----- Original Message -----
From: "Sylvia Rognstad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Historical Costume" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 12:30 AM
Subject: [h-cost] Bad historical costume movies
Since we always rant so much about how bad Hollywood does historical
costumes in movies, here's a question that ought to get a lot of replies.
I am teaching a class in the costume and fashion industries and thought it
would be fun to show some clips of costumes from movies, and not just
good examples but some really bad ones. For instance, I happened to see
on tv a bit of an old movie from the 1950s a couple weeks ago called
"Princess of the Nile" which took place in the Middle East and the
costumes were so bad they were really laughable. The women were wearing
high spiked heels for instance. So I'm wondering if you all can name
some other old movies with really anachronistic or just plain wrong
historical costumes.
Sylrog
Actually I did a presentation on historical films as a genre a few years
ago, I did a direct comparison between 'The King and I' (1950s musical
version with Deborah Kerr wearing hoops as wide as she is tall) and 'Anna
and the King' (pretty darned good costuming and the story was a major
improvement on the 1950s version, though Hollywood still needed the love
interest so they brought the King's age down from over 60 to 30 something,
both versions are still banned in Thailand) I showed the equivalent scene in
both films (where Anna first meets the children) and pointed out the
differences (like the fact that _The King and I_ was clearly shot on a
Hollywood set whereas _Anna and the King_ had been filmed on location,
although they couldn't get filming permission from the Thai government and
had to film in Singapore). Although The King and I is not as really awful as
some other movies of that era the direct comparison is kinda nice.
Elizabeth
--------------------------------------------
Elizabeth Walpole
Canberra Australia
ewalpole[at]tpg.com.au
http://au.geocities.com/amiperiodornot/
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