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Post by kims on Apr 20, 2024 22:58:39 GMT
Never would have guessed Julie! She's singing in a lower key than usual? I don't have a good musical ear to tell if that is why she sounds different.
Another unexpected performance: Cary Grant in I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE. I think Cary was weak in the role. Ann Sheridan makes him believable. She's another actor from the studio era I would like to have met.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 20, 2024 23:17:44 GMT
Never would have guessed Julie! She's singing in a lower key than usual? I don't have a good musical ear to tell if that is why she sounds different. Another unexpected performance: Cary Grant in I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE. I think Cary was weak in the role. Ann Sheridan makes him believable. She's another actor from the studio era I would like to have met. Yes. It's almost like Cary was set up to fail. Howard Hawks usually had things under control, but in this case the believability of the drag at least enough to get by on just isn't there. I wonder if Cary resisted or what, but nobody but nobody would buy it under any circumstances. Terrible wig. Cary was capable of great subtlety so I'm sure he could have found ways to make it work but still be funny, but it never went beyond the surface joke. I agree about Ann Sheridan.  |
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Post by Guest on Apr 21, 2024 21:53:35 GMT
ew.com/priscilla-queen-of-the-desert-sequel-with-original-stars-happening-director-says-8636544"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert sequel is happening — complete with its original stars. Director Stephan Elliott revealed that Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, and Terence Stamp — who played the original film's fabulous trio of drag queens — are all "onboard." He also gave a brief tease of what fans can expect from the forthcoming film. “You have to remember that Tick had a kid — now that kid has grown up, and now he’s got his own family,” Elliott said. “We have our three principals, but we have to build in the new world."
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 21, 2024 23:12:17 GMT
ew.com/priscilla-queen-of-the-desert-sequel-with-original-stars-happening-director-says-8636544"Priscilla, Queen of the Desert sequel is happening — complete with its original stars. Director Stephan Elliott revealed that Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, and Terence Stamp — who played the original film's fabulous trio of drag queens — are all "onboard." He also gave a brief tease of what fans can expect from the forthcoming film. “You have to remember that Tick had a kid — now that kid has grown up, and now he’s got his own family,” Elliott said. “We have our three principals, but we have to build in the new world." That's good news. It'll be good for audiences to see drag in a context they maybe wouldn't expect, the geriatric side of things. Youth isn't coin of the realm in every situation, so that should include drag. I'm only a spectator of the drag world but I do know that there's a strong generational aspect whereby drag mothers pass their learned experience down to the next generation. That could be the basis for a really interesting take on the phenomenon. Thanks for the heads-up. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 22, 2024 13:40:34 GMT
It was a lot easier to pull off "old lady" drag, partly because there wasn't the same necessity for a glamorous look, and also because in general the sexes probably tend to look more alike as they age and features coarsen, etc. In Love Crazy (1941) William Powell tried it to stay one step ahead of the cops to clear his name after a series of marital mix-ups and mishaps with frequent co-star Myrna Loy. Here he is posing as his own sister and, again, the basic requirement was that he look human, not necessarily all that feminine. In cases like this, the audience is in on the joke and can enjoy people on screen being "fooled" for a comedic payoff.  Charley's Aunt is an old chestnut which has been around since the 1800's and has been filmed a few times, most notably the 1941 version with Jack Benny. It's an impossibly complicated plot involving young love, disapproving family and shaky family fortunes, which necessitates the drag as a stalling tactic while things get ironed out. Again, the audience is wiser than the suckers onscreen who are supposedly buying it, even though it's obviously Jack Benny in a wig. And, again, the fact that the drag is that of a staid old lady acts as a buffer and makes the ruse easier to swallow. The ads also featured that old standby, the cigar, to signal that it's OK because he's really a man's man, so there's nothing "wrong" here, folks.   |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 22, 2024 23:19:09 GMT
I'm not sure what to even say about this one, Paul Lynde going "undercover" to keep track of Doris Day in an impossibly far-fetched plot involving spies and special agents converging around the space program in Frank Tashlin's The Glass Bottom Boat (1966). Paul was so gay-coded in most of his roles, even as the father in Bye Bye Birdie (1963), that's it's hardly shocking to see him graduate to drag, but of course there are still the contra-indicators like the garters and men's socks displayed so prominently to act as disclaimers that the ladies clothing is anything but a professional necessity. Yeah, right; we get it. Am I the only one who kept thinking of Agnes Moorehead in Bewitched? The clip seems to have been recorded from someone's TV but it's all I could find of this scene.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 23, 2024 18:40:02 GMT
Drag is a good way to hide from the cops in On the Town (1949). Lousy video, but you get the point.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 23, 2024 23:50:47 GMT
Drag is a good way to hide from the cops in On the Town (1949). Lousy video, but you get the point.
That's a really good one. I couldn't find video, but Lou Costello went the harem girl route too in Lost in a Harem (1944). They were on the run, not from cops but from bad guys, usurpers of the throne, and they were trying to help put things right, or some such nonsense. Drag was sometimes turned into one of those oh-boy-how-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-one situations to be mined for comedy and it usually worked best with the most unlikely candidates, the ones who in reality stood out like sore thumbs but nobody noticed?  Another sore thumb was Bob Hope in The Princess and the Pirate (1944), where he "disguised" himself as a female gypsy fortuneteller to escape pirates but ended up in their midst with no easy way to ditch the drag. I couldn't find a clip but there's a mind-bending scene in which Bob became an object of lust for crew member Walter Brennan, which was played so uncomfortably real that it was creepy. Here he is with Victor McLaglen.  |
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Post by BunnyWhit on Apr 24, 2024 5:19:47 GMT
Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye do a mister sister routine for the floor show in White Christmas (1954). Though they only wear feminine accessories rather than dresses, they do perform the dance number with their feather fans and lip sync to the song which is sung by women. I'll add that Kaye is very good in this number. He seems to really get into the character, while Crosby looks more like Bing Crosby trying to go with the gag rather than digging into the character. It's an interesting contrast.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 24, 2024 12:26:26 GMT
Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye do a mister sister routine for the floor show in White Christmas (1954). Though they only wear feminine accessories rather than dresses, they do perform the dance number with their feather fans and lip sync to the song which is sung by women. I'll add that Kaye is very good in this number. He seems to really get into the character, while Crosby looks more like Bing Crosby trying to go with the gag rather than digging into the character. It's an interesting contrast.
Yeah, Danny has that extra bounce in his step and his choreography is more precise. Whatever plusses either Fred Astaire or Donald O'Connor might have brought to the role, I don't think either of them would have nailed the spirit of this number the way Danny did. And, again, we see the men's socks and garters to emphasize that it's all good boyish fun. (Which it is. I probably sound critical when I keep saying that, but it's just interesting how the "manly" reassurance always has to be there.) The guys split so quickly out the window after this scene and scatter the fans and accessories all over, so that I always wonder when we see the women wearing the outfits again for their show at the lodge. The guys said they'd take care of sending the rest of the girls' stuff but then they split in a hurry too without doing it. Maybe kindly Mr. Novello took care of it. |
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Post by kims on Apr 26, 2024 19:37:15 GMT
I can't believe I've forgotten Robert Preston's wonderful performance in VICTOR VICTORIA. He is absolutely fabulous.
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 26, 2024 23:09:02 GMT
I can't believe I've forgotten Robert Preston's wonderful performance in VICTOR VICTORIA. He is absolutely fabulous. "Why, thank you, kim. That's very kind of you."  It seems like everyone must have had a really good time on that one. Hats off to Julie too.  And let's not forget this other spectacular masquerade.  And, for anyone who hasn't seen it, Glenn Close was great as a woman living as a man in Albert Nobbs (2011), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.  |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Apr 29, 2024 22:50:08 GMT
Let's not forget our favorite extraterrestrial from 1982. While Elliot was away, E.T. and Drew Barrymore came up with the look. Adorable.
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Post by NoShear on Apr 29, 2024 23:13:23 GMT
Continuing with the big-stars-in-drag theme, here's George Sanders in John Huston's The Kremlin Letter (1970), playing a member of a group of intelligence operatives (his code name: Warlock) recruited to intercept a fake document which could influence international alliances. It's a complicated plot which involves foreign locales, but Sanders' role begins when he's tapped for the job while at work in a San Francisco bar/lounge. Lookin' good as a blonde, George. Thanks for the turn-on, I Love Melvin. Wish it was coming up on T CM tonight... |
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Post by NoShear on Apr 30, 2024 0:25:40 GMT
I'm going to reboot kim's post from the "Female Impersonation" thread because it's such a great starting point for a new thread about drag as it has appeared in movies over the years. It could be a lot of fun, though I'm not ruling out discussions about its not-so-fun usages too, and there have neem a number of them. Unless I overlooked, I don't think the following has been dropped yet, though I don't know if it qualifies: Robert Christian's cross-dresser in ...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL - definitely not-so-fun! |
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