Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Designer Double-Dip: Think Pink!

Today we're offering up another one of those fascinating instances in which a costume piece was reused after its initial purpose. We especially enjoy these when they have something to do with particularly favorite movies of ours, as in this case. First, though, we must travel back in time to the Napoleonic era. The 1954 movie Désirée told the tale of a rather simple young girl who falls in love with Napoleon Bonaparte, but is crushed when he winds up engaged to the extravagantly wealthy Josephine. In the photo shown here, deliberately in shadow, the girl is all gussied up as she heads to the palace to see Napoleon and Josephine for the first time since their marriage.
Riding beside our "pink lady" are costars Cameron Mitchell and Elizabeth Sellars.
After she pulls the carriage drapery aside, we can at last get a better look at the title character, Désirée, as portrayed by Jean Simmons. Her cotton candy pink satin cape with white fur trim is the piece in question for this post.
Upon her arrival at the soirée, the cape is taken from Simmons by a doorman and properly stowed away for the evening.
Here we can see what Simmons is wearing underneath as she joins Mitchell and Sellars for their entry into the ballroom. In the inset, Simmons meets Josephine, played by Merle Oberon.
In this shot, Simmons is reunited with Napoleon, portrayed by Marlon Brando. She is dejected by the fact that they cannot be together and is spirited away from the party by another man.
We see the cape once more now that she has departed the palace and is out in the cool night air.
The gentleman who has taken her away from the party and Napoleon is Michael Rennie, who she later marries in the film. This shot gives us a good look at the jewelry Simmons wears with her glamorous ensemble.
Their moonlight exchange on the bridge affords us a look at the back of the cape, which will be a key part of how it will be shot the next time it appears in a movie.
I don't know if it is tall, dapper Rennie or the provocative decoration on that urn (or perhaps both!) that gets Simmons romantic juices flowing, but...
Before it's all over, the two are engaged in a passionate embrace! Costumes for the exquisitely presented film Désirée were done by René Hubert and Charles Le Maire. They couldn't have dreamed then that thirty years later, the pink satin and fur confection shown here would find its way into the top-grossing film of the season.
Alert the media. Jean Simmons' cape is about to make a grand return to the cinema! Have you remembered (or figured out) which film it reappears in?
The throngs of people shown above are all gathered near the red carpet in order to celebrate the gala grand opening of the tallest building in the world, The Glass Tower. Yes, the movie is 1974's The Towering Inferno, a disaster blockbuster which was so gargantuan it required (a historic) two studios working together in order to make it. Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox (the makers of Désirée) teamed up for the project. The arrival of San Francisco mayor Jack Collins and his wife Sheila Matthews (soon to be Sheila Allen) is when we at last glimpse the cape.
Perhaps it's indelicate to mention, but the cape has a tad more trouble staying closed on Ms. Matthews than it did on Ms. Simmons. Matthews was the girlfriend of "Master of Disaster" Irwin Allen and appeared in many of his TV and movie projects. They wed after this.
Here we see the back of the cape as the Mayor and his wife make their way through the crowd of reporters on the red carpet.
Inferno's costume designer was Allen's longtime associate Paul Zastupnevich, who presumably designed a pink gown to coordinate with this cape (or who later picked the cape from Fox's considerable supply of costume archives because it went with the dress.)
It is the mayor's duty to cut the ribbon at the ceremony and he's given a huge pair of gold scissors with which to perform the task.
Matthews looks on proudly as her husband dedicates The Glass Tower as "Tallest building in the world!"
You know I scrutinized Matthews' earrings to see if they were also the same ones Simmons wore three decades prior, but they are not.
The brand new scissors aren't exactly sharp and Collins has trouble getting the ribbon cut! ("Whoa ho ho... We'll make it!")
Happy times. But they aren't to last...
Here we get our first good look at the shocking pink schmatte that Zastupnevich put together for Matthews. (God knows she wasn't going to be slipping into Simmons' old gold number!) Everyone's looking up because the tower has been lit from top to bottom as part of the ceremony.
Another glimpse of the cape just before Matthews (shown here with Susan Blakely) enters the scenic elevator. 
The ride up in the scenic elevator is a hell of a lot more comfortable than the ride down, and - though exciting - it's also far less eventful! This is the last (known) time that we ever see this cape. Judging by its condition, it's clear that the wardrobe department at Fox took considerable care of their pieces in order for this twenty year-old item to still look this good.
The Towering Inferno is a Top 5 favorite film of ours so we're going to continue on for a little bit longer, even though we've already exhausted the point of this post! Now in the Promenade Room, Matthews' cape is presumably tucked away in a coat check someplace. Note at far left, the lady in red. She was "bun lady" in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) in which she wore yellow chiffon. In Inferno, she escapes death in the scenic elevator in a brief scene that was cut from the movie, but appeared in the four-hour expanded TV version.
Here, builder William Holden explains to the crowd that there is a fire, fifty floors below them. At far right is Leoda Richards, our very favorite movie extra!
Long after this, Sheila Matthews Allen liked three-dimensional floral appliques on her clothing such as what was done on this gown.
Why do you always make me prove everything?! LOL (This was at a premiere of the execrable Poseidon, 2006, which Ms. Allen executive produced...)
In the movie, this scene between Collins and Matthews come before she is called up onto the roof for a (bungled) helicopter rescue yet her hair is not as stiffly coiffed as it was and her earrings are gone. Not sure what she went through that we didn't witness.
After the fiery and ferociously windy helicopter rescue attempt, we see a visible change in her appearance. Now she's set to head down to the ground in the scenic elevator, which is working merely from gravity after most of the power has gone out.
Nice try, but no one's going to outdo Faye Dunaway in the portentous worry department!
Note that even before the elevator is knocked off its track by an explosion, Matthews' dress is already dirty and mangled. (She was barely on the roof and not anywhere near the flames of the copter crash.)
Anyway, she gets a primo spot behind La Dunaway once the elevator is hanging helpless with only the inept facial musings of Mike Lookinland to compete with.
With him having given up trying to remain in character, she is free to try to out-ham Miss D. with her fretful emoting, but I for one have never been able to look away from Dunaway at any point of her screen time in this movie. Ha ha!
Once safely on the ground, it takes a battery of firemen to get Matthews out of the chamber of doom. By now her dress has really had it, along with her hair.
This sequence has wind machines pounding the cast, with hair and chiffon whipping around.
As Matthews is lowered onto a gurney, she's got one final opportunity to act with Dunaway before being wheeled off.
Suddenly the air is dead calm!! No more blowing wind as these two have a moment with one another...!
Anyway, this concludes our presentation on the pink satin cape with white fur trim which diligently did its duty in two films made two decades apart from one another. By the way, I tried desperately to somehow connect the two, either through Jean Simmons and Sheila Matthews or any other way, and the best that I could do was take note that both Matthews and Simmons' carriage-mate Cameron Mitchell had roles (not together) in Viva Knievel! (1977.) Matthews was a nun running an orphanage and Mitchell was a bad guy! LOL (And no, I don't think that's Debbie Reynold's habit from The Singing Nun, 1966, that Matthews is wearing!)
Pink chiffon and Napoleonic finery have been traded in for starched white linen and denim with puka shells...! (That's cuckoo Marjoe Gortner with Mitchell, not Evel Knievel.)

11 comments:

  1. *Twenty years later (not thirty); *Mike Lookinland (not Todd). :-)

    It makes you wonder where the costumes that didn't get recycled finally ended up. Goodwill?

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  2. Oh dear... I'm slipping. Or overworked. Or overtired! Pick one. I'll fix it.

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  3. Love these kinds of connections. Perhaps I don't pay sufficient attention to the details but I would never notice these kinds of things. So glad you do!

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  4. I don't know how you do this, do you have costume recognition software? it's amazing! Reading about "Desiree" I thought for sure it would be another period film so was flabbergasted when it was "The Towering Inferno" Oddly I remember the pink dress that she is wearing under the cape, having watched it about two years ago. I remember thinking that the character looked a little common (well, next to Faye's Grecian Goddess) and was a touch out of style the way that older women could be back then. Her hair is a little 60's with the wiglet perched on top. They sure did take good care of their costumes, that cape looks new.
    Bobby Brady was in a movie!
    I didn't recognize Cameron Mitchell young but I sure did older in the Kneival movie. That man was in everything when I was a kid. You have an eagle eye.

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  5. I LOVED SM in Inferno and told her so when I met her at the first Poseidon gathering. She immediately said "Ugh! that pink dress". I of course assured her she looked FABULOUS! I assumed she took off her earring and bracelet and gave them to her husband as they were probably supposed to be real diamonds. She is the Mayor's wive and the have a safety deposit box!

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  6. Thanks Scooter! Glad you liked this.

    Gingerguy, on a side note, I have to say that "Desiree" is an exquisitely appointed movie. Merle Oberon is jawdroppingly glamorous! Marlon is a handsome Napoleon although I'm told he wouldn't take the part seriously and goofed around with it. As for Sheila... I think the fact that her dress was sleeveless sort of startled me. Nowadays, there are a lot more heavy people (she really doesn't seem THAT overweight by today's standards - especially from what I see in the midwest), but at the time she seemed gargantuan to me, especially next to the other svelte women. So the bare arms on her were a surprise. And I suppose her updo started out better than it ended after being beaten by the wind and looking a bit dilly (like a top-know ponytail?) Cameron Mitchell became an incredible ham on screen as he aged...!!!

    Poseidon Pete, I didn't dislike Sheila, but I have read SO MANY accounts of how she let down people (and this isn't even her fault) who read the book and apparently the Mayor's wife was more steadfast and heroic than how she came off in the movie -- fretful, frowed and barely helping out. I would have to reread The Glass Inferno to make my own determination. How neat that you met her!!! I actually thought the deep pink dress looked pretty nice with her tan complexion. A lighter shade of pink would have been sort of Pepto-Bismol. :-)

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  7. Very, very cool Poseidon!!

    I saw a snippet of Desiree recently on TCM but unfortunately not that particular sequence. To be honest while I ADORE both Jean Simmons and Merle Oberon (both are in my top tier of favorites-i.e. my top 100-whose filmographies I'm trying to complete and I'm so close with both-Merle 2 left (Thunder in the East and her final Interval) and Jean just 1 (oddly not one of her older films but an 80's flick starring Chris Lemmon of all people and Lea Thompson called Going Undercover which sounds like junk but the completist itch must be scratched!) and am a history buff I found Desiree a bit of a struggle to get through.

    It was richly appointed to be sure and Merle gave a good account of Josephine with Jean lovely and fine in the lead but I've never been an acolyte to the cult of Brando and a little of him goes a long way for me. It has been years though since I sat down and gave it a proper watch though and now with the impetus of looking for that scene and the cape it might be time for a reassessment.

    I'd have to be a robot not to remember Sheila Matthews in Towering Inferno! She POPPED in that dress and cape. True she was a plus size girl and with that hair and the pink she made an impression when she entered the scene but then the mayor's wife on such an occasion would pour on the glamour. Probably thanks to Irwin she also never became THAT disheveled, though the hair took a beating. She and Jack Collins as the Mayor share one of my favorite scenes in the entire picture, the tender interchange between them when she is unable to reach their daughter on the phone. They play it in a very low-key real way providing a quiet moment amongst all the noise. Surprising in a way too for two minorish characters to have a spotlight scene but that again was probably courtesy of Allen's fondness for Sheila.

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  8. Hi Poseidon just popping back in to say by a happy coincidence FXM ran Desiree today and I was able to sit and watch it. Of course I kept an eagle eye out for that cape and noticed it instantly even in shadow in the coach thanks to your prompting! It did look sensational on Jean (so beautiful here!), and I noticed she had pink gloves to match! The costume department certainly took good care of it for it to emerge a couple of decades later in such pristine condition.

    I liked the film more this time than I had previously. Probably because I focused more on Jean and Merle (who was really wonderful as the sad Josephine) and the incredible sumptuousness of the sets than moody Brando. So lush!! Oh and while I was keeping an eye out for all things pink who should catch my eye but Carolyn Jones clad in a pink silk robe as a lady of the court!! Actually the supporting cast was better than I remembered with some of my favorite character actresses, Isobel Elsom, Cathleen Nesbitt and Evelyn Varden, tucked in it.

    Now I suppose there is nothing for it but for me to watch The Towering Inferno again to compare the cloak! :-)

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  9. Joel, so glad you got to see "Desiree" again and somewhat reassess its virtues. I don't think it's a particularly amazing movie myself, but considering the splendor of it and the strong cast (and those pants I love from that time period! LOL), it's not so bad. I have a longtime friend who, for some reason, has a heavy, heavy aversion to Jean Simmons, so I always feel like I'm betraying him whenever I watch her, but I actually like her just fine. She has one of my favorite hooty lines that I have used in real life a few times. It's from a movie - which I'm sure you've seen - called "This Earth is Mine" with Rock Hudson. It's NEVER shown anywhere nowadays. Anyway, she gets all upset with him and says, "I hope something dreadful happens to you!" I loved that! Ha ha! (And his vineyard promptly burns down!) As for Merle. I HAVE "Interval" on VHS. I gleaned it on one of my junk dives that I enjoy so much. It's fascinatingly bad. I can watch her do almost anything, though, because she's so unusual and image-conscious. I hope you get to see it sometime soon. It drives me NUTS when movies are unavailable, though sooner or later they seem to surface.... Thank you!

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  10. Poseidon,

    I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!! This Earth is Mine! It isn't shown anywhere nowadays that's sadly true but when I was a kid it was frequently the Movie of the Week during which it was shown thrice daily for seven days! So I can't even begin to guess how many times I watched it then. I adored all its BIG emotions writ large in gorgeous Technicolor and set amongst the vines if California.

    It might be the first place I saw Claude Rains and it was during one of the viewings with my mother and grandmother, Nana that she (Nana) told me that she had met Claude frequently because he was a friend of a wealthy couple from our area. She was a young widow with five daughters to support so from time to time in addition to her regular job she would serve for the couple when they had dinner parties which Claude would attend on occasion. She said he had the most beautiful manners and always made a point of greeting her and asking after my mother and aunts. I was already a fan but I've always held a special place for him because of that.

    Aside from him and my beloved Jean (so strange your friend has such a strong aversion to her-that's a new one on me usually people say how much they like her ladylike ways and impeccable speech-but we all have out likes and dislikes) I was crazy for the vicious Dorothy McGuire! This is another case where this is where I became aware of her and so was rather shocked later when I found that this role was very much out of her regular wheelhouse of demure and kindly women. I was not in the least shocked however years later to find out that Barbara Stanwyck had been offered the part first and turned it down. Now that would have been spot on.

    I'd say you could probably find it online but in my quest for those obscure titles I know that is not always the case. However sometimes you do get lucky....just last week after years of searching I finally found two of my Grail titles:

    The Bachelor's Daughters with the dream cast of Claire Trevor, Billie Burke, Jane Wyatt, Ann Dvorak and Gail Russell (it was my final one of the tragic Gail's films to complete her filmography!) and even more exciting my final Linda Darnell film Angels of Darkness with Giulietta Masina and Valentina Cortese!! It was in Italian, which I do not speak, but I didn't let stand in my way! Plus the story, they were ladies of the pavement and we suffered through their trials and tribulations, was easy enough to follow.

    I can't say either were lost masterpieces, and I preferred Linda's other Italian made film-It Happens in Roma with Vittorio De Sica to Angels, but they were pleasant films that should be more widely available.

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  11. I can't believe I went on and on about This Earth is Mine and never said that I remember that scene you mentioned when Jean tell Rock she wishes something dreadful happens to him very well! It was the lead up to the big climatic moment in the film when everything came to a head! I also remember Rock having a super cool car though I can't recall all the particulars but I know he was zipping all over the place in it, it was a convertible of course!

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