Often I like to crack that my “gayest” viewing habit when watching movies is hyperlocking on wardrobe. It actually is one of my weaknesses, and it is not inaccurate to say that it is one of my most heightened enthusiasms, and one of my larger appetites. If I see a dress I like, I tend to remember it.
Not exclusive to women, but typically these adulations orbit the hundreds of actresses I love, the perfect canvases. Classic movies have a number of notorious costumers. Their art, which only partially includes the selection of and dictation to an actor’s appearance within context, to scene, mood, symbolism, and so on, very much have an authoritative element. They and their peculiarities, their specialists’ notations, became icons within the industry, so much that if attentive audiences saw their name in the credits you knew exactly what you were in for, if you were familiar enough. I’d like to do more of these kinds of showcases in the future, which will be truncated to the docket of Allure, to borrow from a long inactive blog I used to frequent, one that specialized in profiles of forgotten movie actresses. From the silent movies, mostly.
Today’s subject is one of those aforementioned authors, Orry-Kelly, in a lesser known film by an even further obscure director. This is 1946’s Temptation, by Irving Pichel, and starring Merle Oberon, one of the more distinguished actresses of the period. I’ve spoken on Miss Oberon before.
Orry George Kelly, three-time academy award winner, was probably most famous as being the guy Bette Davis couldn’t live without, dressing her for over 20 films. Kelly was also a close friend of Cary Grant. He reached to prominence when he signed to Warner Bros, blessing the most famous stars with his chic, cool glamour, probably the most canonized of these is Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca.
Temptation I saw recently through the Kino Lorber blu ray release in one of their long running Box Sets, Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, in the 8th edition. To call Temptation “Noir” is stretching a little (I could be coerced into the idea of it as an addictive marketing angle—and it does work), although there are businesses that loosely justify the name—vamping, conspiracy, infidelity, premeditated poisoning, flashback frame narrative. The film is dull on the front end, and it is a slow burn before its virtues reveal themselves. These, aside from our topic today, are slippery, but I suspect the costume design is a large part of it for me.
Orry-Kelly’s talents manifest, in Temptation’s Victorian-era Cairo, on Merle Oberon. Twenty-six times. This is the center curiosity of the film: in each major scene change Oberon has an entirely new, bar-raising gown, and each turn with such frequency it is obnoxious. With regards to her character it makes sense; she has a hinted past of gold-digging, and with the start of the flashback hones her plan of attack upon George Brent’s archaeologist, on the brink of a huge discovery: the mummy of Rameses V. She has that kind of greed where a kid expects a new toy every time mommy brings them to the store. Of course it also implies status, a disposable one, with just as disposable income. We never see her shop for any of these, they just conjure themselves. This is a catalogue of that.
Without further ado, consider the following net-space a runway.
From the introductory sequence as she meets local law enforcement. A sunny, innocent but still statured dress, brightly colored.
Flowers in the hair (a running theme), intricate lace, a brooch with matching earrings, and presumably the ring also from what I can tell.
Beginning the story’s major flashback, she has a darker look. Another brooch, same earrings. Jacket, vest. A gaudy, accented top-hat with a veil and more flowers.
Next scene, her hat has bloomed further, bursting with musketeer plumage, the brooch exploded into a star. The earrings dangle lower, brighter, bonded shoulders with a stitched belt just beneath the breasts and an embossed stripe design on the body. Again, another parasol. It would be hard not to notice anybody in that.
It was difficult to get a shot that displayed the most of this one, where she is out on a dinner date and runs into an old frenemy. Plumed hat, larger brooch. This has an added sparkling jacket/shawl. Can’t recall the term for it. The intricately stitched designs on the chest and arms under the asymmetrical shoulder band are a standout.
For a more casual scene at home, but still pretty crazy. Everything below the shoulders is presumed sequine, and glitters. Great hair too.
From this angle you can see that the cuffs are coned, banded in the same manner as the neck and shoulders.
Another hard to get shot, and this has the shortest screentime, gone after she enters the building to the left. Similar to the first gown, with larger shoulders and an even larger hat with a veil.
At a large dinner party. Mostly exposed portraited neck with elfin-like pointed off-shoulders. A neckband. The most attention her hair has gotten too, which is saying a lot so far, and there’s Merle’s Pearls.
Pushed even further with this maiden’s shawl. Shawl with blooms throughout for this intimate scene with a young lover, who has a little more modesty.
The Grapes of Hat.
The shoulders and cuffs do it for me here. Let me take pause and say these are all awesome. And we’re far from over.
At the train station. Gloves and a cloudy, bag, thing, to go with her hat.
It’s a shame with these repeated difficulties in display, this might be one of my favorites. The taste of her maid’s robe is nothing to scoff at either, if probably not Orry-Kelly’s decision.
Criminy pheasants, and this one’s just for breakfast!
Less enthused overall as much as I like the bow trail. Great hair still. She made me think of Kay Francis very often in this, one of my core favorite dames.
The gloves are off. Or in this case, the shoulders. For the most part the collared brooch and the hair stays somewhat similar, but the threads hold this level of transmutation that can’t be pinned down. The flowers(?) down the middle that coil around…
Thought we were done with hats? Nope.
Hat for scale. Peaks back way further than the above would suggest. The blooming cuffs with the bullet-like belt around the shoulders.
Hat hat hat. At this point I’ve run out of any cogent remarks about elements. You should tell by now how this is taking shape.
This is dress 16, if you were wondering.
The Poisoning dress. An even crazier, arachnid cap.
It is godlike when photography catches these ✨shines. Especially when, as far as I know, these are generally accidental and incidental.
Within the scope of the film, one of the darker dresses. I’ve forgotten what the subject of this scene is in the movie.
At George Brent’s (almost) deathbed. All 3 bright dresses have distinctive nuance. Looks to be like the dress from the carriage earlier, but I detect difference in the vertical bands.
Almost cheating, because it’s the same scene from the previous still, revealing a subjective mindstate, a memory opaque and there’s no good look of this dress, but it is clearly different if you look through the foreground. So I’m counting it. It looks like it’s cool.
Where do these come from?
Not a “proper” one, if we’re considering negligee out-of-scope, however, I’m still counting it. It’s a whole new decision from the dresser, which is part of the point.
A grand entrance, with a new, broader hat and full blown mantle. Exquisite.
I love the tree/plains/mountain pictographs on this one, and the wavy turtleneck border fabric. Still snuck a brooch in there.
The hair. The dress another white wonder. Long sleeve gloves on top, with a potpourri brooch. Cape.
Now this one IS cheating. But I’m counting it anyway. It’s real in my mind.