History Lessons: Fashion in Film and the Hollywood Costume

Clockwise from top left: Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, Gloria Swanson and Louise Brooks

Fashion in Film

Film and costume design history expert Kimberly Truhler, one of the presenting hosts at TCM’s 2013 Classic Film Festival, launched her new webinar series The History of Fashion in Film with The 1920s - The Jazz Age on November 17 - and I was there!

Kimberly certainly knows her stuff - she’s an adjunct professor at L.A.’s Woodbury University where she teaches a course on the history of fashion in film, she serves as a film and costume design historian for Christies of London, curates a private vintage fashion collection, manages her own website, GlamAmor (dedicated to preserving and sharing the history and legacy of fashion in film), and much more. Her impressive experience and knowledge were clearly evident throughout the nearly two-hour inaugural webinar session. And what an education I got…

Sight & Sound...Classic Cinema with Live Music

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo at Davies Hall, San Francisco, November 1, 2013

A few months ago the San Francisco Symphony announced that it would kick off a season-long classic film series with Hitchcock Week, October 30 - November 2. Each night a different Hitchcock movie was to be presented with its music track scrubbed and the score performed live by the symphony orchestra. Psycho launched the series on the 30th, followed by The Lodger on Halloween, Vertigo on November 1st and, on the 2nd, a night of 'greatest hits' excerpts (To Catch a Thief, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, North by Northwest) hosted by Eva Marie Saint. Most appealing to me among these events was the Vertigo program, not only because Vertigo is one of my favorite films of all time, but also because the symphony's musical accompaniment would be the world premiere live performance of Bernard Herrmann's full score. But the event was sold out by the time I found out about it. Only due to my good fortune in making a connection with a very considerate symphony representative did a pair of orchestra section seats come my way. And so it was that on the first Friday night in November my dear friend, Mike, and I, filled with anticipation and excitement, set off for Davies Symphony Hall to see Vertigo and hear its luscious score live. Once there, we sampled the special cocktail concocted for the evening, "The Voyeur" (sparkling wine, Grand Marnier, cognac), had a quick bite to eat, took our seats and waited for the lights to dim.

Remembering JFK

Personal Memories of John F. Kennedy

At 43, he was the youngest man to be elected and the only Catholic President of the United States. His youth and religion were issues in 1960 when he won the office by quite a bit less than a landslide. After his assassination in 1963, at age 46, those issues became irrelevant - and 64% of those polled at the time claimed to have voted for him when he was elected, though his margin of victory was just over 50%.

What a Character: Gladys Cooper

The What a Character! blogathon is in progress now, hosted by Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken and Freckled and Paula's Cinema Club. Click here for more information and links to participating blogs. My entry for the event follows...

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Young Gladys

She was a beautiful child, wide-eyed and wistful, who began modeling at age six; during World War I she was the favorite 'picture postcard' pin-up of British troops; she went on tour in a musical at age 17 and by the time she neared 40 she was a star of the London stage. In 1940, at age 51, she began working as a character actress in Hollywood and would, over the course of the next three decades, earn three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress. Her name was Gladys Cooper and she is best remembered for her performance as Bette Davis's cruel, steel-willed mother, Mrs. Vale, in Now, Voyager...

Three (Mesmerizing) Hitchcock Villains Revisited on Halloween

Today (and today only) our friend Lara of Backlots is hosting a one day Hitchcock Halloween blogathon and for the occasion I'm resurrecting an old favorite from the Reel Life archives.

In January 2011 the Classic Movie Blog Association hosted a Hitchcock blogathon and I decided rather than blog about a particular film, I'd take another approach. The result was an exploration of three legendary Hitchcock killers and the actors who portrayed them: Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Robert Walker's Bruno Antony in Strangers on a Train (1951) and Anthony Perkins's Norman Bates in Psycho (1960). I was and still am fascinated by the complex characters of Uncle Charlie, Bruno and Norman - and with the masterful performances of the three daring actors who took their turns as what film critic/historian David Thomson calls Hitchcock's "smiling psychopaths."

Click here to read Three Classic Hitchcock Killers.

For links to Lara's blog and and more on Hitchcock Halloween, click here.

Hitchcock Week...and more...at the San Francisco Symphony

Just over two years ago I attended – and was astounded by - “Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony” at Davies Hall. Conductor Michael Francis led the orchestra in accompanying the beyond-iconic classic with Max Steiner’s unforgettable score. What an experience it was (click here for my reaction)...

Now the symphony is about to present a Halloween season series, Hitchcock Week, spotlighting several of the Master’s films with live musical accompaniment. The pièce de résistance will be “World Premiere: Vertigo” on Friday, November 1, with the symphony accompanying Hitchcock’s great masterpiece with Bernard Herrmann’s brilliant, haunting and, some would say, peerless score.

TCM Presents Five Tyrone Power Films in Primetime and Late Night

Nightmare Alley to Make Its TCM Premiere

Nightmare Alley

Tyrone Power was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood from the late 1930s through the late 1950s and he was 20th Century Fox's most famous star until Marilyn Monroe came along. Turner Classic Movies hasn't traditionally aired as many films of Fox's great stars as those from other studios - this has been about film rights more than anything else. Since TCM entered into an exclusive licensing deal with Fox, though, that has begun to change.

Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me): My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather

Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Davis

The Metzinger Sisters of Silver Scenes are hosting a classic film event,The Great Imaginary Film Blogathon - and this is my entry. Click here for links to participating blogs.

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In 1926, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather published her eighth novel, a novella, really, titled My Mortal Enemy. Among the writer's many poetic works of prose fiction, the book earned a reputation for both its lean structure and dramatic plot. When I read it for the first time, I couldn't help but imagine what a powerful film My Mortal Enemy might be. Yet I also knew that, because of Cather's profound unhappiness with the film version of A Lost Lady (1934, starring Barbara Stanwyck), she hadn't allowed her other works to be adapted in her lifetime and that at the time of her death in 1947, the terms of her will dictated a ban on future film adaptations. Mostly because I saw in My Mortal Enemy's central character, Myra Driscoll Henshawe, a role that would provide a golden opportunity for the right actress to deliver a blistering tour de force performance, I was saddened that it would never be dramatized.

Viktor und Viktoria's Darling of the Gods

Before The Cafe, Lesser Ury, 1920s

Guest blogger Karin is a freelance technical writer living in the Austin, Texas, area. She has contributed to Reel Life in the past, treating readers to lyrical prose as well as a unique exploration of her subject in every case - from her two-part series on legendary art director Van Nest Polglase in 2010, to her entry on composer Bernard Herrmann for my Vertigo blog event early in 2012, to her contribution, "The Feminine Mystique of Mad Men," for my Mad Men blog event later that year. Karin's current fascination is Weimar-era Berlin's art, cabaret, cinema and music scene...
                                                                                      ~  The Lady Eve