MovieChat Forums > Everybody Sing (1938) Discussion > Very large hoop skirts

Very large hoop skirts

posted 7 years ago by richspenc
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In the big number near the end, I like how large and wide the skirts were of the girls lined up in the back row on stage while Judy sang. Those types of very big wide skirts were common at classy fancy parties, events, or shows of or for the elite back in the early 1900s. Those types of skirts were a sign of elegance, romantic beauty, and gentle old fashioned grace. I've also noticed that the women wearing those types of fancy large wide skirts in these old films often also sang in a soft beautiful operatic way. The two things went together like silver and gold. They did that here in "Everybody sing", they did that in the show musical section of the Marx's "A day at the races", and they did that in several other 30s and early 40s films. I personally love it.

[–] richspenc 7 years ago

Also in the song "I only have eyes for you" in "Dames". The part where there are about 20 duplicates of Ruby Keeler all wearing the big long skirts and singing in that sweet soft operatic way. The two things always went together back then. It was the old fashioned image of females with large long wide skirts while singing operatically equalled fancy elegance and romantic beauty. Now the only exception to this I saw was in " Ziegfeld girl" during the song "You stepped out of a dream", there were about six girls sitting down in those wide large skirts but they were not singing. I know that they would've sang that way if they did sing. Its kinda fun to notice these little things in old films that many people don't notice or think about