This installment of Cinema Wedding Gowns takes a look at what one wears to marry the right-hand man of a prominent mobster - that also happens to be based on a Shakespeare play.
It's just a quiet afternoon wedding with no guests - and the groom has already missed his wedding multiple times due to his *clears throat* job. A simple midi-length sheath in ivory satin is satisfactory.
A fingertip length tulle veil attached to a beaded hat frames the face nicely and helps soften an angry face when he's late. Again.
A dramatic, beaded, stand-up collar should also help... maybe
For the first time in several years, the choice of film - To Catch a Thief (1955) - for the 10th Annual Royal Film Performance was, aside from being an American film, non-controversial and a welcome change for the Royals. An unsigned memo about the event read, "Lieutenant Colonel Charteris, an Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen said that Her Majesty had enjoyed the film (as I did myself) and was happy with the revised arrangement . . . She had particularly welcomed the elimination of the stage show and the fact that, for her, the whole occasion had lasted for no more than 2 hours 40 minutes" (source). If you recall, the previous year's choice of Beau Brummell had so disgusted everyone that the Queen reportedly threatened to cancel the Royal Film Performance altogether.
The Canberra Times, 9/21/55
Even though it was an American film, To Catch a Thief was not without ties to England. Both its director (Alfred Hitchcock) and leading man (Cary Grant) had been born in England. The leading lady was Grace Kelly, who would marry into the Monagasque Royal Family the following year. However, only Hitchcock attended the royal event on October 31, 1955.
This 48 second video shows Norman Hartnell in attendance, who designed many gowns for the Queen, including her wedding and coronation gowns.
Another video of the stars. You can see Katy Jurado at 0:41, but her name is not mentioned. At 1:42 you see Rossano Brazzi bowing to the Queen.
Held at the Odeon Theatre, stars in attendance included Ava Gardner, Rossano Brazzi, Diana Dors, Gina Lollobrigida, Katy Jurado, Anna Neagle, and Jack Hawkins. Some of the star's attire were deemed inappropriate to be worn in front of the Royals.
You would imagine that such and occasion would get a fair amount of press. However, a more shocking royal event overshadowed everything.
If you know anything about Princess Margaret, it is that she fell in love with her father's equerry, Peter Townsend. They wanted to marry but, as he was divorced, this would cause a big problem, as the Queen was the head of the church which did not recognize divorce. Margaret was told to wait until she was of age that she didn't need the Queen's permission to marry but, when the time came, Margaret gave him up rather than lose her royal status. She released a statement on Oct. 31, the same day as the Royal Variety Performance, that read:
I would like it to be known that I have decided not to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend. I have been aware that, subject to my renouncing my rights of succession, it might have been possible for me to contract a civil marriage. But mindful of the Church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before any others.
This of course became the Big Royal Story. Several articles commented on the fact that Margaret, understandably, did not attend the performance that evening. The Queen Mother was also absent.
The Canberra Times, 11/2/55
Looking at the Queen, you'd never know that this event took place on the same day.
The caption reads: "Film stars from five countries were presented to the Queen at the
Royal Command film show last week. But the Queen, magnificently gowned, stole the show."
Phffft! That was, according to Walter Winchell, the sound a marriage made when it fell apart (he used it when Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio split). And it was borrowed by Columbia as the title of Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon's second on-screen pairing, after the very successful It Should Happen to You (1954). It didn't matter that the critics called it the "worst-named film in Hollywood history," or that no one knew how to pronounce it. The ads simply encouraged people "Don't say it. See it!" and hoped that the unusual title would get the movie-going public talking.
It also had studion heads talking. Jack Lemmon remembered "an 'emergency' break that was called while we were filming a big ballroom scene. Mark Robson [director] had to shut everything down while he went to a front-office meeting. There must have been a hundred extras, plus all the technicians, just sitting around waiting for two and a half hours with money just pouring down the tubes. When Mark finally came back, he was in hysterics. I asked him what the meeting had been about, what was so urgent? 'It was a meeting about a title change,' he said. 'They changed it from Phfffft to Phffft. They took out an f.' "
Nina (Holliday) and Robert (Lemmon) are a couple who, after eight years of marriage, can barely speak without getting into an argument. Nina asks for a divorce and gets no objection from Robert, who claims he's been trying to get up the courage himself to ask for one for the past six months. A few weeks later, when Nina comes out of the courtroom in Reno, people congratulate her and comment on: the nice day, the lovely ceremony, how they always cry at divorces - all sounding as if they were describing a wedding. Robert meanwhile reminisces about how he met his wife to his best friend, Charlie Nelson (Jack Carson). He has moved into his friend's bachelor pad.
They even used Winchell's name for the fake newspaper clipping in the movie!
They both go out on dates that end disastrously, she with the star of the television show she writes (the actor wants her to write out the actress who the show is named after and make him the star) and he with a young lady friend of Charlie's, Janis (Kim Novak) - you can watch part of it here. After that experience, both Nina and Robert claim they are happy by themselves but sit around not knowing what to do. "Find something to do!" their friends encourage them. "Take dance lessons! Grow a mustache!"
Nina and Robert both taking dance lessons, not realizing the other is just on the other side of the wall.
They take this advice and end up running into each other on the dance floor. A mambo gives them the chance to show off their new dancing skills to each other and ends in a sort of dance off. You can watch the scene here. It stirs their feelings for each other and they get together under the pretext of doing Nina's taxes (Robert is her tax man). They quickly discover that neither has changed and part angrily.
Once again they attempt to enjoy themselves on a date, her with Robert's friend Charlie, and he with Janis again. Whereas Nina immediately regrets her choice of date, Robert is getting along fine with Janis, until she tells him that she had a date with Charlie but he canceled to go out with some "writer up in Westport."
Robert immediately heads to Westport, but finds Charlie gone when he arrives. He listens in on the telephone and overhears Nina telling her mother that she still loves Robert. You can guess how it ends :)
Kim Novak was the breakout star of the film. After seeing her performance in Pushover, her part was built up, much to the annoyance of Holliday. "I've just seen the most incredible thing - the new Marilyn Monroe. She's going to steal my next picture!" she exclaimed to a friend after sneaking into a screening. And it was indeed Novak whom everyone talked about. According to the biography, Kim Novak - Reluctant Goddess by Peter H. Brown, there were "endless lighting tests...to insure that her hair became a platinum halo while a suggestion of shadow masked Kim's mouth and chin, allowing her eyes to seem more luminous. Hairstylist Helen Hunt employed three shades of blond in order to lend a modernized touch to the old Harlow hairstyle. And, while Judy's gowns were standard (several of them coming from the wardrobes of past productions), Jean Louis glorified Kim with the elegant, draped sheaths which became a Novak trademark and accidentally started and international trend."
UPDATE: Look what I came across!!! A publicity photo of Kim Novak wearing the same gold jumpsuit worn by Holliday in the film. There was no information with this photo. Was it to publicize Phffft? Was it taken before Holliday wore it? Did Holliday see the photo?
Her appearance wasn't the only thing making waves. She could act too! Jack Lemmon told reporters after the premier, "It was a good film, and a lot of the credit goes to Kim Novak. When I went to the sneak preview of the picture, even I couldn't take my eyes off her. On the set, Kim was brilliant from the first, and, the damnedest thing, she didn't even know she was being funny. I think she turned in a classic comedy performance."
They certainly gave her some great dialogue, which she delivered in a style compared to Marylin Monroe's but with her own unique spin. She deftly delivered lines such as "Here, put your hot one against my cold one and make my cold one hot. That means give me a light," and "Hey, would you mind if I sat on your tiger skin for a minute - I'm just dying to try it?" And when Robert apologizes for being out of ice for her whisky she replies, "Oh, don't worry about it. I'd just as soon have a little straighty." Then there is this delightful screwball moment:
There is also the moment when Robert gives Janis an orchid to which she naively asks, Gee, let's see - where can we pin it?"
The critics singled out her performance and wrote glowingly of her:
Kim Novak puts across a zesty show as a dizzy, accessible blonde out to cure Lemmon of post-connubial blues
~ Variety
Kim Novak, as the gabby blonde, is the big news of this picture. In Phffft, she really proves herself as a trooper who puts across laugh lines with a sureness which reminds you of Jean Harlow at her best in Platinum Blonde.
~ Hollywood Reporter
Phffft! changed Novak's life. She went into a sneak preview as an unknown and when she came out moviegoers gathered around her, asking for her autograph. Competing studios clamored for her and her fan mail jumped to 3,500 letters a week. I guess you could say Phffft was also the sound of her life changing forever.
This month's gorgeous 1950s wedding gown is from The Power and the Prize (1956) starring Robert Taylor. It was designed by Helen Rose and worn by Niki Dantine (credited as Nicola Michaels).
The gown is strapless with a sweetheart neckline and sheer overlay with a high illusion neckline. It looks like the bodice goes straight into the skirt without a seam (perhaps constructed of long panels). The lace applique flows straight down from the bodice to the skirt. It also decorates the neckline. Note the floral headband with the attached tulle veil edged with floral applique.
The back of the gown. It's difficult to tell if there is applique on the back as well and how far down the skirt it goes.
The voluminous skirt with what appears to be a short train as she steps up on a stool.
A gorgeous silhouette. It appears that the skirt has several layers for fullness.
Imagine having a wedding gown this gorgeous and then the groom going on a business trip and falling in love with someone else? Actually he was marrying you more for a career move and you didn't love him that way anyway as he was older than you and had known you since you were a kid...
The veil with its delicate edging of appliqued flowers. It appears to be fingertip length.
A look at the undergarments that help give the skirt it's fullness.
The controversy over the poor choice film of the past several years for the Royal Film Performance came to a head in 1954, with the showing of Beau Brummell, starring Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, and Peter Ustinov. It portrayed an embarrassing time in Britain's history and the Monarchy. It also alluded more recent Royal scandals and mishaps, with parallels to the Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII who abdicated in 1936) and Wallis Simpson. This article outlined the uncomfortable moments:
The scene where the "mad King George III" (Robert Morley) tries to strangle his son, the Prince of Wales (Peter Ustinov), was awkwardly, and noticeably, cut from the film.
"Whoever chose it deserves the Order of the Royal Boot" (source).
The Daily Express also wrote, "Why aren't the organizers satisfied with their yearly achievement of boring the Queen with what they choose to show her? Why this year did they decide to embarrass her instead? Fancy giving your patronage at a film show in which you have to watch [...] your ancestors going mad," [etc.].
Another article asked, "What on earth persuaded the organizers to choose this of all films to show the Queen? Why didn't the Queen's advisers point out that it made fun of the Royal line and made the monarchy into a clown's act? Did the Queen go to the theatre last night, not knowing what she was in for?"
Peter Ustinov, whose portrayal as the Prince of Wales/George IV was part of the controversy, had his own idea of why the film was chosen - "because the committee in charge of such events decided that nothing interested royalty more than royalty. It was only when Robert Morley as George III attempted to strangle me - a most realistic performance - that suddenly a hideous doubt sprang up in the minds of those responsible that the sight of one of the Queen's not-too-distant ancestors attempting to strangle another one in a fit of insanity was perhaps not the happiest of diversions for Her Majesty, and the press the next day bubbled with that particular form of pious hypocrisy which has marked all recent British scandals, large or small" (Dear Me, Peter Ustinov, 1977).
The Duke of Edinburgh was also shocked at the choice. The royals understandable left quickly after the film. I would love to know what the Prince Philip's actual words were ;)
It even led to accusations of the Royal patronage being exploited by the movie magnates in order to line their own pockets, as a film that was attended by the Royals earned as much as £50,000 extra.
The Queen is famous for "keeping calm and carrying on" but she had finally had enough. In 2010, recently declassified documents confirmed the 1954 headlines. Winston Churchill's Private Secretary, David Pitblado, wrote in a memo, "The Prime Minister asked me to look into this when he returned from his audience with the Queen. The Queen had told him what a bad film it was and he, on his own initiative, wanted to see what could be done about it for the future." Another memo written by Sir Frank Lee, the Permanent Secretary at the Board of Trade, said, "There is no doubt at all that the quality of the films shown to HM on the last four occasions (which I have also had the misfortune to attend) ranged from the mediocre down to the vulgar and distressing. The whole evening is a long and garish ordeal; it is not surprising that both HM herself and most outside critics should ask whether the selection of the main film to be shown could not be radically improved." You can read the Daily Mail article here.
Suggestions for this improvement were reported in this article:
Producer Alexander Korda, suggested an independent committee that would choose something "more worthy of the occasion which would make the event a more glittering occasion and may be more entertaining for Her Majesty" (source).
There were even rumors of the Queen banning future Royal Film Performances.
It was decided that a someone from outside the movie business would have the final say in the choice of picture. They would also eliminate the stage show and shorten the "meet and greet," so that the length of the evening would be around two hours and forty minutes. This proved to solve the problem, and the Queen was delighted with the choice of film for 1955 (check back next month to see what it was!) and the new shorter format.
Despite the choice of film, the event, which took place on November 11 at the Empire Theatre, was a glittering event. Stars in attendance included Stewart Granger and his wife, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, and some of the usual British stars that attended annually: John Mills, Anna Neagle, Jack Hawkins, and Michael Redgrave. Hollywood stars included Jane Russell, Shelley Winters. Jack Hawkins' son, Nicholas, was chosen to hand the bouquet to HM. J. Arthur Rank, of Rank Films, was also present.
Jack Hawkins, the narrator, calls Stewart Granger "Jimmy Granger." Granger's real name was James Stewart. He understandably couldn't use that name in pictures ;)
Their reactions to meeting the Queen were included in this article (sadly, Russell didn't write about her second Royal Film Performance in her autobiography and Winters merely mentions she attended in hers).
