THE ‘WOMAN’S’ PICTURE OF THE 1930s

Vanguard of Feminism or Cynical Marketing Ploy?

POST WW1 THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN WORLD?

A) Technology Advance

B) Changing Nature of Employment

C) Changing Economic Situation

Three Great Haute Couture designers,

Vionnet

Schiaparelli

Chanel

But to the NEW WOMAN this designer probably had more influence than anybody. ADRIAN ADOLPH GREENBURG

TRADITIONAL VIEW OF 1930sBill Brandt (Wigan) Dorethea Lange (Migrant Mother)

But! The Rise of the New Consumer Society

The 1930s House with ‘mod cons’

The Automobile (USA v GB)

Rayon (artificial silk) The Electric Iron of

all things Electric Lighting Aviation Ready to Wear (The

man’s suit)

MOVIE TECHNOLOGY The ‘Talkies’ (The Jazz

Singer 1928) Make-Up (It will be clear

– honest) Panchromatic film

Art Deco Style ODEON (Andre Deutsh

Entertains Our Nation) 76 openings between 1936-1939

BUT MOST IMPORTANT IN BRITAIN AND LATER IN USA

Not the countryside: but look at that pylon

National Grid 1926

TVA RURAL

ELECTRIFICATION

One view of Interwar BritainVionnet Debutant 1938 (Look at that Make-Up)

AND THE USA

However the Reality for Many Married WomenSeattle Hooverville Stepney 1937

In Britain A Poverty That Will be Shown up by War

After Female conscription into the armed forces after 1940 the authorities were horrified by the poverty and hygiene standards of many recruits.

Hygiene Classes Underwear Feminine Hygiene

The Grapes of Wrath in the USA Deepening Depression

But now can make much more than can be consumed. Era of Mass Production

Huge emphasis on raising demand for goods and consumption

What the heck has this to do with the movies?

Economic and Social Surveys showed. A) Women 70% of all Cinema

Audiences B) Women attended twice per week C) Married women made 90% of

household purchasing decisions D) Single women an untapped

resource

WOMEN HAD ALWAYS WORKED

UK Wartime ‘expansion’ a myth.

From 1880-1960 an almost unchanged 31% of the labour force was female.

It was what they worked at that changed.

The ‘Feminisation of Employment (Nothing to do with Mrs. Pankhurst)

Move from old ‘muscle industries’

Cotton was the Industrial Revolution !!

Move to new lighter industry

That Typing Pool Move to Service and

Retail work Move to London and the

south

Brainwork rather than Brawn-work

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PERCENTAGE

THE NEW WORKING GIRL

HUGE GROWTH OF ‘WHITE BLOUSE’ WORK

YOUNG SINGLE WOMEN WITH DISPOSIBLE INCOME

For the unmarried young woman the world was

changing

Courtaulds Rayon Spinning 1929

Bobbed hair Short Skirt Silk Stockings Eye brows trimmed

A new woman with some money

Attitudes of these working girls In Britain between 1861 – 1911

numbers of female clerks increased X 4. Huge rise of working women in ‘white

collar’ trades. In the 1930s looking at age group 18-

34, the numbers of single women in the 1930s were double that of the 1950s.

Huge rise in disposable income

The Woman’s Film (At Last!)

The function of this type of movie was to articulate female concerns, angers and desires, to give substance to a woman’s dreams and a woman’s problems.

Or was it?

So why did it thrive in the 1930s?

The Three M Theory Almost all films of this genre revolved around.

A) Men (My god: always a problem) B) Marriage (Even if it came late in the movie) C) Motherhood (Every woman’s real dream –

even if she does not know it.)

Most plots very moral where bad girls lost out or returned to true love.

A Business Opportunity White Collar work

demanded suitable, fashionable, smart and clean clothing

In 1909 ‘The Dry Goods Economist’

“The way out of overproduction must be in finding out what the new woman at the counter is going to want: make it, then drop it and go on to something else”

That Economic Situation Again

Depression in the USA and Germany

Recession in Britain

We can make more than we can sell!

How do we get that economy rolling? (Keynes)

But this was a huge new medium in the Depths of the Depression

How about a little fashion show to get those tills ringing

Showcase fashion and accessories

“American Trade follows American pictures and not the American flag.

(William Fox)

Kill em With Looks Very important in any

economic downturn to dress smartly

Ie: Finance today

Very important for young women making it in a man’s world

Noticed by Observers at the Time1930s Aristoc

“Factory Girls Looking Like Actresses”

J B Priestley (English Journey 1934)

Hooray for Hollywood The ‘woman’s picture’

of the 1930s was a Hollywood Experience.

It was ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ rather than ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’

Does Hollywood colour our image of the 1930s?

Who are we talking About? Tough experienced

women hard boiled and hard nosed career women making her way in a man’s world from:

:A) New York Stage

B) The ‘casting couch’ ethics of Hollywood

C) A devastated Europe

Oh those eyes Bette Davis

New York stage actress

What you saw was very much what you got.

The Dominant Force of the Era Encouraged you to be a star Bette Davis lived her life as a

screenplay. As hard in life as on celluloid Audiences saw her as living

their life.

Even the dowdy girl can become a swan!

Now Voyager”

You too can look like this and have this effect on men with a little attention to detail.

European Sophisticated

and Box Office Poison Garbo A hint of a past. Could

act in ways that an American could not.

The Greatest of all Bryn Mahr education and

voice Determined, moneyed,

well dressed and her own gal

The ‘boyish Type’

BUT MY FAVOURITE

Scandalous

Her own Girl

Dressed like a ‘Girl Friday’

HOLLYWOOD CIRCUMSTANCES

“All the stars that ever were are parking cars and pumping gas”

Hollywood flooded with young people scarred by the depression who would do literally anything to get that break in the movies. Audiences of the time related to them as sisters in adversity.

And Talking About Tough: From rags to Pepsi

That Hays Act

Nothing new in using the entertainment industry to advertise

Used in the New York and London stages Sarah Bernhardt used Kohl lip rouge Studio Moguls were mainly from the

garment trades. Zukor – Furrier: Goldwyn – Gloves: Mayer – Used Clothes: Warner: Shoes.

The London Stage was Fashion on display

Huge endorsement of ‘beauty aids’. Actors used as ‘walking

advertisements’. Hats and Gloves

Marie Tempest wore Doucet and Worth and popularised furs

Your Industry needs you Floors in Dept. Stores

for Hollywood Fashion. ‘Studio and Cinema

Fashion’ had it in the stores before the movie appeared

Waldman Bureau in New York planned the fashions for the movie up to one year in advance.

Sorry About the Quality of the Photo

But, it is an avalanche of publicity

We will dress you from head to toes

Letty Linton The Dress that

Launched a Thousand Shops

Publicity shots were also fashion shoots

The ‘make over’ and new beginnings

Ie: 42nd Street

Your Mall Needs You Will Hays (Pres.

Motion Picture Distributers)

“Every foot of film sells $1:00 worth of manufactured goods

Would we kid you? Huge tie in with

manufacturers. Buick financed ten movies especially Gold Diggers of 1935

Inserts put in the scripts

PRODUCTS FINANCED MOVIES

Surely this does not qualify as a ‘woman’s picture’?

The Glamour that saved RKO

Every scene used a different look and a different style of dress.

Sheer life style aspirations

You Cannot Hide More money made from Shirley Temple clothes spin-offs than from Shirley Temple Movies

‘SHORTS’ And Full Length Movies made around fashion shows.

FASHIONS OF 1934: Well that is how it turned out.

Also starring young Bette Davies

NOT ALL WITH THE SAME QUALITY “This is surely one of the

worst films ever made. Each scene is painful. You will groan at the flimsy attempts at humor, the awkward camera work, the sexism and racism, the ridiculous story line, the wooden acting. Poor Joan Bennett; she is the only one in the movie who is not an embarrassment. In all, dreadful.” Halliwell’s Film Guide

Britain versus USA

A much less affluent society Wages lower than USA Retail culture not focused on the

masses Fashion was upper and middle class

But, the young working girl wanted to look just like that movie star

British Movies not Quite Hollywood

Realism rather than glamour.

Popular but not an aspiration

But ‘Gracie’ a huge star

Oh Darling! Automobiles in Britain very much for the upper end of the middle class.

But it Still Worked

Its not Ginger Rogers but it is the Movies

But Girls you can afford War-paint

The face of young women became the face of the movies.

Make-up was the Hollywood fashion item

In 1931 $2billion spent on cosmetics

The 1918 Working Girl Scrubbed and Plain Would never be seen with

face make-up. A little ‘eau de cologne’

Make up pre WW1 used by the Beau Monde and the Demi Monde.

Elena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden moved from Bond Street to Hollywood. Theda Bara (1917) used Rubenstein to improve eyes which looked like black pits on stage.

Hooray for Hollywood Clara and Louise

Hooray for Hollywood You may be homely

in your neighbourhood

But if you think that you can be an actor

See Mr Factor: He’d make a monkey

look good

Enter the King: Max Fierstein Polish Wig Maker Russian State Circus (LA

in 1908) Early make up Vaseline

covered in Flour Freckles and teeth fillings

came out black Supreme Grease Paint in

1914 (Replace Vaseline and flour)

Pan-stick in the 1930s for colour film (attain the glamour of Hollywood)

Invest in Yourself: Now you can be a star. And Its In the Shops

Max Factor Society Make-up

Eye Shadow & pencil, mascara.

In 1928 Jean Harlow plucked her eye-brows

Lipstick for the masses came with colour

The look of Hollywood can be yours at your local store.

And boy did it work

The face of the Hollywood woman became the face of the western woman

In 1931 $2 Billion spent in USA on cosmetics

Whatever happened to those East End Girls? Bill Brandt 1935

Plucked eyebrows and liner Lipstick

Powder and smoking in public?

Single working class girl looking and behaving and dressing in a way her mother would have thought a scandal

And One More Product for the Girls

AND ONE MORE STEP

It carried on after the war

Susan Heywood

Its nothing to do with genetics – its all in the soap

To Recap all this nonsense It all came together

Movie Technology The new working girl A depression or recession A new industry showing how to make

it, how to be hard but feminine, and always showing that virtue pays.

If it worked so well what killed it? Changing prosperity

A more affluent and more ‘worldly’ consumer society

But mainly the ‘box’ in the corner of the room

THE WOMAN’S PICTURE OF THE 1930s

Vanguard of Feminism or Cynical Marketing Ploy? (Or

Both!)