or handkerchief hemline as it was often called) became immediately out of fashion when Jean Patou in Paris came out with his long  gowns and dresses in 1929.  Banton’s design above for Lilyan Tashman in The Marriage Playground, 1929,  was only shot from the hips up as a consequence. The new Parisian style affected all the Hollywood designers, and the studio moguls were not happy. From then on, Hollywood costume designers developed a “timeless” style of glamour and chic based on a look born in Hollywood movies.

Travis Banton’s special gift was to transform the excess of the 1920s into the fashionable glamour that became Hollywood’s hallmark. And with the new stars of Paramount, he had the models that would become famous around the world.  The Depression audience needed a diversion – featuring exotic settings and stories of rags to riches. This became the new entertainment. And a new star came to Paramount in 1930 who became its answer to Garbo: Marlene Dietrich from Germany. She came via a film about the French Foreign Legion and a handsome legionnaire played by Gary Cooper. The film was Morocco.  Period films had not gone away, however. In 1934 C.B. De Mille made a lavish Cleopatra with unforgettable costumes by Travis Banton, worn by Claudette Colbert.  Their overt sexiness must not have pleased Ms. Colbert, however, who probably blamed Banton rather than De Mille for their key presence in the film.

 

 

 

The exoticism of the 1920s was replaced by the glamour of the 1930s. This glamour became the specialty of Hollywood, and Banton, Designers Adrian at MGM, Irene at Bullock’s Wilshire and also  free-lanced, and Orry-Kelly at Warner Brothers were exporting the look around the world. Soon Claudette Colbert and Carole Lombard joined Paramount and Banton was dressing the A list of Hollywood. But not all was rosy. The demand to design newsworthy and glamorous fashions for demanding divas in their film roles on tight schedules was stressful.  Banton’s relationship with Claudette Colbert deteriorated as she became very demanding about the look of her costumes. One day Ms. Colbert tore up his costume sketches because she didn’t like his designs. Banton was furious and disappeared for a week, drinking heavily the whole time. He was finally convinced to come back, but his days were numbered at Paramount. Edith Head took his place as Head Designer in 1938, but Ms. Colbert didn’t like her designs either. Ms. Colbert would use Irene to design her costumes after Edith Head’s Zaza (1938). But before Banton left, he had taught Edith Head to imitate his style of costume sketch illustration. It got so you couldn’t tell the sketches apart.

 

 

But just as Edith Head had taken over at Paramount, war had started in Europe. Foreign revenues for American movies was throttled and the importation of fine European fabrics came to a halt. Then, as the U.S entered WW II, fabrics were rationed. The days of glamour and lavish costumes were coming to an end. Edith Head believed that more realism was needed in her costume designs. Glamour and sexiness may still be needed for certain roles at certain times, but sparingly. She was probably as surprised as anybody, however, that her first big fashion trend was based on a costume for Dorothy Lamour based on an Indonesian sarong. Jungle Love from 1938, was so popular that several sequels followed over the next several years, all with Ms. Lamour in sarongs – or what passed as a sarong in Hollywood costume.

 

When the popular floral-pattern, printed fabrics were no longer available during the war, the fabrics were hand-painted at Paramount’s wardrobe department. Edith’s assistant hand-painted these floral prints and other fabrics as needed.

Except for Claudette Colbert, Edith Head was now designing the wardrobes for Paramount’s leading ladies: Betty Hutton; Veronica Lake; Barbara Stanwyck, and a mature Marlene Dietrich. As the 1950’s rolled in, she began designing for Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd., a legend from her very beginning days at Paramount. And then she designed for Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun released in 1951. Although she had illustrated her own costume sketches in the 1930s and early 1940s, she now needed a sketch artist in order to keep up. In her long career she would use several, including Adele Balkin, Rudi Gernreich, Waldo Angelo, Willa Kim, Pat Barto, Bob Mackie, Grace Sprague, and Richard Hopper. It was often through her sketch artists that Edith Head’s style became known  visually in many magazine and newspaper articles and advertisements, and also through her costume sketches. Grace Sprague came along at the height of Ms. Head’s popularity in the mid 1950s – early 1960s. Ms. Sprague was so proficient and quick at illustration that she would turn out several variant sketches for the same costume based on Ms. Head’s idea.

Edith Head would occasionally have  other costume  designers work with her as well. Most of these designers worked on the C.B. De Mille films where he often used teams of designers. Natalie Visart was a regular designer working on the De Mille films, along with long-time De Mille designer Gwen Wakeling, Dorothy Jeakins, Elois Jennsen, John Jensen and Ralph Jester.  Mme. Karinska,  the Broadway costume designer and Raoul Pene du Bois also from New York joined the design staff in 1944 to work with director Mitchell Leisen on Lady in the Dark.  Pene du Bois worked on six films until 1946.

Mary Kay Dodson a former model for Irene (of Bullock’s Wilshire)  was also added to the design staff in 1943. Ms. Dodson was brought on to work with Mitchel Leisen. She was not only glamorous herself, but she proved to be an excellent designer. This caused Edith Head to grow jealous of the  newcomer, who came to the studio dressed like a star and was given choice assignments. It didn’t help that while on location with Leisen making Golden Earings  she doubled for Marlene Dietrich before Marlene could arrive. Apparently she was also dating a Paramount executive. She was given a  five-year contract in 1942. Edith Head also became nervous when Mary Kay Dodson started getting good press in the Los Angeles newspapers and Hollywood columns.  She must have been relieved when, at one of Lucille Ball’s parties, Miss Dodson met the New York playwright Jody Hutchinson. They eloped two weeks later on October 4, 1949 and they soon moved to New York where Ms. Dodson started her own line.

Edith Head did not need to worry about her longevity as a costume designer. She went on to win eight Oscars for Best Costume, a category which was finally instituted by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in 1948. And she was nominated  thirty five times. In all she worked on designing costumes for some one thousand films. Ms. Head dressed virtually all the great actresses of the era.  She not only had great skills and talent, but she knew how to work with her movie stars to adapt her designs to their personalities and desires as well as the roles they were playing. Ms. Head was still the Head Designer at Paramount when Gulf & Western bought Paramount in 1966. In 1967 she turned 70 and feared that her contract would not be renewed. She took the opportunity to move to Universal Studios where Alfred Hitchcock was now directing films, with whom she had worked on several films. She remained at Universal until her death in 1981.

 

 

The studio system in Hollywood came to an end at the time Edith Head left Paramount. Costume designers were put on short term contracts and soon were free-lancing. The vast wardrobes of  costumes and warehouses of props were often auctioned off in part or in whole.  Studio ownership itself changed hands from corporation to corporation. The costumes and props that had been used as tools in the dream factories for decades, often discarded, suddenly became valuable memorabilia in the late 20th Century. Paramount, like some other studios, began to organize and archive its remaining artifacts and in 2007 launched its costume and prop archive.  Archives manager Randall Thropp was able to answer  questions about the archives for Silver Screen Modes.

1. When were the Paramount Pictures Archives first established?

Paramount has always maintained some sort of film collection dating back many years. However, by the mid 1980’s the archival process fell into place.  The current building was opened in 1990 and now houses every aspect of the Archives.  The Costume/Prop Archive was started in 2007, but became official in 2009.

2. When did you first become involved and what is your current role?

I started working at Paramount in the costume department in 2003. By the end of 2004 I was managing the rental floor.  Whenever I had to re-stock or write up costumes, I looked for names inside the garments and set them aside – thus laying the groundwork for archiving key pieces. When the costume department was closed in late 2007, I was allowed to pull together anything that I thought was “historical” and to set it aside.  Currently I am the manager of the Costume/Prop Archive.

3. Do the Archives contain all types of materials such as objects, graphic materials, documents, as well as costumes?

The Paramount Archive is unique in that it covers many different areas under the direction of Andrea Kalas (SVP Archives). We have a team of people who oversee film preservation, restoration, stills, music, costumes, props and jewelry.  Within the costume collection I also have 350 sketches and a collection of stills related to costume continuity. We are the only studio archive that has a jewelry collection.  There are approximately 12,000 pieces dating back to 1923.

4. Most studios have seen the loss of their material heritage through gifts, auctions or other means. What vintage do the various Archive materials represent?

There are 3500 vintage costumes dating back to 1914. The contemporary collection has over 29,000 individual pieces dating back to 1987.  Sadly, there is a big gap in our collection for films between 1967 and 1986. Paramount is also the owner of the Republic Pictures catalog and a significant amount of work has been done to preserve and restore those titles.  Our music and stills collection are quite extensive dating back to the silent era.

5. Was going through the existing collection difficult and was it well supported by the Corporate HQ?

Our current management team could not be more supportive. They understand the historical value these elements represent.  The Archive is also a very important stop on the V.I.P. Studio Tour.  We have film fans from all over the world passing through and viewing the assets we have on display.

6. Are the Archives in a separate facility or at the Melrose main lot?

The Archive is located on the lot – however we have several storage facilities off lot.

7. Are the Archives accessible to researchers or the public?

The Archives is not publicly open generally to researchers like a library would be – our clients are the many departments of the studio officially.  Research for example that is done by production is very welcome, but as I mentioned, the V.I.P. tours give the public a chance to see the artifacts.

8. Costumes and textiles are fragile. Are they stored in boxes or through some other method?

The costumes are stored in various ways.  Some in muslin bags, some in archival boxes – but many are in clear garment bags with archival tissue.

9. Are there records still extent from the Paramount costume designers such as costume plots, production/star/costume cards, costume sketches, wardrobe test photos, etc.?

As I mentioned earlier – we have approximately 350 sketches dating back to the late 1940’s.  The bulk of the sketch collection is from the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  There are only a handful of continuity books from the older titles, but we do keep all the continuity books from our contemporary productions.

10. What is the date range of the items in the Archives? Is there a cut-off date or are efforts made to archive new or newer materials?
11. The oldest piece in the collection is dated 1914 and was owned by the director, William Desmond Taylor. Many of our 1920’s costumes were lost to neglect. (Silk chiffon and heavy beading do not like wire hangers and heat.)  Also, as you know, many costumes that were considered “dated” were sold off by the studio as far back as the 1940’s. Today I work in tandem with Feature Production and go through all the assets from current productions.  I determine what we put into the archive and what can be recycled into future productions.  We also service Marketing and Publicity requests as well as museums all over the world.
12. I would imagine Edith Head is well represented by costumes in the collection. Are there costumes you don’t have by some of the Paramount designers?

Edith Head is attributed to at least 75% of the vintage collection. We also have pieces designed by Travis Banton, Howard Greer, Mary Kay Dodson, Irene, Mitchell Leisen, Oleg Cassini and Raoul Pene Du Bois.

Yes, there are many costumes from the classic years that we are missing.  I wish we had more Banton pieces, but I’m happy to have the few that we do.

13. What are a couple of your favorite items in the collection?

I have many favorites including, Barbara Stanwyck from THE LADY EVE, Carole Lombard from TRUE CONFESSION, Barbara Stanwyck from DOUBLE INDEMNITY and Roy Rogers from SON OF PALEFACE.  (all Edith Head)

As far as costumes from our contemporary collection I must single out LEMONY SNICKET (Colleen Atwood), BLADES OF GLORY (Julie Weiss), ALLIED (Joanna Johnston) and ROCKETMAN (Julian Day).

Views: 1898

Costuming the HBO series The Game of Thrones is as near a Herculean job as you’ll find in television costume design work. When HBO started production of the series in 2007, there existed a legion of fans that had been reading the book series: George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, since 1996. Four books in the series had already been published and a cult was firmly established around the fantasy series.

British costume designer Michele Clapton has designed all eight seasons of The Game of Thrones (GOT) except for Season Six while she designed the series The Crown. This means that she oversaw a crew of about 70 to 100 people that worked with her at any one time. With the diversity of costumes in the Seven Kingdoms, various specialists were involved including  embroiderers, dyers, leather workers, printers, fitters, cutters, sewers, armorers, metal workers, and jewelers. Any given show needed about 700 costumes, although the speaking roles got most of the attention. Along the way she has won  Emmy Awards for Outstanding Costumes for Season 2, Season 4, Season 6, and Season 7. She also won an Emmy for The Crown that ran in 2017.

Almost all of the costumes were made in Belfast, close to where most of the filming was shot. Some of the arms were made in India. Much of the work was also done in Ireland. Michele Clapton told the Los Angeles Times. “We have everything on site: our armorers, our weavers, and our embroiderers. We weave our own fabric with our loom—many of the fabrics are literally made from scratch.”  All types of materials are used besides fabric (and jewelry) to make up a costume.  The exotic peoples and the locales they live in in the lands of Ice and Fire means that indigenous materials are used in their costumes. Items such as beads, shells, stones, crystals, and feathers are woven or sewn into the costumes. Ms. Clapton usually has a supply of such items that she has been collecting over the years, She was stumped, however, when she needed a variety of bones to accessorize the costumes of the Wildlings, especially the Lord of Bones. But she sourced the bones on eBay. Her team then molded these for reproduction and attached them using string and latex.  The Wildling costumes were fabricated using hides, the parts of which were “sewn” together using latex thongs lashing the pieces together. The fur capes of Samwell Tarly and several of the Night Watch (not Jon Snow) were actually made from IKEA Skold sheepskin wool rugs.

 

Arms and armor are their own specialty and the costume designer must work with their makers in coming up with the total look – even for the women. And since both arms and armor become part of the most active scenes, the costume designer must work in collaboration with the stunt coordinators and sword-fight masters. Although The Game of Thrones  (GOT) is a fantasy, the purpose of its costume design is the same in this as in all movies or other television dramas: the costumes are there to delineate the characters in the story, to advance the plot by setting the scene, and to help the actor feel the role they are portraying.  Since GOT developed over eight seasons, the actors had plenty of time to change over the course of the story, and for some of them, to actually grow-up. The actors’ aging actually helped both the story-telling and  the costume designer’s ability to help develop and portray character.

 

Good examples of the change of character as emphasized by costume has been seen in the leading female stars of the show. The beautiful and even sexy gowns of both Cersei and Daenerys, from the early seasons, exposed skin and shape. After the death of Drogo, Daenarys wore costumes with deep V necklines, yet she still mostly wore loose pants and boots, a sexy yet commanding figure. The boots and pants still necessary for riding horses. After her conquest of Meereen she began wearing outfits more in the style of a classical queen. In Winterfell she was obliged to wear warmer clothing, and her wardrobe changed to shades of snow and red. But as things deteriorated in the war with Cersei and King’s Landing, the Breaker of Chains turned to the Dispenser of Death, and her costume turned black.

 

Cersei’s form-fitting gowns in Lannister red or mauve color sets off her figure and makes her the center of attention in most every scene. But Cersei changes from King Robert Baratheon’s vindictive but unimportant Queen to a major plotter in the game of thrones. And as time marches on, her enemies grow as her victims mount up. She thus takes on a more war-like and self-protective persona. Her costumes perfectly  displays this transition. But as the final season nears its end her confidence has grown to match her ego. She wears no armor or protective costume devices save her long necklace and the medallion that had been her daughter Myrcella’s. She wears it no doubt as a reminder of her need for revenge.

Sansa has made a remarkable transition, one that has been filled with sorrow and abuse. Her costumes show how she has grown and changed, from an innocent teenager to a self-assured and self-protective survivor – a learner of life’s skills and of men’s treachery. She too has learned about the game of thrones, becoming a judge of character and a leader of men. Returning as an heir of the House of Stark and as Lady of Winterfell, she is in a position of command, vying with Daenerys for control of the North. Her costume reflects both the tradition of the Starks with the ample use of fur capes (the Dire Wolf is the house sigil) and the obvious need for warm outfits. Her costumes in the final three seasons are accessorized by a necklace composed of a large ring and chain, forming an aiguillette. The ring represents her wholeness forged out of her former enchainment.

 

The fur cape style is shared by Jon Snow (though now becoming Aegon Targaryen).  His costumes have been shaped  by his days at the Wall – amidst all black-clad men nicknamed the crows, with heavy fur collars and capes. This last feature had become almost a standing joke on the set.  Whereas several cast members really liked their costumes and some wanted  to keep them. Kit Harrington as Jon stated he never wanted to see his furs again.

Arya, the younger Stark girl, was always the tom-boy. Her survival skills were a strong instinct that led her from one life-learning skill to another as she escaped from danger to danger. She first escaped the tragedies at King’s Landing  and then assumed a boy’s urchin costume for disguise. She wore the costume through several seasons. Her one steady accessory was her short sword Needle. She learned to fight in her early fencing lessons and her lessons in death learned from Jagen H’gar at the House of Black and White, the home of faceless men. Maisie Williams as Arya was thrilled to be finally out of her tom-boy costume and into different costumes. And once back to Winterfell, she had a proper costume befitting her stature, now not only accessorized with Needle but with a dagger made of deadly valyrean steel. But wherever she goes she never seems to get far from Sandor Clegane, alias the Hound. sometimes her tormentor, sometimes her protector, Arya has not grown large but with acquired skills she has  dispensed “frontier” justice. Together they make a perfect odd travelling couple, only separated near the very end. Yet she is the ultimate avenger, and the woman of many faces.

 

The men of GOT are almost all a lusty and warlike  bunch. Their costumes reflect their station, place of origin, and their combat readiness at any given time. As in the real armies of the ancient world, they are meant to look terrifying. In those days when combat was almost always hand-to-hand, you often stared at your enemy up-close and had time to become afraid – or confident. Your military costume helped you become more confident. Padding and armor protected you and made you look bigger. Heavy boots not only protected their feet but planted them solidly on the territory they defended or conquered.  Shoulder armor made you look stronger. Swords, axes, bows, spears, and spikes showed the opposing side how they would be wounded or killed.  Colorful banners with household sigils served as rallying points and showed the other side the powerful enemies they were dealing with. Even outside of combat, the men of rank wore their swords.  Their costumes were festooned with leather straps and belts, with exaggerated V-lines in the angle of their torsos. Such a silhouette has been used down to the comic superheroes of today.

Today’s costume designers not only have to design and produce appropriate, character-building costumes for the cast, once they’re made they have to beat them up. Any male costume (with few exceptions) has to look like its been worn in the field for some time. So the costuming staff has to abrade, cut, tear, and even make visually noticeable repairs. Painters also add fading and wear marks to textiles to make them appear old.

The men of mystery, such as Varys, Peter Baelish and the Maesters wear different costumes than men of arms. Varys the spymaster or Master of Whisperers, served whomever was in power (but always for the greater good of the realm) often vying for influence with Peter Baelish, which he eventually won.  He  sided with Daenerys along with Tyrion. His costumes reflect a somewhat exotic but simple look, having been born across the Narrow Sea in Lys. His posture was usually to place his hands in his long wide sleeves, traditional Chinese style.  This denotes that he not only doesn’t need his hands for work or for combat, but that his doings are mysterious as well. One never knows what he has up his sleeve, or what ring he wears on his finger. Peter Baelish considers himself important with no office high enough for his ambitions.  He usually wears a dark belted tunic. The tunic  is invariably  high-necked, symbolically protecting his throat.  The Maesters are scholars and men of learning. They wear heavy monk-like cloaks with heavy metal chains around their necks, each of the metals is different indicating their particular scholarly expertise. There is also a woman of mystery, Melisandre, the Red Priestess. Her costume is invariably a red  gown that she once wore with deep decollete,  or a long red robe to match her red hair. She is the priestess to the Lord of Light.

The Game of Thrones has been so very complex and so very rich in so many ways. Set aside that as George Martin stated, it really would have taken several more seasons to properly finish the story. The costume designer and staff accomplished their job with high skill and flair. They took us on a journey around the world of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond, having us believe in the peoples that inhabited those worlds, and no doubt had the actors believing in them too as they dressed the part – the true role of the costume designer. And as the costumes served their purpose we are lucky that they were not discarded as in the studio days of old. But instead they have been kept for the archives and have been exhibited as they will continue to be.  So we can have the chance perhaps to admire up close the art and craft that fueled our fantasy for so many years.

 

• All photos by Helen Sloan

 

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