INTRODUCTION
1 The copy I viewed was in the British Film Institute; in March 2008 however, Flicker Alley released Le papillon…on disk 1 of its 5 DVD box set of Méliès’ works, Georges Méliès, First Wizard of Cinema 1896–1913. See flickeralley.com (accessed 22 July 2008).
2 I should note that this is what the English subtitles say, not necessarily the French lines as spoken.
SECTION ONE: COSTUME AND FILM
1 While Turim puts this phrase in inverted commas, as a quotation, she does not offer specific sources. An example of Head’s written support for the notion can be found in her article ‘A Costume Problem: From Shop to Screen’, published in The Hollywood Quarterly in 1946: Head sketches ‘before’ and ‘after’ versions of the same suit, the former selected by its purchaser without ‘any attempt to bring out any characteristics in the wearer’. By contrast, the second sketch, it is implied, would bring out characteristics (unpaginated in the original).
2 Nor is this practice restricted to 1950s film or to Hollywood; in the modern Korean horror movie, A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), the costume code reveals what the narrative obfuscates and suspends: the revelation that one of the two sisters we see interacting on screen is actually dead.
3 See http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/0-9/10yy/index.html (accessed 14 July 2008.)
4 ‘Significantly, there was no iconography of Pygmalion before the thirteenth century’ (Stoichita: 21).
5 Written 1912, first performed in London 1914 with Mrs Patrick Campbell as Eliza.
6 ‘Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera cloak, brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers, and all accessories.’ Stage direction, Pygmalion, Act IV.
7 Indy favourite Parker Posey in Party Girl struggles in the opposite direction – to be valued for her brains rather than her looks, thus the reversal of the usual transformation trajectory.
SECTION TWO: TROPES
1 Jordan’s head-shaving scene is shown in the film’s trailer, and her shaven head is also featured prominently.
2 Interestingly, however, such scenes are included in the source novel and were in an earlier draft of the screenplay (Ford and Mitchell: 15–17).
3 Grease’s choice of Sandra Dee as the ultimate good girl is problematic as she as often played ‘bad girls’, as in A Summer Place (1959), as the coy virgin. Even in Gidget (1959) where she is at her most perky, Dee enacts sexual desire for two different men, although the plot takes care that she is rescued before anything can actually happen. See Scheiner, 2001.
4 Bridget has been briefly shown to be adept at mirror writing; Wendy Kroy, the alias she chooses while in exile, is inspired by the place she misses most and wishes to return to: New York.
5 And not just in Hollywood: Alfred Hitchcock’s early British film, The Pleasure Garden (1925) features in its first few minutes an instance of the look at the woman from the feet upwards which clearly signals male lust and inspires the woman’s anger.
6 Ford and Mitchell have traced the camera movement which produces this look to the film’s script and call it, after the scriptwriter, ‘the Casey Robinson shot’ (185)(cf ‘The voyeuristic toe-to-top gaze’ 15). Interestingly, they point out that the final version of the film does not use the shot at the moment it is indicated in the script but reserves it for later (15; 17).
7 See for example Now Voyager, Moonstruck, She’s All That, Miss Congeniality, The Princess Diaries (‘We’ll call this one Frida and this one Kahlo…’) Last Holiday…
SECTION THREE: CASE STUDIES
1 Of her fifty roles up to and including 1939’s The Women, in which she played a shopgirl scheming to trap a wealthy husband, Crawford assayed the wealthy socialite role 12 times, a working girl 13 times and a showgirl 10 times, as well as 14 more generic ‘love interest’ or lead female roles. Combining the working and showgirl portrayals (since showgirls are workers too) gives a total of 23, which indicates the reasons why Crawford has such a strong association with shop and office girl characters.
2 See Joan Crawford file, Herrick library. Biography is undated but seems to post-date the star’s divorce from Philip Terry in 1946.
3 27 March 1925.
4 Egs: ‘A white cap and dress similar to those worn by Joan Crawford in “Letty Lynton” are being worn by many women in the Los Angeles area’, Hollywood Star, 12 (25), July 1932: 18; ‘Each of Crawford’s films leaves its mark on fashions’, MGM Studio News, 2 (13) 24 September 1935, no pagination.
5 See the hardback copy of Movie Crazy; the photographs are numbers 10 and 11 in the photo section between pages 122 and 123.
6 See Colman, Silver Screen November 1932: 26. A picture of the star has the caption: ‘Joan Crawford started a fad when she painted Sadie Thompson’s lips so heavily. Now everyone’s doing it.’
7 See, for example, a dress in Sears Fall/Winter 1951, described thus: ‘Bodice of Alencon-type lace studded with sparkling rhinestones, American beauty rose and a separate net stole. The skirt is two layers of net of rayon taffeta. $15.98’ or a similar one for Spring/Summer 1952, an ‘Eyelet Embroidered Batiste with becoming draped bodice. $10.98’. Both in Smith, 1998: 9 and 17.
8 The date of the Battle of Little Big Horn, at which Custer died, is one of the few precise dates alluded to in the film.
9 See Premiere.com, ‘Parade of Prada’, 30 June 2006, which calls the film a ‘sartorial supersatire’. Web-link: http://www.premiere.com/Feature/Parade-of-Prada accessed 2 July 2009.
10 My sincere thanks to Alisia Chase for referring me to this provocative article.
11 See http://www.payless.com/PatriciaField/
12 See Thompson, 2006; Field, 2006.
13 A loose count found 64 pages with multiple clothing references, topped only by pages that had multiple citations of designer and brand names – 90 out of a total 391.
14 Hathaway, interviewed in featurette ‘NYC and Fashion’ on The Devil Wears Prada DVD.
15 NBC News Transcripts, 27 June 2006 Tuesday.
16 ‘The same pair of jeans I’d been wearing every day for the past few weeks lay rumpled in a ball near my closet: when I pulled them over my hips, I noticed they were feeling snugger…my body had adjusted itself…and gained back the ten pounds I’d lost. And it didn’t even make me cringe…’ Weisberger 2003: 374.
17 Interestingly, a New York Times article about Vince notes not only its local provenance but its recent foundation: Brenda Weber’s argument receives an unexpected fillip here, as the company was formed after, and as a direct response to, the September 11 terrorist attacks. See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/business/smallbusiness/12vince.html?_r=1&ex=1158206400&e n=ea74b3db2f0126be&ei=5087%0A )
CONCLUSION
1 ‘Isabel’ wants to cut her long hair short and finds after the event that ‘People definitely think I look more sophisticated with short hair. One coworker even commented that I acted like Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada after her transformation from drab to fashionable. I certainly have been walking around with that same sort of energy’ (Litke: 117).
2 ‘Hairstylists and makeup artists often take on the role of fairy godmother…’ (Litke: 118).
3 See http://www.dollinfo.com/pitifulpearl.htm
4 Barbie: Amazing Makeover, by Mary Man-Kong, 2006.