Designing Hollywood's Golden Age

If you find yourself in San Francisco this weekend, I will be speaking at the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show on Designing Hollywood's Golden Age: Art Direction from the Twenties and Thirties. Sponsored by the Art Deco Society of California, I will cover some of the highlights of the period from Garbo's The Kiss and The Single Standard to the musicals of Fred, Ginger and Busby Berkeley and everything in between. Shown above is one of my favorite sets and photographs from Pleasure Crazed (1929).

The lecture will be on Saturday, October 29th at 11:00 a.m. followed by a book signing. For information and tickets, see the show's website here. There will also be a panel discussion and book signings with designers Thomas Jayne, Suzanne Lovell and David Kleinberg on The Curated Home which should also be of interest.

Garbo's The Kiss

Bette Davis in Ex-Lady

And if you are in the Dallas/Denton area, I will be speaking on Wednesday, October 26th at 6:30 p.m. at the University of North Texas on Designs on Film. 

Hope to see you there! Lecturing is easy....it's the packing that is hard....

Photo Credits: MGM

A tip of the hat to the movies

Be it a chapeau, bowler, cap or bonnet, a character in the cinema is easily identified by the hat they wear. Think of Indiana Jones sable fedora,  Bogart and his Borsalino, Garbo making a point in Ninotchka (and starting a major trend), Bonnie's beret, Eliza Doolittle's over the top Edwardian number or Samantha's straw beach hat on steroids worn in Sex and the City and you get the picture.

Such is the topic of the "Cinema with a Hat: Borsalino and Other Stories," a unique exhibition in Milan that explores the connection between headgear and the movies. The exhibition tells the relationship of the hat and its ability to arouse emotions -- fear and seduction for example -- as well as making a show-stopping fashion statement on screen. Much of the displays are also devoted to Borsalino, a name synonymous with the classic men's felt hat.

Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady

Faye Dunaway in Bonne and Clyde

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones

Humphrey Bogart

Kim Cattrall in Sex and the City

The exhibit at the Triennalle di Milano runs now through March 20th so if you can't get away/snowed in/totally unfeasible/no time, I suggest watching Suzy Menke's interview for the New York Times below and enjoy!

Twenties Cinema Style

I spent the past Friday morning at one of my favorite and familiar LA haunts, the Margaret Herrick Library (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) which is a treasure trove of documents, stills, books, drawings and letters of everything imaginable from the cinema. (I am in the process of putting the final photo submissions to bed for my film book to be released next year).

My research led me to some incredible images from sets in the twenties filled with Mediterranean, Turkish and Art Deco influences. (Perhaps one of my favorite designs is the picture perfect Pleasure Crazed (1929) shown above). While film design was certainly in its infancy, it was an exciting time where art met technology, Art Deco fused into Modernism and the most stylish films were aimed at stories about the rich and famous --anything to take the Depression off the minds of the moviegoing audience.

Arches, ornate ironwork, symmetry, gloss and the inimitable Greta Garbo seemed to be the order of the day....

Cobra (1925)

Garbo in The Kiss (1929)

Greta Garbo appeared in several highly stylized films such as A Woman of Affairs and The Kiss. Designed by Cedric Gibbons, The Kiss introduced moviegoers to Art Deco. While not adaptable to every American household in real life, it was a popular film decor.

The Kiss (1929)

Thief of Bagdad (1924)

The big budget extravaganza was introduced in the twenties and you can see the effects designs from the fantastical Thief of Bagdad with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. had on other film interiors of the day.

The Wonder of Women (1929) also designed by Cedric Gibbons

A Woman of Affairs (1928) above and below

Check Turner Movie Classics for these films or you might get lucky on Blockbuster.

Photo Credits: Fox, MGM, Margaret Herrick, Paramount Pictures