Celluloid and Sateen: August 2016

I Married a Witch

USA, 1942

17th century. When Jennifer is about to be burned at the stake accused of witchcraft, she casts a spell on the Wooley family causing bad luck in love to their future descendants. In 1942, Jennifer comes back to life to torment Wallace Wooley when he is facing his election as a governor and his marriage with the arrogant Estelle Masterson.

While Estelle looks are severe and sober, Jennifer seems to be taken straight out of a fairytale book. Estelle wears padded shoulders, structured dresses and an immutable and elaborate hairdo. The hairpiece she wears at her failed wedding with Wallace is especially exaggerated and redundant. In contrast with her almost constant bitter facial expression, the whole looks ridiculous and accentuates her antipathy for the marriage.
Jennifer improvises her outfits during most parts of the film. When she comes back to life, she is naked until she finds the fur coat, and boots, that someone has left behind. Later at Wallace's house, she wears his striped pyjamas, too long and wide for her but she manages to tie them round her waist. When they spend the night at the inn, she borrows a modest nightgown from the inn's keeper. Jennifer has been born again, she does not have a wardrobe (she is not even used to 1940s clothing) so she has to improvise, and she does it graciously.
But the white (maybe it is a light color) and black frocks in the film are especially outstanding. The combination of gauze and lace give her a magical, truly bewitched, look. While in the first one, the leg of mutton sleeves in combination with the sweetheart neckline make her look more naive, the transparent bishop sleeves and corseted bodice in lace of the second one create a more dramatic look.
Other great costume piece is the witchy cape with pointy hood that Jennifer wears in her trip, framing her beautiful hair and face. Jennifer curls, Veronica Lake's signature, are hidden at the end of the movie in a refined but boring hairdo. Her more mature self wears a decorous and unflattering black dress with white ruffled collar and cuffs. She has become the ideal mother and wife and does not practice magic any longer.

Directed by René Clair. Costumes by Edith Head.

In the film stills, Veronica Lake as Jennifer and Susan Hayward as Estelle Masterson.

Credits:

IMDb - I Married a Witch (last accessed August 24, 2016)

Hulu - I Married a Witch (last accessed August 24, 2016)

Carmen Comes Home (カルメン故郷に帰る Karumen kokyō ni kaeru)

Japan, 1951

Lily Carmen works as a stripper in Tokyo. When she and her friend Akemi visit Carmen's hometown for few days, the duo causes a scandal among the locals.

Carmen and Akemi's costumes are loud and fun, but also kind of distasteful in some occasions. They are young, modern and fashionable, although more vulgar than sophisticated. Carmen's questionable predilection for an ugly orangish red, as seen in the dress she wears at her arrival and in the outfit she takes off during her slinky dance, can only compete with the flashy yellow and black dress that Akemi wears at the beginning and, once again, at the end of the movie (even though the striped pattern honours her wasp-waist dancer figure).
The girls' clothing contrast with that worn by the local women. These last ones wear traditional kimono or working outfits composed of long sleeved shirts and pants, which cover their natural curves and put functionality above vanity. The choice of colors like brown or dark blue/green also make their clothes, and their bodies, to be dissolved in the countryside landscape. When Carmen and Akemi arrive in town, women feel curious and skeptical while men are completely allured by their eye-catching looks. However, although their bare shoulders, cheeky bellies, and exposed legs attract the looks of everyone in town, their provocative style, and especially behavior, cause distress to Carmen's father, embarrassed and ashamed because of her lifestyle choices.
There are several remarkable costume moments during the film. Life is a stage for both girls. They not only wear matching costumes in their final striptease show, also when walking around town or through the mountains and improvising singing and dancing acts. The dotted dresses they wear during their first walk around town are particularly charming. Akemi is especially playful with the dress showing her legs when posing for a picture or flirting with the school professor. Even though these outfits are bit more stylish than the ones previously worn, the young men they find along the way believe both girls are prostitutes. Later in the mountains, both girls happily dance in their underwear. They both wear cute bra and short sets, white with red flowers for Carmen, pink with a red heart for Akemi. Local men attend to this unexpected show as amused than amazed.
Akemi causes a big trouble during the school Sports Day celebration because of her outfit. Her tricky costume skirt falls to the ground, exposing her underwear and causing the laughs of the public. Carmen gets angry when the incident interrupts abruptly the moving piano performance by the blind professor, her former love interest.
For the dance show, the girls choose matching strapless tops and sarong skirts with head veils and flowers. The color choice (pink, yellow, red, black and dark green) is again tasteless and cheap. This combined with the Arabic-style music played with the wrong instruments, the clumsy Bellydance and the silly and perplexed faces among the public, create a grotesque and ridiculous scene.
Carmen firmly believes that she is an artist whose art needs to be shown everywhere, and she has good intentions helping economically to his family with her job, but one cannot help but thinking that her return home was a really bad idea.

Carmen Comes Home was the first color film ever produced. Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, Shotaro Amano was the costume designer and the dresses were donated by the Takashimaya Department Store.

In the film stills, Hideko Takamine as Lily Carmen and Toshiko Kobayashi as Maya Akemi.