Welcome to the social design: loose lessons from the stylized representation of the social in cinema and print. A blog very often about the interior design, fashion, social manners, and music created for and reflected in vintage cinema and print. Especially from the Sixties and Seventies, especially Italian, and especially from swingin' party scenes. We're awfully big on disco hippies and the OpArt accent here. Guaranteed, of course, to wander off on the occasional tangent into (maybe?) related subject matter, with plenty of tongue-in-cheek commentary for your consideration along the way. Comments are welcome, so please consider yourself invited...
Here's another "Summer White" for you. I think you'll agree, white is still outta sight...
It's Dyan Cannon in the 1971 film Doctors' Wives. When Babydoll pulled this one out I have to say I was intrigued. Of course anything stylish from 1971 entices by default. But then also my grandmother was a doctor's wife (and not just any doctor's wife but a president-of-the-medical-auxiliary, über doctor's wife) so naturally I was very curious to take in an artistic reflection of her world. Well, sadly, in 1971 she wasn't running around in a sexy white jumpsuit offering to do her friends' husbands, but alas, here in the film Dyan Cannon is...
She looks pretty great, you have to admit. It's a good intro scene: love the banter, love the clothes, love the hair, love all that clean taupe and glass in the country club card room. But then - ugh! - her character is dead in the next scene! And that's that. So don't shy away from checking out this film, but be prepared to accept the fact that the best character gets killed off immediately and does not come back.
So Babydoll brought this very rich clip to my attention some time ago, from the 1975 Italian film Peccati di gioventu. Then late one night we eventually ended up watching the full English-dubbed version of the film, set in an Italian beach community. It's about a girl that can't handle her new (sexy) stepmother, and if I recall correctly, resolves the matter by sleeping with her. Well, why not...
I think technically Gloria Guida is the top-billed star of Peccati di gioventu, but frankly Dagmar Lassander is the bomb (and bombshell). Aside from Dagmar's other fabulous films, like Femina ridens (The Frightened Woman) of 1969, it's pretty clear from this clip where she takes all the attention simply by descending the stairs in a high-slit white dress. It's a great look, of course, a classic really.
But what I also love (and kind of hate) about this scene is - quite obviously - the cheesy Casio dance party that breaks out! Of course I love it because it's basically tragic and completely unbelievable to witness in 2011. But of course I hate it, too, because if this film were made just a year or two earlier, there'd have been some groovy electric organ music they'd be getting down to. So I guess 1975 marks the death of the electric organ and the ascendancy of the synthesizer, the end of an era, and that makes me sad. I won't dismiss the synthesizer, I will just say it's not nearly as groovy...
Otherwise summer is here and I'm feeling the cool, collected look of white. Indeed, it can be a pretty powerful social signifier wearing something as high-maintenance and essentially disposable as white, especially with as much aplomb as Dagmar above. It says: Hello there, I'm no stranger to leisure and ease, I have a fair disposable income, and I'm pretty conscientious, too, to be successfully wearing this stain-magnetizing get-up. So do consider white, when you are feeling (or needing to feel) outta sight. ( And if you're interested in (I think anyway) some pretty fascinating insights into consumer choice and its subliminal meaning - beyond white - I highly recommend Geoffrey Miller's Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior (2009, Viking). It's contents are even more interesting than it's witty (and yes, white) cover, posted below...)
#20: YOU CAN'T TURN A GAY MAN STRAIGHT (NOT IN THOSE SHOES ANYWAY).
So here's a clip that always makes me lose it. I hope you lose it, too. It's Cheri Caffaro in the 1971 sexploitation film Ginger. In this scene, Cheri is in some sort of oddly, aggressively heterosexual bar where the chicks lay claim on the guys with a freaky exhibitionsitic dance ritual. Guess I don't make a good straight man, 'cause when Cheri starts thrusting that pelvis and making her (ummm...) "sexy-crazy" moves, I just bust out laughing. Sorry, lady. And those facial expressions don't help much, either. And for that matter, neither do those gigantic white go-go boots. Man, if you really want to make big tugboat feet look even bigger and more tugboat-y, try encasing them in white vinyl...
If the all-too-smiley reaction of her dance partner seems unconvincing, it's probably because he's gayer than those lavender bell bottoms she's sporting. That's Calvin Culver, who will go on to star in Radley Metzger's incredibly fabulous Score of 1973 before achieving perhaps more lasting fame as Casey Donovan, one of the great 1970's gay porn stars, appearing in such films as Wakefield Poole's Boys in the Sand, Joe Gage's L.A. Tool & Die, and Falcon Studios classic The Other Side of Aspen. Sadly, Culver passed away from AIDS in 1987. Cheri Caffaro is alive and, according to IMDB, "abruptly quit show business and now lives in some undisclosed area of California."
Calvin Culver in Score : interesting.
Casey Donovan of Boys in the Sand : very interesting.
