Under the Influence -- The Night We Never Met

We talk a lot about inspiration here at Blackbird, Inc.  Both of us are kind of like sponges, soaking up everything we see and read and experience -- and we tend to hang on to random bits and pieces, tucking them away into our brains to be pulled out and combined with other ideas whenever we need them.  We don't always immediately remember where the inspiration comes from, whether it was a movie we saw once years ago or a book we read a few months ago.  So we've decided to start a new feature on the blog, called Under the Influence, to try to catalog and pinpoint the things that have shaped our uniquely different (yet somehow, strangely coordinating and cooperative) personal aesthetics.

We're going to start with a movie that is not the movie that triggered the idea for these posts.  We'll talk about that one later -- I haven't re-watched the whole thing yet, and I wanted to reacquaint myself with it before I wrote about it.  But that movie got me to thinking about this movie (I can't explain that jump of logic), and I haven't seen this movie since -- oh man, who knows how long!  But I somehow found that it was coming on television and decided to record it.  I'm so glad I did.

I'm sure most people would just think of it as a throwaway romantic comedy.  Especially since it's from 1993, an era that people haven't really started to appreciate again.  But I absolutely love it in the way that I love all 90s-era romantic comedies.  I was 15 when it came out, but I didn't see it until a few years later on VHS.  It has a lovable Matthew Broderick as Sam, a hipster-foodie (way before it was cool to be one), who works at a Manhattan Dean and Deluca as the cheese guy.  He almost doesn't meet, but then does meet and fall in love with Ellen, played by Annabella Sciorra, a dental hygienist in an unhappy marriage.  The story is too complex to get into here, and well, that's not what we're here to talk about anyway.  I love the story, but the apartment and the way the characters live in the apartment are what's important right now.   

Dean and Deluca screenshot

Hipster-foodie Sam

They meet and don't realize who they are!

This apartment is gorgeous.  Tall windows with tons of natural light.  Double front doors with lots of dark wood and heavy moldings.  A vintage style kitchen with glass bottle cabinet doors and an old range and oven.  The basic plot is that they are sharing this rent controlled apartment with another guy, and they each get the place for two nights a week.  Sam and Ellen fall in love without meeting, through their shared love for this apartment and the freedom it gives them to be themselves.  Sam has lots of roommates at his real apartment, and this place is a quiet place he can cook, read, and relax.  Ellen wants somewhere to get away from her loveless marriage and garish apartment in Queens.  She wants to learn to paint, and experience the excitement of the city.

The apartment's stoop

Sam and Ellen both furnish their side of the apartment (the other side is a travesty of black leather and electronic equipment, courtesy of the yuppie frat boy third roommate) with their most precious items -- Sam's grandmother's quilt, Ellen's art supplies, his toolbox with antique tools...and you can tell that they are meant for each other because it all just blends.  Ellen's home is full of bright colors and contemporary furniture, and Sam's apartment is a pigsty.  But when they create their own space in the time-share apartment, you can see an eclectic mix of vintage and worn pieces that have a soothing, subdued color palette.  When they are allowed to be true to themselves, they take joy in the small things -- Sam makes a wooden planter box for Ellen's herbs, prompting her to sew long curtain panels for the windows.  They begin to take pride in the apartment, figuring out who they really are through something as simple as furnishing a space.

I think this is when we really start to see this idea happening of mixing vintage and industrial items in interiors, and especially this renewed love of vintage architecture.  If you put this on a timeline, then you realize that "Friends" started airing in 1994, and I think without a doubt, Monica and Rachel's apartment is a separate character on that show.  And why was that?  Because it made it cool again to have a hodgepodge style with a mix of new, vintage, and found furniture and decor.  It was an old apartment with strange architectural quirks, and every piece was placed exactly where it was for a reason -- it told a story without saying a word.  This movie was kind of on the cusp of that, and I think this interior still stands the test of time.  Whereas the "Friends" apartment was super bright and vibrant, this apartment is all about understated comfort and enjoying the history behind the items.  Even more so when you compare Sam and Ellen's space with the other homes in the film -- Brian's black leather bachelor pad just through the archway, Ellen's bright modern mess in Queens, and Sam's filthy tenement apartment.


Even though the film came out in 1993 (22 years ago!), the pieces they picked are timeless.  I didn't realize until I watched it again how much this affected my design sense at the time.  And although my tastes have grown and changed since I was 17 or 18, this aesthetic is still pretty much at the core of my own personal style.  If I had this apartment, I would pick pretty much the same things.  It's hard to get good screenshots of the movie, so below is a collage I assembled with the movie as inspiration.  Links to all the items used in the collage are on our Pinterest page called Under the Influence, found here.  If you get a chance to watch it, do!  It's available to rent on Amazon.

Junk Love: Eastern Europe Goes to the Movies

I've always loved vintage posters--travel, advertising, music, whatever. But lately, I've been really intrigued by Czech and Polish film posters. It started with a Hitchcock, probably the coolest poster I've ever seen:

Czech film poster for The Birds

And then the madness began....If I had an extra hallway or two, these things would be on every square inch of wall. I love the graphic quality, and the fact that when I look at the posters, I have no idea what the movie is actually about, but I kind of understand how I'm supposed to feel about the movie. That Birds poster makes me uneasy. And so do these, but for different reasons:

Czech poster The Parallex View, 1977

Vintage Czech poster for 8 1/2

Czech poster, 1959

I LOVE THESE!

Czech poster by Karel Tiessel, 1965

Czech Cleo From 5 to 7;  by Jaroslav Fiser

The colors of this one are amazing:

1970 Czech poster for Les Gauloises Bleues

I really love the slightly altered take on this iconic character:

Czech Breakfast at Tiffany's

This one makes me want to sit in the dark and listen to sexy music:

1920s Czech poster for Erotikon

And then we have an interesting comparison of artwork for the same film, the Czech version on the left and the Polish version on the right. I think I'd rather see this one in Czechoslovakia (but I would hang both of them in my house!)....

The Skinny -- Tamara Toumanova

I first want to start with how I discovered this lovely ballerina, Tamara Toumanova.  I found this photo:

 

 

In the way we Blackbird girls do, I thought, geez, that dress is fab.  And she's pretty lovely herself!  Little did I know that this photo would lead me to discover that Tamara Toumanova was a dancer in Invitation to the Dance, a film written and directed by Gene Kelly.  It has three distinct stories, all told through dance, with no dialogue.  He starred in all three parts.  When we watched the movie, we liked all three stories -- but our most favorite part of the entire movie was the super sexy part with a woman in red.  We love us some Gene Kelly.  And that woman in red?  Ballerina Tamara Toumanova.  She and Gene have some chemistry -- major chemistry.  You can watch her in action with Gene below -- start at around 8:30 in the video.

 



 

I could get into a long bio for her, but let me just hit the high points so we can get to the good stuff -- pictures!  Toumanova was born in March 1919.  She was the child of two Russian exiles, who eventually moved to Paris.  She was a child ballet prodigy, making her debut in the children's ballet at the Paris Opera when she was 10 years old. George Balanchine discovered her in 1931 at age 12, and cast her in Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, along with two other young ballerinas -- Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska.  The trio was a great success, and very soon became known as the "Baby Ballerinas."

Toumanova was also known as "the Black Pearl of the Russian Ballet."  She was lovely -- with dark hair and eyes, and soft almond skin. She was striking -- and glamorous.  Traits that made her perfect for film as well as the stage.  She had an amazing ballet career, but she also starred in six Hollywood movies.  Her debut was in Days of Glory, a 1944 drama starring Gregory Peck, which was, amazingly, his film debut as well!  In 1953, she made the movie, Tonight We Sing, Deep in My Heart was made in 1954, and Invitation to the Dance was made in 1956. 

 

She was in Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain as the lead ballerina.  We've seen that movie -- we're big Hitchcock fans -- but unfortunately...she's not the memory that sticks out for us from that film.  We're kind of distracted by Paul Newman in his 1966 prime.  Mmmm...Paul Newman...  Anyhoo -- her last film was Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, in 1970.

 

 

She died in May 1996, at age 77, from undisclosed causes.  She was buried beside her mother in Hollywood.

 

 

Toumanova and Danny Kaye, LIFE magazine, 1945

Photo by George Platt Lynes, 1941

 

Here's a video montage of stunning photos of her:

  

 

Junk Love Monday: How to Live Like Barbarella

One of life's greatest pleasures is a late-Saturday-night pizza and channel surfing session. This is when you are allowed to watch weird stuff, without worrying about To-Do lists, deadlines, or the judgment of others. It's Guilty Pleasure time. It's Barbarella time.



A few weeks ago, on just such a night, we were moaning about the available options on cable, not yet ready to retire to our rooms, when we saw that Barbarella was coming on next. This prompted a conversation about how our parents were too mean to let us watch the movie as children (although we understand why now...), and the quick decision that the moment had arrived for us to fill in that missing link in our pop culture education.



And so, we watched Barbarella, laughing and gasping all the way to the end. It's a little bit dirty, and a lot bit cheesy, and fantastic in its badness. It was also powerful, in its own way. We can't stop talking about it. There is a part of both of us that secretly wants to live like Barbarella, and we've decided there are two ways to do this:

1. Exercise (a lot), use hairspray (a lot), wear very tight clothing (not a lot), accept an important mission on behalf of Earth, and sleep with everyone we meet in the name of Patriotism.

or...

2. Buy junk that reminds us of the movie's better (yes, this is subjective) moments.

We have decided to explore option 2, as it aligns more closely with our normal routine. We're not sure that we'd be very good at top secret government work anyway. And so, here are the ways that we would live like Barbarella, if we could....

You could wear an actual space suit, and spin in mid-air whenever you take it off

or, you could wear a snazzy metallic 1960s dress like this one:

from reflectionsofvintage.blogspot.com

Like this?

Shiny! Green!

Try this.

http://blog.marketpublique.com/category/tags/dress

We would love to live in a pod entirely carpeted in lush shag,




But we'd also settle for a cool vintage rug.

unfortunately, this one has been sold from etsy.com

And then we'd have to have a goddess statue to go with it.

ebay.com

We love this,




And who wouldn't love a vintage skunk fur coat (yes, they made them, and they are fabulous)?

http://rozessecondhandnews.blogspot.com

 We love, love, love her boots:




 So, we could buy some like these:

etsy.com

And speaking of black and white (and more boots):

Oh, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

vintage mod dress, modcloth.com

With some boot options:

Vintage mod boots, from afunkyshoeandboot.com

Black Chanel thigh-high boots, from Elle France Sept 2012

Vintage black and white boots, from polyvore.com

And you can't wear it, but you can certainly watch Barbarella on it (but not in the same room as the rug)...

stylehive.com

Now, all we need is some colorful mood lighting, a blind angel to fly us places, a backyard maze full of naked people, and a hookah room with swings and piles of pillows. I think it could work.

The Skinny: It's Alive!

http://members.aon.at/frankenstein/frankenstein-universal.htm; Trivia:

"It's alive! It's alive!"--one of the most recognizable movie quotes of all time. (In fact, it made #49 on the list of the American Film Institute's top 100 movie quotations.) It brings an immediate image of a hulking creature, slowly moving on the laboratory table in a creepy room of shadows and machines. The Frankenstein monster, most famously played by Boris Karloff in 1931, is one of the Hollywood icons. He sets the standard for that story, irreversibly infiltrating our culture. Never mind that the monster in the book didn't look like that. In fact, the book never mentions the specific use of lightning to animate the creature--that's all Hollywood. So, what we know as "Frankenstein" is based on the vision of a 20th century movie crew. But if we disregard the lighting, the machines, the dialogue, and the music, what is really the most pervasive element of that film? The monster. Frankenstein is what we call him now, although his real name is something much more mundane. And who made that monster out of Boris Karloff? The makeup man, Jack P. Pierce.

Jack Pierce and Karloff, from en.wikipedia.org

www.secureworldpost.secureworldexpo.com

A Greek immigrant who first tried careers in baseball and acting, Jack Pierce became one of the definitive geniuses in the movie makeup world in the first half of the 20th century. He spent more than two decades with Universal Studios, specializing in horror makeup. When he signed on to do the Frankenstein movie, once he was no longer under an obligation to cater to the design ideas of the film's first star, Bela Lugosi (who was replaced on the project by Boris Karloff), Pierce paired research with his own creative spin to create the monster that we know and love. He figured that Dr. Frankenstein, inexperienced in the nuances of neurosurgery, would take the simplest route to transplant a brain: cut off the top of the skull and sew it back up. This gave the monster his characteristic flat top, with some sutures, and the heavy brow. Pierce kept Karloff in the makeup chair for four hours every day, applying a rubber appliance with black hair with green streaks (which give texture and depth in the black and white film), cotton and putty for the forehead and around the eyes, a few scars, and the infamous electrodes (not bolts!) on either side of the neck. He topped it all off with a special greenish-gray makeup, which he knew would read as a "deathly pale" on the screen (to contrast with the living characters' normal black and gray tones; in the colorized movie posters, the monster is green, and has been ever since).  Karloff's lips, arms, and fingernails were darkened with black greasepaint to give the appearance of decaying flesh. The costume was complete with the addition of heavy boots (13lbs each!) with lifts to make the monster taller. 

As impressive as it is to be the man responsible for one of the most famous monsters of classic Hollywood, we now add a few more high points to Jack Pierce's resume. This makeup genius is responsible for the classic look of Bela Lugosi's Dracula. (Lugosi insisted on applying his own greasepaint, but Pierce tweaked it to look better on film, which is why the Count's face carries shadows so well.) Lugosi's career took an upward turn after his role as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein, a character created for him by Jack Pierce using rubber appliances, applied hair, and false teeth.

www.mantex.co.uk

Frankenstein wasn't his only famous Karloff work, either. Pierce was the makeup artist for The Mummy in 1932. He treated the fabric with acid and flame, dipped it in a syrupy chemical solution, wrapped Karloff, let it get wrinkly and dry, and then got it dirty so that it would look properly aged on film. Even though Karloff is only in the mummy costume briefly in that movie, it is again one of the most memorable parts of that film.

www.badhaven.com

Speaking of brief, another iconic Pierce character, who in reality was only on screen for a few moments at the very end of the film, is Elsa, otherwise known as The Bride of Frankenstein. 

from www.collider.com

So we've covered the Mummy, Frankenstein, his bride, and Dracula. Believe it or not, The Wolfman, starring Lon Chaney Jr., is also a Pierce makeup. A molded rubber nose appliance, fake claws, and thousands of individually applied yak hairs made this another of the most famous movie monsters in history. Pierce also designed Chaney Jr.'s character for Man Made Monster.

Lon Chaney Jr. and Jack Pierce, from acertaincinema.com

 Jack Pierce did makeup for over 100 films from the 1920s through the late 1940s, including:
White Zombie, Werewolf of London, The Mummy's Tomb, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Raven, Dracula's Daughter, The Mummy's Hand, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, The Scarlet Claw, and The Phantom of the Opera (1943).

White Zombie, from nutshell-movies.com

And last, but certainly not least, is a film that was actually one of Jack Pierce's first character concept projects, and which may even have reached farther across pop culture than his classic monster films: The Man Who Laughs (1928). The movie is an adaptation of an obscure Victor Hugo story, about a man whose mouth is cut upward at the corners to give him a perpetual grin. Pierce's interpretation of this character for the silent film is a documented source of inspiration for another one of the twentieth century's most notable characters: the Joker. See the resemblance?

The Man Who Laughs, from http://hypenc.com/2010/2011/04/21/rexs-film-reviews-the-man-who-laughs/

Sadly, Universal decided to cut back on scary movies, and they dropped Jack in 1947. He had a little more movie work in the 1950s, and then did makeup for the Mr. Ed television show. He died in 1968, a forgotten page of Hollywood history. But, he is part of the reason that there is an Academy Award for makeup design today. Pierce's work proved that a large part of a film's success comes from the makeup and concept design of the characters, and he was posthumously given a lifetime achievement award. He is now in the running for a star on the walk of fame. We think it's long overdue.

Information obtained from : www.imdb.com; www.tcm.com