Picture Play Magazine (Mar-Jul 1929)

a Meaning All Its Ovtfn tumes are not accidental any more, but are devised to you see on the screen. .ouise Walk er room, as it is to know what is right. This girl now, is just slightly decadent. Her room would not be in glaring bad taste but it would be a trifle overornate. She would have tassels on things where tassels should not be. She would have too many fancy cushions strewn about. And she would, have polychrome book ends where such ornaments were inappropriate. You see. we have to know what kind of people they are, before we can know what sort of houses they would live in." Murder was afoot that day on the "Leatherneck" set at the Pathe studio. The interior of a tumbledown shack was illuminated by one slanting ray of light, leaving the rest of the room almost in darkness. There was Louis Wolheim quite dead in a chair, and Robert Armstrong nearly dead in a corner, waiting for Bill Boyd to burst in and discover them. Mr. Jewell explained that the outer darkness, surrounding the single ray of light, symbolized the mystery and awfulness of death — the horror of violent death. "We try to make the setting for a murder as sinister as the deed itself," he said. "We try to get the feeling of the scene into the background." Mr. Jewell has been responsible for some of the most interesting sets in recent pictures. Notable among them were the delicately conceived backgrounds for Leatrice Joy's "Man-made Women." An imaginary Monte Carlo was built, because the real one wouldn't have matched the mood of "The Cardboard Lover." The keynote of "Our Dancing Daughters" was sophistication, hence such backgrounds as this. Costumes are fully as important — if not more so — than settings, in building up a story. And it is a hopeful sign that more emphasis is being placed on characterization in costumes nowadays, than upon making the star as beautiful or as handsome as possible. Corinne Griffith's costumes in "The Divine Lady" not only express the character she plays, but also symbolize the states of civilization in three significant periods of history. At the opening of the picture she wears the Gainsborough costumes. Simple, innocent clothes they were, made of dimity or organdie, with quietly dignified lines. It was a period of tranquil prosperity and solidity, and womanly simplicity was the keynote of feminine dress. When Lady Hamilton moves to Italy it is in the Marie Antoinette, or Louis XVI. period. France was at the height of her decadence then, and clothes were frilled and furbelowed to an incredible degree. Hoop skirts, exaggerated headdresses, and huge fans were the mode. Materials were rich and ornate, and the emphasis of all costumes was on sex. Last in the picture comes the Napoleonic era, known as the Empire period. Clothes were stately then, and because the emperor admired tall, slender women, dresses were long and straight and narrow, with high waists and puffed sleeves. "The hoop skirt," says Max Ree, designer for this picture, "collapsed with the government !" The lady herself progresses from innocence to decadence, and then to the dignity of sacrifice. This is all symbolized by her clothes. The heavies, the villain and the vampire, are nearly always garbed more lavishly in a conventional story than the hero and the heroine. Continued on page 101 The costumes of Aileen Pringle are carefully chosen to express the role she plays "Dream of Love." in