The Last Picture Show: The most stylish film you've never heard of

Showing this week at the Triskel is Peter Bogdanovich's classic The Last Picture show, which celebrates it's 40th birthday this year.

It's one of my favourite films.  Based in rural Texas is the early 1950's (an incredibly baby-faced) Jeff Bridges and Timothy Bottoms star as two high-school seniors poised on the brink of a very depressing adulthood.  It's sad and it's beautiful and it's painfully real. 

The set designs and costumes by Bogdanovich's wife Polly Platt (he would later leave her for Cybill Shepard, the ingenue of the film - she apparantly had affairs with Bridges and Bottoms during filming as well, which must have been a fun environment to work in) are some of the best to be seen in films and marked a turning point for realism in the cinema. 

Up until 1970, costumes for period dramas were pretty contrived.  Platt made the characters look realistic and unobtrusively stylish at the same time, which complements Bogdanovich's genius eye for a composition.  At the time of filming Orson Welles was living with Bogdanovich and Platt and I think the influence really shows.  Here are a few pictures.

This film is every west-coast style blogger's inspiration; slouchy cool and a touch of urban decay and general apathy.  It looks a bit like  Band of Outsiders lookbook - forty years before Band of Outsiders was even thought of.

Debbie Reynolds' costume auction

On the 18th of June, Debbie Reynolds (from Singin' in the Rain and also known as Carrie Fisher off Star Wars' overbearing mother) will be auctioning off her collection of film costumes and memorobilia.  She initially tried to find a single museum buyer but, sadly, that didn't happen and now her huge collection will be sold off piecemeal.

I really hope that some of her items do turn up in a museum, because she owns some astonishing stuff, like Charlie Chaplin's bowler hat, Laurel and Hardy's suits, dresses worn by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, that dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch (you know the one...) and a pair of Dorothy's ruby slippers.

She also has the curtain-material playsuits worn by the Von Trapp Family Singers in The Sound Of Music.  Joy.  Actual joy.

You can download the catalogue online.  Here are a few items I would buy for sentimental or pure greedy reasons if I had the funds.  This is just a small smattering, because the catalogue is a whopping 319 pages long. 

Thanks to Penny Dreadful Vintage for bringing this to my attention.

Marion Davies monumental oil painting by Federico Beltran Masses from Davies’ estate

'Messala' historic winged charioteer helmet rom the 1925 Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

Left - Eleanor Powell “Clare Bennett” black velvet jacket designed by Adrian in Broadway Melody of 1940. Right - Jean Hagen “Lina Lamont” camel coat with monkey-fur collar from Singin’ in the Rain.

Carole Lombard 'Connie Randall' gown by Travis Banton from No Man of Her Own

Left - Debbie Reynolds “Kathy Selden” green & white leaf patterned sleeveless dress from Singin’ in the Rain. Right - Ginger Rogers “Dinah Barkley” gold lamé dress from Barkleys of Broadway

Rita Hayworth “Maribelle Hicks” two-piece dress from Cover Girl.

Left - Susan Hayward “Jane Froman” pastel rainbow-hued ball gown from With a Song in My Heart, right - Jane Wyman “Belinda McDonald” green dress and tan sweater from Johnny Belinda.  If you haven't seen Johnny Belinda, watch it asap.  You will cry buckets.

Emerald-green felt “Ozmite” jacket designed by Adrian from The Wizard of Oz.

Go on, guess which film these costumes are from.

Cleopatra large-scale original concept painting of Elizabeth Taylor “Cleopatra” in her Alexandria apartment

Cleopatra large-scale original concept painting of Antony and Cleopatra on her royal barge by Ed Graves

Cleopatra large-scale original concept painting of a harbor scene by Duilio Savina

Fashion Film @ Style at Set

This Easter Weekend brings us chocolate binges and religious flagellation - but it also brings us the second ABSOLUT Style at Set, a weekend of fashion, fun, frolics and most importantly (for me anyway), FILM!

As a precursor to the stalls, workshops and talks, Friday is all about the fashion films. If you're in the area on Good Friday, I highly recommend you pop in and engage the stylish part of your brain. Plus, the pubs will be all be closed on Good Friday. And it's free. Now you have no excuse. Did I mention that it was free?

Mercifully, there's no Devil Wears Prada or Sex and the City in the line-up. Instead, the one film and three documentaries shown seem to follow a fairly loose theme: that of the thoughts and processes behind the finished products of fashion fantasy: magazines, photography, designer clothing and subculture. Altogether, it's a carefully chosen edit with something for everyone. Here's the running order.

4PM: Funny Face



It wouldn't be a fashion film fest without a bit of Audrey, and this is the perfect Hepburn movie to kick it off. Hepburn films are always stylish, but this has the added advantage of being set in the fashion industry, albeit one that involves a lot more singing and dancing when discussing spring trends than usual. It's an unconvincing love match between Hepburn and the by-then very creaky Fred Astaire (he also starred in the original musical version... in 1927) but that doesn't really matter when it's set in New York and Paris, has an amazing opening sequence with photos by Richard Avedon and the combined costuming efforts of Edith Head and Hubert de Givenchy.

6pm: Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens



If you don't know much about Annie Liebovitz, then this is a good place to start. This documentary was filmed by Liebovitz' younger sister, so there won't be any unpleasant revalations or smudges on her character or breaking down in floods of cathartic tears. This isn't about personality, it's about photography - so if you're a fan of Liebovitz' notoriously meticulous work and want to know more, or just want some inspiration of your own, watch this.

7.30 PM: Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton



This is the one film in the schedule that I don't know much about, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you a blurb instead. This documentary follows Marc Jacobs as he finishes a RTW collection for Louis Vuitton. In it, we see the mundanities of his everyday life, which contrast with the creative highs. There's also a wee bit of conflict - where does the line between creativity and being beholden to the chairman of the board lie?

9PM: Paris is Burning



Seminal drag documentary, Paris is Burning, was filmed in the recesses of Harlem dance halls before the area was gentrified. This isn't so much a fashion film as it is an ode to the transformative power of clothing (along with make up, some slick dance moves and the right 'tude). Equal parts funny, sad and fascinating, this is the one to watch.