#pre-code era

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

February: Coeli's Monochrome Picks

I'm No Angel / Mae West as Tira

Coeli's comment: "Wowza!"

The pre-code era strikes again, with Travis Banton as the designer. The slinky, low-cut gown with spiderweb wrap in the bottom photo looks positively demure next to the costume she's almost wearing in the other photos. In Tira's defense, she is a circus sideshow performer. However, it's not too hard to see why this movie was cited as one of the factors leading to the implementation of the Hays Code.

Classic lines:

"Oh, Beulah, peel me a grape!"

"Well, it's not the men in your life that counts, it's the life in your men."

"When I'm good I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better."

[innervoiceartblog]

“She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful & life was so short.”

― Brian Andreas

Photo of beautiful actress Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer (August 10, 1902 – June 12, 1983) was a Canadian-American actress, and a major Hollywood star from 1925 through 1942. Her early films cast her as a spunky ingenue, but in the Pre-Code film era, she played sexually liberated women. She excelled in drama, in comedy, and in period roles. She gave well-received performances in adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare. She was nominated six times for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won once, for her performance in the 1930 film The Divorcee.

Reviewing Shearer's work, historians called her "the exemplar of sophisticated 1930's womanhood... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards". While there had been instances of performers who were given a belated celebrity by historians, this was the first time that a star's reputation had been restored by scholars. As a result, Shearer is celebrated as a feminist pioneer, "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen". Her films continue to be exhibited and studied."

~ (An excerpt from Wiki)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Shearer

[secretceremonies]

Facial studies for Mae West and Greta Garbo

[hauntedbystorytelling]

Lilyan Tashman costume by Erté

Lilyan Tashman in the perfume bottle costume designed by Erté in the now lost silent film Bright Lights (Robert Z. Leonard, 1925) | src Grapefruitmoon gallery on eBay view more on wordPress

Publicity still for the American romantic comedy film Bright Lights (Robert Z. Leonard, 1925)

view more on wordPress

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton & Ramon Novarro with Ramon's Chihuahua, Chiquita.

[emeraldexplorer2]

Clara Bow

[oldvintageglamour]

Joan Blondell in a promotional still for Warner Bros., 1932 😍😍😍😍

[bobbyhasstardust]

buster keaton (1922)

[silentdivasblog]

Dolores Del Rio ❤️

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

February: Coeli's Monochrome Picks

The Canary Murder Case / Louise Brooks as Margaret "The Canary" O'Dell

Louise Brooks plays a blackmailing nightclub singer in this classic late 1920s dress. It looks to be satin with some ruching to give it texture and a net extension to the skirt. The lobby card, which is almost certainly hand-tinted, renders the dress as a deep garnet-red. With it, she wears matching pumps, a set of bracelets, and a delicate art deco pendant.

This is the movie that tanked Louise Brooks' career. It started out as a silent film and was later hastily converted to a "talkie." The problem wasn't that her voice wasn't good enough; she simply declined to participate in sound recording at all, and her lines were dubbed by Margaret Livingston (uncredited). The whole situation very likely inspired the plot of Singin' in the Rain. You can be the judge of how well the sound was added, as the whole movie is available on YouTube.

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

✨🕯️All of my wonderful mutuals will receive a text/email from Ticketmaster sometime today with their pre-sale code that they deserve.✨🕯️

[we-dersuuzala-things]

RKO publicity photo of Ruth Stevens in "Hips, Hips, Hooray! (1934), a Wheeler & Woolsey comedy film.

[secretceremonies]

From The movies come from America (1937)

[vintageshearer]

Happy birthday to the lovely NORMA SHEARER💗✨ (August 10/11, 1903)

[friendlessghoul]

The Saphead - 1920

[emeraldexplorer2]

Dolores Costello, here with first husband, John Barrymore on their wedding day, 1928