MovieChat Forums > Lydia (1941) Discussion > Something I didn't get

Something I didn't get

posted 11 years ago by npaxton-3
6 replies | jump to latest

This movie was supposed to have taken place in 1897. But when Lydia remembers her idyllic month with Richard in the cabin by the sea, they are dressed in contemporary (for 1941) clothing and her hair is shoulder length and casually coiffed. Is this to signify that she remembers it as if it were yesterday, kind of like a timeless love? Since the other gentlemen suitors each remember a different Lydia, perhaps her memory of this great love in reality was not so wonderful. After all, she only glympsed him a few times and suddenly he is the all consuming love of her lifetime. I even wonder if the reason he did not recognize her at the end was because it never happened as she dreamed it. Maybe it was just a one night stand or even pure fantasy on her part?

[–] beetiesmom 11 years ago

No, the movie took place at the present time---the time the movie was made, 1941. Lydia starts talking about her first love (Joseph Cotten) when she is getting ready to go to the ball, and has memories of it being so marvelous, when Cotten's character remembers it as not all that great. I think Lydia must have been around 18 or 19. The thing is, this would make her (in 1941) around her early to mid-60s. The thing is, they made her (and the men) look quite elderly! The men were most surely older than Lydia, the football player being the one nearest to her own age, but they all looked decrepit!!! I am 61, and sure as hell don't look like THAT! I had a good laugh over it, thinking that people must have aged very poorly "way back then". Lydia was pretty much a flirt, and then a jezebel, like Granny said, as she was living with sailor-man Richard for at least a month or more. The make-up was pretty good, however, for the standards back then. I hope this helped.

[–] mbcullen 8 years ago

Seriously, people did look older back then. I'm 56, and as I look back on my great-aunts, when I was growing up they looked very old, and not only looked but acted old as well. My own and my husband's aunts and uncles, as well as my parents, have never looked as old as my own great-aunts did, until my uncles reached their 80's. My mom passed away recently and we were looking at pictures of my parents wedding. My one grandmother was 42 and the other about 52 at the time. My older brother (59) couldn't believe that we were older now then they were then! In this movie Edna May Oliver's actual age is only about 58. Sadly she died about a year later after a brief illness.

[–] first-things-first 10 years ago

I watched it recently and never caught that, very good. I do remember the scene where she is making breakfast, but didn't notice the length of the skirt, but the clothing is out of date for the movie, late 1890's - early 1900's. So learning from your post, to me it's not timeless. But I agree that it was filmed that way to show she doesn't remember it correctly. Her memories are false. It wasn't some everlasting love, but an affair. I do like how you romanticized the memories.

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[–] mdonln 9 years ago

Oh my goodness, you're right. I hadn't noticed it but thinking back those scenes on the boat and cabin did have a very different look and feel.

Even your dream theory makes sense. It would explain a lot and there's probably plenty of clues to support (or refute it.)

[–] EllisFowler 8 years ago

I think we're supposed to understand that she's roughing it. She wouldn't be fussing with the kind of attire that would be expected of her "in town." She doesn't even have a lady's maid to help lace her into a corset.

[–] beetiesmom 8 years ago

That's right! And can you imagine a wealthy young woman from an upstanding Boston family having a month-long affair, living in a wind-and-sea-swept cabin with a swarthy, unreachable merchant marine? And having that slobbering old man hanging around ALL the time? Just wondering.....