Vanity Fair

I have to give this month's Vanity Fair major props for its 'Ain't We Got Style?' photo spread by Michael Roberts, Norma Jean Roy and Mark Seliger, especially for the fantastic portrait of Mila Kunis as Letty Lynton, the Joan Crawford role/character that has been hard to find for the past seventy-something years since it was court-ordered back into the MGM archives on copyright violations. My next thought, after taking it in, was 'Of all movies, Letty Lynton? Do people actually know about that movie?'

Apparently people know about the dress. "(T)he Letty Lynton dress, with billowing, diaphanous sleeves, became an overnight sensation" says the small text in the upper right corner. Previously, my only visual reference was a small still in the great book Sin in Soft Focus by Mark A. Vieira, which shows Crawford buried in silver fox, leaning against Nils Ascher. Indeed a google image search did turn up some terrific glamour shots of Miss le Seur in the white dress with big sleeves.

A YouTube search turned up something even more exciting: The entire movie, which I don't think has ever been on VHS (and certainly never been on DVD). Until it gets taken down, do seek it out. It's been divided into about ten increments.

I watched the first three or so last night, and I can't say I'm not completely impressed. The overall image quality is better than nothing, but still very dismal and washed out, particularly disappointing when you consider how gorgeous movies from that era at MGM usually looked. (The cinematographer Oliver Marsh, was also responsible for Dancing Lady, San Francisco, The Women and a few of the Thin Man movies.) The sets, by Cedric Gibbons, are disappointingly plain. As to the acting, let's just say nobody won any Oscars. Joanie is good, not great. Her wardrobe is more interesting. Robert Montgomery is charming, and more interesting to watch than Joan's wardrobe. Nils Ascher is good, but not the complicated General Yen you'd like to see. Character problems aside, the actors don't bring a whole lot.

Granted, I'm saying this after watching the equivalent of the first three reels. Maybe Letty Lynton will redeem itself in its second act. By the time I'm finished with my essays for English class, hopefully this faded apparent bootleg will not have been removed from the webitudes. In the meantime, I'm just glad it's available, glad that it didn't suffer the same fate as Convention City. Then again, Convention City was exciting enough to watch than it actually threatened the status quo. Letty Lynton scandalously (allegedly) plagerized an outside source material, but so far that's about the only aspect of it that's still scandalous today.

Studio Glamor

I recently bought a hard-cover edition of the brand new Bonnie and Clyde biography Go Down Together by Jeff Gunn. Since I am (slowly) reading about five different books right now, I haven't gotten very far; I've covered Clyde's harrowingly destitute childhood, but that's about it. I can, however, already recommend it very highly as an engaging and well-written piece of historical literature.

Go Down Together gets extra brownie points for its nice collection of illustrations, mostly rare photographs that relate to the principals' early lives. One of my favorite pictures is a 1925 (or thereabouts) studio portrait of a teenage Bonnie Parker, an item the low-born girl would have had to really save up for. It's a gorgeous picture, and worth contrasting with the famous snapshots of her clowning around with a shotgun. Those pictures were taken about twelve years later, and you can see the effects of a stressful and difficult life on twenty-something Bonnie. The woman in those pictures had aged quickly and no longer had any illusions about life.

The photographic gem below was purchased the same day as the Hawaiian vacation group shot, and from the same vendor. I don't have any information on the woman, but the picture struck me with its simple beauty and wonderful little details (look at those sleeves!) as well as its clarity.