Asides

A quick mention of the current (March 2007) Vanity Fair. There are two items that caught my interest (thanks Aimee for the heads up). Annie Leibovitz has a photo essay in conjunction with a short narrative that recreates, using today's "stars", a short film noir screenplay. Following the 32 page Leibovitz shoot is a concise essay on film noir by Ann Douglas, Columbia professor and author of "Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s". Check it out.

In my prior Asides I posted what I thought was a rather amusing 1933 letter to Movie Classic magazine by Mrs. Hannah Feldman of Atlanta, Ga., on Marlene Dietrich's fashion sense, and how it wasn't going to last. Well, I was looking through the April 1934 issue of Modern Screen, and none other than Cecil B. DeMille weighed in on the same issue. Asked about what defines glamor, DeMille says, "It's all your old friend sex appeal anyhow, dressed in fancy clothes, but not, if you please, in trousers." This when he was a Paramount director and Marlene was its biggest star. He finishes with these words, "When they wear 'em they take away all the allure, all charm, all subtlety. In other words, I'm agin 'em and agin' em strong!" So there you have it, Feldman and DeMille have spoken.