Drag in Film.

It's been years since I've seen it but I think you're right that her character is masculine in the sense that she drinks, swaggers and swears. Under the circumstances in which the story takes place I suppose it could be said that her clothing choice was simply a practical matter, but it does seem that her character was gay-coded in that movie. It was at a later time than Dietrich or Hepburn in their prime, so it was easier for filmmakers to spell it out more specifically.

TCM just showed Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) for Jeanne Crain's SUTS day and Alan Young played a rich young man trying to make it on his own in Paris without using his parent's money. There's a three-way split screen of him with his mother and father on the phone, with him as all three, with mom being the typical straight-laced Bostonian stereotype. What would Mr. Ed think?

Getting back to kim's subject, there's a really blatant example of Hollywood testing the limits of drag for women, though I'm sure many of the participants wouldn't have characterized it as such. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.



Head-to-toe buckskin, but not with any real practicality attached to it, with the tight tailoring and the purely ornamental fringe which it seems would actually impede free movement rather than make it easier for a frontier gal to do her stuff. So the clothing is intentional rather than functional. Add to that her "rambunctious" nature, her fascination with a showgirl and their setting up a home together, complete with their names on the door, which makes it seem as though any snap judgements about the character have suddenly been made real. Add to that the fact that the song "Secret Love" developed an almost immediate anthemic status among gay men and women, and you really have to wonder how this movie and treatment of the character could have come about unintentionally. This isn't a slam on Doris or the movie, just an observation. The only real complaint I have about the movie is the song "Whip Crack Away", which, every time I hear it, becomes a bothersome ear worm I can't get rid of for days. But, back to the subject, this is drag, pure and simple.

Yeah, that was around the time of the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare, so people were conditioned to think that homosexuals would immediately stand out because of their horns and hooves, which was so not Doris, so the moviemakers could get a pass. Westerns and pirate movies were fertile ground for cross-dressing women too. Yvonne De Carlo also played Calamity Jane (Calamity Jane and Sam Bass, 1949), but didn't overplay the gruff parody of masculine behavior in quite the same way Doris did and the buckskin looked a little more Rodeo Drive than rodeo, with a more flattering feminine styling.



Not to single out Yvonne De Carlo particularly, but she also went the lady pirate route in Buccaneer's Girl (1950). Neither of these roles had the same odd undertone that Day's Calamity Jane did, with that strange detour before she ended up with her male co-star, Howard Keel.

Here's Eddie Cantor doing drag (for more than just a moment, so it was part of the plot) in the pre-Code musical Palmy Days (1931) for Samuel Goldwyn (and those are Goldwyn Girls in the showers). It's the Some-Like-It-Hot scenario, in which he's trying to hide out from racketeers, so it's all in the service of comedy. That's Charlotte Greenwood shoving him into the shower.



It shouldn't be too hard to pick him out of this line-up.

I just realized who we have not mentioned. DIETRICH! Kate Hepburn seems to get the rebel title because she wore slacks (not pants, watch your mouth - PAT AND MIKE) Hepburn may have raised eyebrows, but Marlene was the real thing. In 1933 (?) in MOROCCO (with Gary Cooper) dressed in tux and with male swagger, she kisses a woman full on the mouth.

It can be debated that this scene is what made the Code law. Dietrich's stage shows of the 50's to 60's were performed half the show in her tux.

With Dietrich leading the "pack" if the Code had not been in force, wouldn't this thread have less drag used as comedy?

I've seen The Crimson Pirate (1952) a couple of times over the years, but I'd forgotten about this comic bit until I watched it again the other day. I won't bore you with details, but it's part of one of those the pirate schemes to prevent the wedding of the woman the captain fancies. Local maidens have been enlisted to present flowers to the happy couple and are infiltrated by Burt Lancaster, his buddy Nick Cravat, and a third pirate, Nick with a bouquet covering his beard. Naturally, a comic rout ensues, but the big deal here is we get to see a very confidant Burt Lancaster in drag. In many such movies the giveaway would be that they were still clumping around in big ol' pirate boots under their skirts, but somehow our pirate heroes found appropriately dainty shoes in their sizes. Nice touch. And I guess there must have been a hairdresser in the crew because there isn't a curl out of place.