The backless, halter-neck satin dress worn by Claire Dodd was described as "ugly and vulgar". Yet, I thought it was the most beautiful gown in the movie. Just lose that useless strap across the back, any almost anyone can wear it. It certainly made Ms. Dodd look good.
shareIt looked even better on the model....she had the chest for it! :-D
shareI agree that Claire Dodd's gown was the most beautiful one in the movie, and she had a nicer figure than either Irene Dunne or Ginger Rogers (who were both too skinny and curveless). What I didn't understand was that Claire's gown, which was described as indecent, was less bare in the back than many of the gowns in the fashion show!
Too bad Claire's part was so badly written. . . I actually felt sorry for her! They should have made her part a more sympathetic one (and given her a love interest) like Ann Miller's part in the remake of "Roberta," "Lovely to Look At." (In the remake, Ann lost Howard Keel to Kathryn Grayson, but she did get Red Skelton in the end!)After all, if Randolph Scott's character claimed to be in love with her, wouldn't she have at least some good qualities?
Claire Dodd had no figure at all. She is stick figure. That dress didn't look good on her at all, simply because she couldn't fill it.
Ginger Rogers had a nice shape. Take a look at her in the early scene in Gold Diggers of 1933 where she gets her costumed confiscated and ripped off of her. She looks mighty fine! Certainly not va-va-voom curvy, but still a nice looking female form. Claire Dodd was built like an Erte model - long and stick-like.
My guess is that John is a bit of a prude and that's why he doesn't like the dress. Since he's the All-American leading man in this very cute and fresh tale, it wouldn't do for him to be drooling over lots of exposed flesh.
The shame of it is that the studio could easily have afforded to recut the dress to a better fit for Dodd. It looked great on the bustier, curvier model, but obviously didn't cling quite so well on Dodd. A good dressmaker could have cured that. In the movie they say it is the same dress, but that doesn't mean it has to be literally true.
I agree that the black gown looked good but I would add that I thought most of the clothes in this movie were hideous. Irene Dunne's costumes were grotesque (IMO).
Claire Dodd looked pretty good in her clothes--she could carry them off. Ginger Rogers managed mysteriously to look good in anything, even that poodle suit, and divine in the black dress at the finale. Maybe it's that she keeps moving....?
I really enjoyed Dodd in this movie (she plays a similar role, maybe a little more complex and interesting, in Follow the Fleet). As soon as I saw Randolph Scott pull out her picture I was looking forward to a super-bitch and she did not disappoint. She also seemed to be enjoying herself.
The gown was absolutely gorgeous and it's worth mentioning that in the final "fashion show" there are two black gowns extremely similar to it - and one looks like a near duplicate of it!
Claire Dodd may have been playing a snooty socialite but I have to agree with her those fashions she was shown were pretty underwhelming for a major Paris fashion shop and way too conservative even for the 1930's.
The whole dress bit is a bit incredible. Old-fashioned Randolph Scott finds the dress too racy but surely it wasn't the only backless gown in the collection - there's a gag early in the picture where Fred Astaire comments on Roberta's sexy fashions "naked if you were them, naked if you don't". Later when confronted about the gown and her selling it to Claire, Irene snaps she thought it was perfect for her since it was "vulgar" - ummm, Irene dear didn't you design the gown?? What designer knocks their own fashions?
I have to disagree with you though about the ladies' figures; Ginger Rogers had a gorgeous figure in the 1930's and she's an absolute vision in her final dance number in yet another adaption of this black gown. Irene was definately not "skinny", curveless perhaps, but she was not particular slender.
i dunno why dodd's dress was considered ugly and vulgar as well. seemed ok to me in comparison to the other dresses.
cheers!
I thought it looked fabulous on the model (Kay Sutton), but that the costumers purposely made it look a bit droopy on "other-woman" Claire. Luckily, Claire did get to play more sympathetic parts in some other pictures, and was really very appealing. I see that she retired from movies while still very young.
I agree that the front of the dress was lovely; just an adjustment to the back, as Stephanie (Irene Dunne) initially suggested, would do it. I almost got the feeling that the Randolph Scott character was reacting more to the model's figure than to the dress! And I don't know WHAT to make of Astaire's comment ("just like a peeled eel").
I agree wholeheartedly - that black dress looked FINE on the model (Liane) who originally modeled it (BTW I believe the girl who played the model was Jane Hamilton, not Kay Sutton, but no quibble... the important thing is, she looked hot enough to melt butter). As to Astaire's comment, it was kind of an odd and clumsy comment, but I think maybe he meant that she looked really really slick. Maybe a peeled eel is the equivalent of cat's pajamas or bee's knees.
"the important thing is, she looked hot enough to melt butter)"
Agree, frozen butter, even with the strap....Not liking the gown must have been a 1935 'thing'. Was unfamiliar with Claire Dodd, except must have seen her as a Goldwyn Girl in 'Whoopie'.
"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
I think the men didn't like the gown because they didn't know what they were talking about! He was a football coach!
It was lovely. I wish I would have watched the whole thing though.
It’s good to dream
<<<she looked hot enough to melt butter>>>
So much so, that you wonder how showing her cleavage in it with the censors and the Catholic Legion of Decency around, didn't get their undies in a wad over it.
I guess I'm the only one who agreed with the characters in thinking the dress was ugly and skanky. I almost made me want to vomit. I'm glad he insisted it be taken out of the collection. I agree with Mr. Kent that clothes should be "not so naked". Or as Astaire's character puts it "clothes should clothe. It's more stimulating to the imagination". :)
share Randolph Scott's character was wayyyy too conservative... it was a beautiful dress! It looked much better on the model though (maybe because she had more curves). But the best dress was the one Ginger was wearing at the end, she looked simply stunning in it.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2u5aqeg.jpg
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I just looked back in here, and realized that several months ago I somehow managed to my reply in the wrong thread. So here it is cut / pasted over:
One thing that is worth remembering: this movie was stuck in a real Catch 22 situation with that dress (although the book that gave rise to that idiomatic expression hadn't been written yet).
The beginning of the serious enforcement of the Production Code was in July, 1934. This movie came out in March, 1935.
I don't know this movie's shooting schedule or the dates of various milestones in the pre-production. However, my bet would be that the screenplay was written Pre-Code but the actual production (and certainly the post-production / editing) was done after the Hays Office had established power over what could be released.
That would leave them with a script that specified a dress that was "vulgar" and showed too much skin, while shooting under censorship rules that would not allow them to show a dress that was vulgar or showed too much skin (at least not when the dress was being worn). Note that in Bride of Frankenstein (which came out just about a month after Roberta) the Hays Office forced them to completely re-edit the opening sequence to remove all shots that allowed the audience to get a clear look at Elsa Lanchester's chest. That was because her period accurate early 19th century gown was deemed too low cut to be shown in a movie. So even some costuming that had no intent of vulgarity couldn't get past the movie censors. What chance would a dress have when it was actually *trying* to be "too vulgar"?
My guess is that during the writing they were envisioning a much more low cut, cleavage revealing dress, possibly also with the skirt slit well up the thigh as well. Dresses with navel deep V necks and such were worn (by some) during the "Roaring Twenties", so it's not completely impossible that a (fictional) couture house might show a revival of that kind of style as an exclusive cocktail dress in the mid-1930s (and within the context of an American movie the idea could be blamed on French / European permissiveness).
When it comes to the dress as we saw it in the movie: I suppose that for the Depression Era 1930s, the lower back could have been considered a little lower cut than was in good taste.
From my standpoint there was nothing vulgar about the dress. It was outstanding especially on the woman who modeled the dress, she was extremely attractive adding a sense of allure.
"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not".
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