My Latest New Favorite Book: Edith Head

I'm extremely excited to have finally gotten my hands on a copy of Edith Head: The Fifty Year Career of Hollywood's Greatest Costume Designer by Jay Jorgensen.

For those who are unfamiliar with the name, Edith Head was the costume designer for innumerable films from the nineteen-thirties through to the nineteen eighties.  She designed costumes for practically every major Hollywood star of the classic Hollywood era, including Barbara Stanwyck, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, and a host of others.  She was a favorite of Hitchcock who used her designs for the iconic costumes worn by Grace Kelly in Rear Window (1954) and Kim Novak in Vertigo (1958)... and this is just me scratching at a VERY wide surface

So far, I've spent most of my time with the book ogling the various studio costume shots of the various actresses dressed in her frocks so I cannot vouch for the quality of the text.  I can say that with photos like this who needs text?

Classic Romantic Comedies Vol. 7: Sabrina

Since, my last post had a bit of an Audrey Hepburn flavour to it and December (and the blog's official Christmas season) looms upon the horizon, I figure now is as good a time as any to put up my final regular Classic Romantic Comedies post (at least in the foreseeable future, and not including certain holiday themed Romantic Comedies).   Many of Audrey Hepburn's films, especially those from her early career can be considered classic romantic comedies.  Audrey Hepburn is the prototypical manic pixie dream girl (if you're not familiar with the term it was originally coined by A.V. Club writer Nathan Rabin, here's a link to an A.V. Club Inventory of top films featuring manic pixie dream girls) and in these films she is pair up against a significantly older male lead and using her waif-ish charms teaches them to love life.  They also always fall in love with her during the process.  I could have picked from more than a couple of films from Ms. Hepburn's filmography, including Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany's, however for me there is one Hepburn film that surmounts both of those.  Incidentally, I think it is often overlooked in favour of those former two.  It is 1954's Sabrina, directed by Billy Wilder.

Sabrina, stars Audrey Hepburn, as the titular Sabrina, daughter of the impossibly rich Larrabee family's chauffeur.  Sabrina is in love with the Larrabee's younger playboy son David, played by William Holden,  but he doesn't know that she exists.  She contents herself by watching him from tree tops of the Larrabee estate during Larrabee parties as David romances other girls.  Sabrina's father sends her to Paris to learn to be a great chef, and hopefully get over David.  While in Paris she does learn to be a great cook, she also learns how to embrace life, gains a fashionable Givenchy wardrobe, and a sophisticated new haircut.  When she comes back home to America and the Larrabee estate, something wonderful happens.  David finally notices Sabrina.  In fact he is so taken with her that he invites her to the latest Larrabee party and starts wooing her.  This doesn't sit well with the rest of the Larrabee family, especially older brother Linus, played by Humphrey Bogart, whose latest business deal hinges on the marriage of David to the daughter of an important business associate.  He quickly neutralizes David via champagne glass injury, and sets about winning Sabrina's heart for himself in a cruel plan to trick her into going back to Paris.  What Linus doesn't account for is his own development of feelings for Sabrina.

Sabrina was adapted from the stage play, Sabrina Fair, by Billy Wilder.  Wilder imbues the script with the appropriate amount of cynicism balanced with witty dialogue and an appropriate amount of physical comedy.  It really plays up the upstairs downstairs quality of this story with the Larrabee servants championing Sabrina's relationship with David (with the exception of her father who is a staunch opponent of rising above one's station in life), and David and Linus' status obsessed parents (particularly their father who shares Sabrina's father's opinions).  The scenes between Linus, David, and their father are hilarious, especially when involving David's unfortunate injury and Larrabee senior's disgust with his sons and their entanglement with Sabrina.  Both Bogart and Holden do a fabulous job in their roles, Bogart being a particular surprise as old brother Linus.  While many think he was miscast in this role, I think he is appropriate as a man who has devoted his life and youth to business who is finally shaken out of his funk by this effervescent young woman.

As for the effervescent young woman, this is one film where Hepburn does not fall into twee territory.  She manages to play her girlish enthusiasm with a certain dignity that seemed to elude her in later roles.  She is utterly fascinating to watch and steals practically every scene that she is in.  This is a film that is a complete confection that doesn't leave your hands sticky.  I like to watch it on a dreary November night in anticipation of Christmas...

Here's the trailer...

Retro Ad #5 - Think Pink!

In today's sampling of retro ads, I've found a pair of print advertisements from the late sixties; both for Lustre Creme shampoo and both proclaiming that pink is for girls.  Yup, before it became the international hue of  breast cancer, pink was all about selling lustre creme shampoo.  Personally, I've never been a big fan of pink and the bold statement that pink is for girls would have sent me running to the Breck shampoo section (another vintage brand of shampoo).

I do like the bright graphics surrounding our lady lovely locks in these two pictures, but the colour of the bottle makes me think that using Lustre Creme would be akin to using Mr. Bubble in your hair (both bottles are the exact same bubble gum pink colour).  Moving away from the colours and to the model featured in both ads- doesn't she bare an uncanny resemblance to Audrey Hepburn?  I've been scouring the Internet to see if that actually is Ms. Hepburn, but have come up empty handed.  I certainly can't see Audrey Hepburn, who would have been in her mid-to-late thirties by this point would agree to sitting in a barrel and using a phone as a loofah.  Mind you, people have done stranger things for money.

Old Hollywood Glamour Photography For the Layperson

Jean Harlow 

If you haven't noticed by now, I am passionate about classic Hollywood.  That passion spills over into photography.  Since I was young I have been fascinated by the photos taken of the stars of yesteryear... something about that potent mix of silver halide, period attire, and superstar charisma.  Of course, there is also the artful hand of the studio photographer pulling the strings.

Hollywood glamour photography is as old as Hollywood itself: a tool for studios to promote their galaxy of stars.  If a studio had a new talent that they wanted to promote to movie goers, studio heads would order several sessions with their hired photographers and distribute the results to various fan magazines.  When a film was in production, actors and actresses would be subjected to several wardrobe and hair tests, the results were documented by a studio photographer. And once stars had reached a certain level of fame, countless fan letters would come flowing in, and studio ordained head shots were the reward for a fan's devotion(this was elevated to another level once World War II broke out and studio pinup photos became the rage).  In all cases, it was necessary that the photography captured that illusion of otherworldly beauty and glamour that surrounded movie stars.  

Between 1910 and 1950, the art of Hollywood glamour photography evolved from flat, uninspired photos of silent film stars to gorgeous works of art truly immortalizing their subjects as the larger than life personalities that the studios wanted them to be.  This type of photography can be divided up into two different categories: gallery portraits (which were taken within a Hollywood studio's on site photography studio) and candid portraits (which were taken on location either outdoors or possibly in a star's own home).  Within both of these categories there were several sub-categories, including the standard head-shot, the duo (or couples) portrait, the costume portrait, and the pinup.  Some of the most celebrated studio photographers of the era include Clarence Sinclair Bull, George Hurrell, and Ernest A. Bachrach.  Unfortunately for these talented men, their names were never mentioned and their contributions to creating the illusion of otherworldly stars went largely unheralded.

Theda Bara, circa. 1916

Elizabeth Taylor, circa 1958

Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in a Duo Shot

Audrey Hepburn models Givenchy in a costume shot

Was Audrey Hepburn Twee?

In a recent interview with UK’s Daily Mail, Emma Thompson made the shocking announcement that she is not a fan of Audrey Hepburn. More accurately she is quoted as saying, “I find Audrey Hepburn fantastically twee (…) Twee is whimsy without wit. It is mimsy-mumsy sweetness without any kind of bite (…) She can’t sing and she can’t really act, I’m afraid.” Predictably, Audrey Hepburn fans are up in arms about the comments; however, I can’t help but partially agree with Thompson’s comments.

Before Hepburn fans completely fly off the handle, I don’t think that Audrey Hepburn can’t act. On the contrary, I can’t see another actress playing Princess Ann, Sabrina Fairchild, and I’ve even come around on her iconic portrayal of Holly Golightly, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I think she genuinely great playing a threatened blind woman in the fantastic Wait Until Dark, and think that she’s a compelling lead in the surprisingly watchable The Nun’s Story.

That been said, many of Hepburn’s early films have this confectionary quality about them. While some of this can be attributed to Hepburn’s spritely, girlish persona, much of this is due to the films themselves: the writing, direction, and overall tone of the film. For example, in Roman Holiday, up until the final ten minutes, the film is about the magical adventures of a runaway princess in Rome. There is something inherently whimsical about that plotline, and although there’s a subplot about a reporter trying to use the Princess to further his career, Hepburn’s charms whittle away his hardnosed exterior and he does the right thing in the end.

Another example of a film that that doesn’t work as well with Hepburn’s persona is Funny Face, where the audience is forced to buy Hepburn as a beatnik, philosophy obsessed book store clerk who is discovered by a great fashion photographer and whisked away to Paris to become an international model. While the fairy-tale of being snatched from obscurity and being taken to a romantic European city when you find love with a rapidly aging Fred Astaire and a new found sense of self-worth perfectly aligns with the Hepburn persona, the entire effort comes off as somewhat obnoxious, especially when she is trying to pass herself off as a serious intellectual. The famous scene where she starts dance on a table in a Paris beatnik bar while singing about her love of philosophy seems ridiculously out of character for a true intellectual. According to the film, all a bookish woman needs is a makeover, a trip to Paris, and the love of a man to cure her of her pretensions- a shallow, insulting message to send to women. Mind you, Hepburn did not write the film and had the screenwriters decided against making Hepburn’s character a caricature of what they believed a female intellectual should be, the film would have been a delightful (albeit old fashioned) Cinderella story.

The bulk of Emma Thompson’s arguments against Hepburn are aimed squarely at her portrayal of Eliza Doolittle, in My Fair Lady. While I too find the film insufferably long and painful to get through, I think it is unfair to heap so much blame on Hepburn. Yes, Hepburn was woefully miscast as Eliza Doolittle, a role which forces her to move away from her comfort zone of fragile elfin innocence to play a petulant woman who spends the first half of the film carrying on like a spoiled, ill-tempered three-year-old who can only be plied by sweets (quite literally). It’s an ugly role that forces her to play off of the equally repugnant character of Henry Higgins, played by Rex Harrison. However, as stated previously it is not Hepburn’s fault, and she looks like she is trying hard to make it work- it just doesn’t. This film is, as Thompson remarks, overly long and relies on weak, overwrought musical numbers to move along the story. Why the film has become such a highly regarded piece of cinema is a complete mystery to me. Interestingly, Thompson is currently writing a remake of the 1964 classic, and it will be interesting how her spin on the story plays out.

So we come to the ultimate question, is Audrey Hepburn twee? For the most part I would say yes. In the roles where she is truly successful there is a complete lack of guile and cynicism in those characters, and more often than not a character’s wit is often derived from their negative views of life. Characters like Sabrina Fairchild and Holly Golightly seem to float through their beautiful whimsical world oblivious to the hardships that exist, however, I think that is what makes them so appealing. Hardships are small and fleeting and at the end of the movie you know that everything is going to end perfectly and Hepburn’s characters will retain that youthful innocence that fans fell in love with in the beginning. More than any other Hollywood actress (including her contemporaries who actually did become royalty) she embodies the fairytale princess archetype. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone needs a little sugar once and a while, and many of Hepburn’s best films fit the bill. I urge everyone to go out and watch Roman Holiday, Sabrina, and even the flawed Breakfast at Tiffany’s when you need a little pick-me-up.