Hooked on Hollywood Glamour's Golden Age


Hooked on Hollywood

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Britain in the 1920s and '30s was facing a cultural invasion.

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America was the new world power

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and its wild and wanton ways were threatening our shores.

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British restraint was under siege and fading fast.

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It was a tremendously energised period.

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The thing about the Twenties, whenever you look at the music

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and dancing, there is a tremendous pumping of energy

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going on all the time.

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On high streets throughout the country,

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Hollywood movies were showing ordinary people

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that life didn't have to be so British.

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Just think, Joe, what fun it is to be a newspaper woman

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like the ones in American movies.

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America's screen gods and goddesses

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were becoming British national heroes.

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All of a sudden perhaps you don't want to be a princess,

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perhaps what you want to be is a film star

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in a lovely slinky, satin dress.

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The young were falling for the American Dream,

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but for the old it was becoming a nightmare.

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I don't know what this generation is coming to!

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Over the top and over here,

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this is the story of how American glamour changed Britain for ever.

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Our 21st century fascination with American culture is nothing new.

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Since the early days of cinema, the British have been seduced

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by the allure of Hollywood.

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There is no other glamour like that of the '20s and '30s, is there?

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If you think of Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich,

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they are the most glamorous women that have ever lived.

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Glamorous isn't beauty, it is something which is...

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surrounded a bit with magic, it's powered with a bit of stardust

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and that, in a sense, fits in so obviously

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to the silver screen, to films.

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Going to the 'pictures' was more than a night out

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in the interwar years - it was a new, exciting mass entertainment

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that had a profound impact on the lives of ordinary Brits.

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It provided a window on the world which wasn't an accurate window,

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it wasn't a mirror, of course, but it was a fabulous,

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distorting and chanting mirror that people loved and accepted.

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When people come out of the First World War, the playing with drugs,

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the exotic dances, the tango, cocaine, you know, sky's the limit...

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silent movies was the right medium for that.

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The movie stars of the 1920s were larger-than-life characters.

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British exiles like Charlie Chaplin would become household names.

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Today the plots seem implausible

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and the acting forced, but in the silent era,

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British audiences had never seen anything like it -

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12-foot images of the mad, the bad,

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and the scandalous transported them to another world,

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especially if they were on a horse and called Rudolph Valentino.

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Women swooned when they saw him in The Sheikh,

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but we really only ever saw him

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dressed in his full kit and in more make-up than women were wearing.

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Over-powdered and over-dressed,

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Valentino hinted at sex and sensation.

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The silent era sirens like Theda Bara were a bit more obvious.

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The vamps were a male projection.

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Theda Bara was a male attraction film-star, geared to a male audience.

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I'm not saying she had no female fans but that wasn't what she was about.

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She was an expression of a kind of sexual creature who,

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in the recesses behind that curtain, was getting up to all sorts,

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and that was essentially a male fantasy.

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The early silent sex-bombs

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had little in common with good British girls

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who were expected to stay at home until they married.

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But in the 1920s, potential husbands were in short supply.

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I think it's quite important to remember that...

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in the 1920s...

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Britain and the world were emerging

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from an absolutely catastrophic, cataclysmic war.

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Britain had, in a way, become a sort of mutilated society.

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There was a pall of loss, a pall of grief hanging over the country.

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The Great War claimed the lives of 10,000 men a day in the trenches.

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For the women left behind, it would be a time of immense change.

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Many had stepped into men's jobs while they were away.

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Others had worked as nurses at the front.

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For the first time, young women were empowered.

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There would be no going back.

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'Throughout the country, women took on all kinds of jobs.

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'This film shows gas masks being made for the men in the trenches

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'and here, fighter pilots have their planes tended to by women.

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'Some of these jobs would have been inconceivable

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'for any respectable, pre-war girl.

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'Attitudes were changing, and new jobs meant more money,

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'new freedoms, greater self-confidence,

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'in short, a new emancipation.'

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One of the by products of the war was these women had been left

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on their tod, you know, husbands and brothers had gone away

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so they were making the decision, they were running the households.

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I think it was very difficult for women after both wars, when the men

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came back to suddenly find that in many cases, they were expected

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to suddenly get back in the kitchen and the rest of it. To a certain

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extent with the young that didn't happen, their confidence stayed.

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British life was changing, and it wasn't the men leading the way.

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The weaker sex was getting stronger.

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The women's suffragette movement had won the right to vote,

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but only for wealthier women.

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In the 1920s, their campaign was spreading

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to young working class women who also wanted a voice.

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The women at that time knew they were riding on the backs of giants,

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they weren't the originators.

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The giants were the new women of the 1890's, they were the suffragettes

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for goodness sake, who were the heroines of the cause.

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But 1920's young women came along and they rode along on it. They said,

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"OK, let's ride the crest of this wave.

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"The suffragettes, the new women have done the hard work,

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"broken down the barricades. Now let's get out there and rejoice,

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"let's lift our skirts, let's have a ball, let's have a party."

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This was a generation with little interest in the past.

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Women wanted their futures to be modern.

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It was in their local picture houses that they first saw glimpses

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of the lifestyles they would come to crave.

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Everybody started going to the movies

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and the movies that they saw were Hollywood movies.

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They were promoting some actresses who lived in ways that, you know,

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a normal women from the Midlands would never have dreamed possible.

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The female role models that women would have started to see

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from Hollywood movies were utterly unlike any kind of role model

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they would have seen before.

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Absolutely exceptional individuals who were unusual,

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odd and tantalising for that reason.

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One American actress would show British women

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what they might be capable of.

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Clara Bow is the kind of archetypal, X Factor girl of the 1920s.

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She enters a talent competition and that's how she becomes a movie star.

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The reason we remember her is because she starred in a film called It.

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The 1927 film It turned its leading lady into a star,

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and its title became synonymous with sex appeal.

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On screen and off, Clara Bow was the original It Girl,

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more interested in having a good time than behaving properly.

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The Cinderella story of transformation

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was exactly what young British women were dreaming of.

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It's a really great movie actually because it completely

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focuses on her and her desire.

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She's a shop girl and she looks across at the owner

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of the department store and she just looks at him and suddenly you know

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she's going to have him, and there's this great inter title which says,

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"Sweet Santa Clause, give me him!"

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She goes out to get him and she totally gets him and, actually,

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one of the ways in which she does that, thinking about this

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concept of glamour, is by making herself glamorous.

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The film was silent, but its message was loud and clear -

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girls, you can make it too.

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You just need glamour, sex appeal and a big pair of scissors.

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There's a great sequence where she gets him to invite her to the Ritz

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and she realises she has nothing to wear

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so she cuts up her store uniform and makes it into a great ballgown.

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Clare Bow was one of the first shop girl movie stars.

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She was in one way an ordinary girl just like you and me,

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and in another way, ravishingly pretty,

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in exactly the right way for the Twenties.

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Clara Bow, I think, was a very American star.

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She was very much an expression of Americana.

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She absolutely represents this concept of a young woman

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who is throwing convention out of the window, is out for a good time,

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is not afraid to express desire, who is modern.

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Women could afford to go to the cinema two or three times a week.

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American movies were showing these girls that wherever they came from,

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they too could transform their lives into something special.

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Obviously, if you were young and you looked at your mother

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and at the life she had had you thought,

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"Well, maybe, there's something to be said for sex-appeal, for being an It girl,"

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so I think that we now think of Hollywood as being sheer consumption

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but I think in many ways it was peddling a different message -

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"There's another way and there's a world out there to go and grab."

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As Hollywood grew more sophisticated, so too did its stars.

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By the '30s, the British working classes could spend

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an evening with some of the most glamorous people in the world.

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The word glamour first became very popular in the 1930s. Its history

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is actually quite complicated. The word derives from Scottish.

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It was first used by Walter Scott in 1805 to mean a magical power that

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could make something or someone look much better than they really were.

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The reason for the term becoming so popular in the 1930s

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is precisely because film, more than any other medium,

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achieved this ability to make things seem better than they were.

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I'd like to kiss you, but I've just washed my hair. Bye!

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In many ways glamour is different from beauty.

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Glamour is something that can be acquired,

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it can be bought, so in a sense it's democratic.

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That was the idea, I think, that it was democratising.

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It did give the shop girl the opportunity that she too

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could be glamorous. She might never be beautiful,

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she might never be rich, but she could be glamorous.

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A shop girl in Newcastle who goes to the movies and sees

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Gloria Swanson is going to be...

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swept away by the glamour of it.

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She is not going to be able to wear that dress, but she is going

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to be able to paint her nails or have her hair waved in that way.

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That's where this incredible power...

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..of the industry to create trends

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and create money for the people behind it is really starting.

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America's cultural and commercial assault

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started after the First World War

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when Britain was £1100 million in its debt.

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Mass production and consumerism had made the USA rich.

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Their standard of living was five times higher than the UK's.

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By the '30s, most Americans

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had four wheels when many Brits still had two.

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The United States was the envy of the world.

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America holds the strings to...

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the consumer purse and everything everybody wants, like Coca-Cola...

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..or the latest jazz records, comes from America.

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America had industrialised later than Britain, so it had

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all sorts of new technology, much more up-to-date methods,

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and of course a huge country with a vast labour force, and

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of course, a vast purchasing population.

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Mass production took off in America

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in a way that it never could and it never would in Britain.

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Technological developments like washing machines, Hoovers, fridges,

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electric cookers meant that household life was freed up.

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You didn't have to spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week

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doing the laundry and making sure your family had enough to eat.

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Those things truly liberated women,

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and so their expectations of life grew greater.

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Young women started to lavish their spare time on themselves.

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Using make-up became widespread when American mass production

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found its feminine side.

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They made lipstick cases, twist up lipstick cases which

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were developed from a cartridge shell from the First World War.

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Hinged powder compacts for the beauty business and they had

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labelling and bottling plants.

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The cosmetics companies were churning it out.

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Seduced by the promise of beauty, make-up became irresistible

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to women regardless of their class.

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Colour cosmetics, until roughly the beginning of the First World War,

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were used by actresses, which was absolutely fine,

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or whores, which was not.

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So ladies who used make-up, because Queen Victoria hated make-up,

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so the ritual of wearing colour cosmetics was an absolute no-no.

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If you wanted to buy a lipstick you had to go behind your hand to

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hide the conversation with the shop girl

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and then she would find you the lipstick.

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'The plain girl needn't be plain says this popular artist.

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'Take this girl, for instance.

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'Let's try the face, that's the pale over under the hair.

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'It's one thing to draw the line and the other to know where to draw it.'

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The girls were flaunting tradition, they loved it, they would take out

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their powder compact and strike a pose with it.

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This was something which they knew that their mothers

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and their grandmothers would hate so they instinctively loved it.

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'An ever so discreet touching up and glamour's just around the corner,

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'in fact it's arrived, and soon her admirers will be wading in.

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'Make the most of your good features and conceal the your worst.

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'In other words, if you've got a face, don't treat it rough.'

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It was part glamour, part the trend and part bucking

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etiquette and restrictions that have been in place before.

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In the interwar period, the beauty business

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became a multi-million pound industry,

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aided and abetted by the screen sirens who helped show the ordinary

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how to achieve the extraordinary.

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And remember...

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to be beautiful and natural is the birthright of every woman.

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The influence of these women, of stars,

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in terms of marketing, was colossal.

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Practicality went out of the window.

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Before you bought a product because you needed it. Now you were buying

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products because you wanted them, you desired them.

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Don't it look cute, huh?

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Whenever there was a movie with a different change of make-up

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or change of hair, platinum blonde, Gene Harlow's platinum blonde,

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thin plucked eyebrows, it set an enormous trend.

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Customers were insatiable for it.

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Greta Garbo created a trend for using eyebrow pencils. She had

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to use it because she was extremely blonde so you couldn't

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see her eyebrows on the screen, but she almost changed the faces

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of women in the UK because of her pencilled-on eyebrows.

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That technology was new then, as well.

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Clara Bow promoted Max Factor's make-up, she wore his mascara.

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It could be said that the creation of the luxury beauty industry

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started with Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein

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at the turn of the last century,

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and by 1935, Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden,

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great rivals, great rivals it must be said,

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were the richest businesswoman in the world.

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The aspirational model, I think for a lot of British women,

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had been sort of princesses and the Queen and the Duchess and things,

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and if you look in magazines, you see adverts for cosmetics and it's

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usually the Countess of this or the Duchess of that who's endorsing it.

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Then of course come in the film stars, and there's Jean Harlow and

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all of a sudden perhaps you don't want to be a princess, perhaps what

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you want to be is a film star in a lovely, slinky satin dress.

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Film is the showcase of consumption.

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It is the thing where you look at you think, "I'd like to buy that"

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or "I'd like to have that," and that activity is understood

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to be American, and it's through the Thirties that we start

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to get comfortable with that.

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There was a great Punch cartoon from 1930 which shows a cinema

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much like this full of people. On the screen, there is a sort of

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mad man strangling a woman, her back is to the screen and she has

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this beautiful wave, and one of the women turned to the other and says,

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"That's the hair do I was talking about."

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And there's a real sense,

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even in the period, that cinema isn't about narratives,

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it's about showing you a lifestyle that you might want to emulate.

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American cinema was influencing British women,

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and the old order was not amused.

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The first UK census after the Great War revealed there were almost

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two million more women than men.

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And these unconventional singletons were proving a problem.

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There's a lot of anger,

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a lot of a feeling of defensiveness,

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a lot of paranoia from an older generation of men

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feeling that...

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young, free, single,

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liberated, possibly sexually liberated women are going to rise up

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and take over the world.

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These thoroughly modern millies were known as the flappers.

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A product of America, they struck fear into the establishment.

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The flapper was dangerous because she was unmarried,

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she was single, she was young, she was emancipated,

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she smoked, she drank,

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she appeared not to care about getting married

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and having a family and that kind of thing.

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There was a great deal of controversy what to do with them,

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there was the husband hunt it was described as,

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everyone was thought to be out there,

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doing their best to doll themselves up in the hope of catching a man.

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There was a lot of pointing the finger at the new fashions,

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at the raising of skirts and the donning of silky leg wear and...

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girls who were no better than they ought to be wearing

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make-up and lipstick because they were hoping to catch a husband.

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So there was very much a kind of accusational tone.

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There was a famous editorial in the Daily Express in 1927

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which said that British people

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talk American, think American, dream American, that in fact that many

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women in particular were becoming temporary American citizens and they

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were particularly anxious about the so-called flapper voters, the women

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under 30 who they felt were going to swing the political system their way

0:21:390:21:43

and this created a campaigning crusade against the flapper vote

0:21:430:21:46

which filled a lot of column inches in 1927 and 1928.

0:21:460:21:51

There's one pamphlet written by a man called Shall Flappers Rule,

0:21:510:21:55

and his view was that flappers were...

0:21:550:22:00

..that it was monstrous that these frivolous young women

0:22:010:22:04

should be allowed to have an electoral voice.

0:22:040:22:08

And of course they did, they brought in a Labour government that year.

0:22:080:22:12

'Now women were represented in Parliament, there is new legislation

0:22:120:22:16

'concerning women's rights.

0:22:160:22:17

'Public service was open to them and Margaret Bunfield

0:22:170:22:20

'became the first woman cabinet minister.

0:22:200:22:22

'For these women, emancipation meant the chance to play

0:22:220:22:25

'an active part in politics and to serve the greater number of women

0:22:250:22:29

'for whom emancipation meant other things entirely.'

0:22:290:22:33

These women with other things on their minds were the most regular

0:22:330:22:37

cinema-goers of the period. The movies were an escape

0:22:370:22:40

in more ways than one.

0:22:400:22:42

You'd better come up and see me.

0:22:420:22:44

There's something about men.

0:22:460:22:48

Hello, you haven't proposed to me yet tonight.

0:22:510:22:54

Women couldn't go into pubs, there weren't many public spaces

0:22:540:22:57

that women could go to. They could go to dance halls, of course,

0:22:570:23:00

women could go to the cinema, they could even go on their own,

0:23:000:23:03

they could go with their friends, they could go in the afternoon.

0:23:030:23:06

Some 85-90% of films shown in Britain were from America.

0:23:060:23:12

Only 5% or so were British-made,

0:23:120:23:14

and this led to a lot of anxiety amongst the British cultural elite.

0:23:140:23:18

During the First World War, the Hollywood studios had flourished and

0:23:210:23:25

now, in peacetime, the British film industry was only a bit part player.

0:23:250:23:30

Everything in Britain was subsumed by the effort of winning the war

0:23:300:23:34

in the 1910s. By the time the 1920s came along, Hollywood was

0:23:340:23:38

already up and running, it is an industry with its own momentum.

0:23:380:23:41

There's no way that Britain can catch up with that because you've got

0:23:410:23:45

experienced actors, directors, producers, you've got the whole

0:23:450:23:50

advertising industry and marketing industry working.

0:23:500:23:53

They have a top-down control of their industry so

0:23:530:23:58

everything is wrapped up, there's no way that England could compete.

0:23:580:24:02

There's an economic concern which is there's a lot of money

0:24:020:24:05

coming out of British pockets and going to foreign companies.

0:24:050:24:08

There's also a sort of cultural argument about

0:24:080:24:12

an anxiety that somehow the British way of life is not

0:24:120:24:15

being shown on the screen, that a generation of young people are being

0:24:150:24:19

brought up to understand America as a place of opportunity and

0:24:190:24:23

excitement as opposed to Britain which, by comparison to the

0:24:230:24:28

Hollywood screen, seems rather dull and drab and dreary and unpleasant.

0:24:280:24:33

You know, when I wrote this song, I was thinking about you.

0:24:330:24:37

-Were you, really?

-Mm-hm.

0:24:370:24:39

# Baby

0:24:400:24:42

# Baby... #

0:24:420:24:44

Weak on fantasy but strong on reality,

0:24:440:24:46

the British film industry was out of touch with modern aspirations

0:24:460:24:50

and in danger of disappearing. The Government stepped in.

0:24:500:24:55

In 1927 an act was passed to increase the number

0:24:550:24:57

of home-produced films screened in British cinemas.

0:24:570:25:00

The result was the wholesome and hearty Quota Quickies.

0:25:000:25:04

When people admire America too much,

0:25:040:25:08

then, of course, the questions start to come up, why are we eating worse

0:25:080:25:11

food, why are we living in worse houses, what are we doing wrong?

0:25:110:25:15

To counteract that, what you have to say is,

0:25:150:25:17

"Yes, it's true, you're living in a two up, two down with

0:25:170:25:20

"no bathroom but on the other hand, you've got British spirit, British

0:25:200:25:24

"values, you've got this massive camaraderie, you've got culture."

0:25:240:25:28

I don't know what this generation is coming to!

0:25:280:25:31

This generation is the same as any other, it's out for a good time

0:25:310:25:34

while the going is good, and I don't blame them.

0:25:340:25:37

Anyway, Sylvia will make Frank a good wife.

0:25:370:25:39

WOMAN SCREAMS

0:25:410:25:42

Frank, what's that?

0:25:420:25:44

I don't know. Anyway, it was a very fruity one.

0:25:440:25:48

What quota quickies did was they offered a different

0:25:480:25:51

kind of cinema entertainment.

0:25:510:25:53

They were much more indigenous and often much more based around

0:25:530:25:58

familiarity rather than glamour.

0:25:580:26:01

I ain't afraid of catching cold anyway.

0:26:010:26:03

Catching cold, you've always got one.

0:26:030:26:05

Here was an opportunity to win back the home audience.

0:26:050:26:09

But Brits had grown used to the sophistication of Hollywood

0:26:090:26:13

and the cinema-going public expected nothing less.

0:26:130:26:17

I never saw anything!

0:26:170:26:19

-Well, it was behind you!

-Was it? Don't be silly.

0:26:190:26:22

Part of the problem was that the response was that fairly cheap

0:26:220:26:26

and shoddy films were made in Britain, so-called quota quickies,

0:26:260:26:31

just to fill the quotas and to respond to this new law,

0:26:310:26:35

and that didn't help British cinema in the short term at all because

0:26:350:26:39

British films has perpetuated the reputation for poor film making.

0:26:390:26:44

Here's something right up your street.

0:26:470:26:49

The legend of them is that they were so dreadful they were unwatchable

0:26:500:26:54

and they were shown 10 o'clock in the morning when the cleaners

0:26:540:26:59

were in the cinema and so nobody ever saw them.

0:26:590:27:01

-Half an hour ago, you said you wanted to tell me something.

-Yes.

0:27:010:27:05

Glamour wasn't the only thing missing -

0:27:050:27:07

they even struggled to capture vital moments.

0:27:070:27:10

-We've known each other for quite a time now.

-10 days to be exact.

0:27:100:27:13

Yes, what I wanted to ask you was, would you, could you...?

0:27:130:27:18

Frank, are you proposing to me?

0:27:180:27:20

Yes...

0:27:200:27:22

Really, the trouble with British cinema was that it found it

0:27:220:27:26

very difficult to generate any stars.

0:27:260:27:29

Partly this was the type of people who were in the acting profession.

0:27:290:27:33

Most of them came from a theatre background, most of them were

0:27:330:27:36

upper-middle-class, they had Metropolitan accents and they didn't

0:27:360:27:40

have the classless appeal and the glamour of the American stars,

0:27:400:27:45

that was cultivated by the American studio system.

0:27:450:27:48

Hurray! The party is waking up at last.

0:27:480:27:51

The biggest stars in the 1930s are Gracie Fields and George Formby,

0:27:590:28:03

who again, they're not stars who trade in glamour,

0:28:030:28:07

they're stars who trade in familiarity.

0:28:070:28:10

Indeed, Gracie Fields, quite a lot of Field's films are about

0:28:100:28:15

the contrast between her ordinariness and a kind of glamorous world.

0:28:150:28:21

Interestingly, humour seems to play more of a role when it comes

0:28:210:28:25

to British stars. If you look at the films from the Twenties,

0:28:250:28:28

and certainly Thirties, there seems to be a chirpy

0:28:280:28:32

and quite often working-class ethic running through it.

0:28:320:28:35

It was almost like, "We're definitely one of you,

0:28:350:28:38

"we share your values and aspirations, your pluck.

0:28:380:28:42

"It's us against a slightly uncaring and difficult world."

0:28:420:28:46

It's either this sort of bloodless, "Anyone for tennis?" things

0:28:460:28:50

-or...

-INDISTINCT SINGING

0:28:500:28:54

and that sort of other end of it.

0:28:540:28:56

But neither were the kind of highly sexualised gods and goddesses

0:28:560:29:02

of the American screen.

0:29:020:29:04

Britain did finally attempt to play Hollywood at their own glamour game,

0:29:080:29:12

but films like the 1937 musical Gangway were peddling a completely

0:29:120:29:17

different message about America.

0:29:170:29:19

# Gangway, I'm shouting gangway

0:29:190:29:23

#I've got a very extraordinary date to meet the one I love. #

0:29:230:29:28

# Gangway, I'm shouting gangway... #

0:29:280:29:32

The Jessie Matthews movie express a kind of cheery gallantry.

0:29:340:29:39

# Running down the street

0:29:390:29:42

# And hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry to the only one that I adore. #

0:29:420:29:46

-Get your feet off my desk!

-These films are not quota quickies,

0:29:460:29:50

they are big budget British films, and they're ambitious to be exported

0:29:500:29:55

to Hollywood, so they're trying to compete with Hollywood films.

0:29:550:29:59

Nothing ever happens in England.

0:29:590:30:00

Those birds in America have all the fun. Gangsters...

0:30:000:30:03

-Riots.

-Fires.

0:30:030:30:05

-Earthquakes.

-Racketeers.

-Murders.

0:30:050:30:08

Gee, what a swell country to live in.

0:30:080:30:09

Just think, Joe, what fun it is to be a newspaper woman like the ones

0:30:090:30:13

in the American movies.

0:30:130:30:15

Wisecracking with the boss, sitting around with the boys,

0:30:150:30:18

then the alarm and off you go.

0:30:180:30:20

If they'd only give me half a chance round here,

0:30:200:30:22

I'd get some front page news.

0:30:220:30:24

She's like, "I wish I was a girl

0:30:240:30:26

in an American film, it'd be so marvellous."

0:30:260:30:30

And, of course, in the narrative she then gets that opportunity,

0:30:300:30:34

so she goes to America,

0:30:340:30:36

she gets involved in this kind of detective narrative, and what she

0:30:360:30:42

realises from going to America is that it's actually quite scary.

0:30:420:30:45

What on earth are you doing?

0:30:470:30:48

Keep looking straight ahead, sister, and don't try to pull anything.

0:30:480:30:51

Remember there's a gat sticking right in to your ribs.

0:30:510:30:54

A gat?

0:30:540:30:55

A gat, a rod, a gun.

0:30:550:30:57

By the end of the film, she's like, "Oh, let me go home!"

0:30:570:30:59

Just a minute, I forgot something.

0:30:590:31:02

What?

0:31:020:31:03

I forgot to stay home.

0:31:030:31:05

Ah, she's always kidding.

0:31:050:31:07

In real life, Jessie Matthews did remember to stay home.

0:31:070:31:11

But for many other Brits, the Hollywood studios called

0:31:110:31:14

and proved to be their salvation.

0:31:140:31:17

Cary Grant is a pretty classic example. Archie Leach from Bristol -

0:31:190:31:24

He had a cheeky chappie thing and if he

0:31:240:31:27

had stayed here, he probably would've been playing the spoons in the halls.

0:31:270:31:31

But Hollywood spotted something in him,

0:31:310:31:33

and they developed his looks and they developed his charm, his quirkiness,

0:31:330:31:40

and eventually you have one of the greatest stars of all time.

0:31:400:31:42

You lied to me.

0:31:420:31:43

-No, Edward...

-A ridiculous story about a leopard.

0:31:430:31:46

It wasn't a ridiculous story. I have a leopard.

0:31:460:31:48

-Where is the leopard?

-In there.

0:31:480:31:49

-I don't believe you.

-But you have to believe me.

0:31:490:31:51

I've been a victim of your unbridled imagination... Ooh!

0:31:510:31:55

Most potential British stars achieved

0:31:570:32:01

their fame through going to Hollywood, so people like

0:32:010:32:05

Charlie Chaplin, Cary Grant, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard

0:32:050:32:10

all made their name by going to Hollywood, as did some of the key

0:32:100:32:12

directors like Alfred Hitchcock. They made their name there.

0:32:120:32:15

This was the trouble that Britain had, keeping on to its talent when

0:32:150:32:19

Hollywood had all the riches and the power.

0:32:190:32:22

For working class men like Cary Grant,

0:32:250:32:29

the British class system conspired to keep them in their place.

0:32:290:32:32

The USA, on the other hand, was the land of opportunity,

0:32:320:32:36

where rags to riches stories didn't just happen in the movies.

0:32:360:32:39

But America was viewed with suspicion, and in a period of

0:32:420:32:45

growing anti-Semitism, the Jewish movie moguls

0:32:450:32:48

were accused of undermining old-fashioned British values.

0:32:480:32:52

There was a great deal of snobbery about this, the idea that

0:32:550:33:01

British culture was being diluted, British taste was being diluted by

0:33:010:33:05

this vulgar newcomer, because America was still regarded as

0:33:050:33:09

an upstart nation, founded as it were by the British, now they were biting

0:33:090:33:13

back and they were going to take over British culture, take over British

0:33:130:33:17

ways of life, and this was in music, theatre, cinema and just in goods.

0:33:170:33:24

This obviously was something which was resented,

0:33:240:33:26

particularly by the mandarins,

0:33:260:33:29

and the holders, as it were, of the British tradition.

0:33:290:33:33

America was viewed with suspicion by many of the British cultural elites

0:33:330:33:38

because it was seen as a brash, emotional, unrestrained

0:33:380:33:42

society - materialistic, without the social and cultural hierarchies that

0:33:420:33:47

were secure in Britain.

0:33:470:33:49

But Hollywood in particular was seen as a hotbed of scandal.

0:33:490:33:52

In the 1920s, a lot of Hollywood stars

0:33:520:33:56

caused scandal by divorcing each other,

0:33:560:33:59

by taking drugs, by dying in unfortunate circumstances,

0:33:590:34:04

and there's a sense as the 20s go on that Hollywood is projecting a sort

0:34:040:34:10

of unhealthy image to the world.

0:34:100:34:13

In the 20s and 30s,

0:34:150:34:17

Chicago mobsters weren't only causing a problem in America.

0:34:170:34:21

Gangster films are a classic example of a film showing behaviour which

0:34:260:34:29

creates a certain amount of concern amongst the authorities.

0:34:290:34:32

There's only one thing that gets orders and gives orders,

0:34:320:34:35

and this is it. I'm gonna write my name all over town in big letters.

0:34:350:34:38

-Stop intimidating...

-Get out of my way, I'm gonna spit.

0:34:380:34:42

Very rarely were they scruffy gangsters. They were dressed up to

0:34:420:34:46

the nines in fantastically cut suits, hats pulled down over their eyes,

0:34:460:34:50

their shoulders hunched up, almost to hide their necks.

0:34:500:34:53

They had particular ways of walking that many people in Britain and other

0:34:530:34:58

countries certainly imitated.

0:34:580:35:00

Classically in gangster movies, films like The Public Enemy,

0:35:000:35:03

or Scarface, there's a point in the movie where the young guy from the

0:35:030:35:09

streets has made enough money as a gangster and he transforms himself,

0:35:090:35:13

so you get a point where he...

0:35:130:35:14

I think there's a point where Jimmy Cagney

0:35:140:35:17

arrives in a new car, or in a new set of clothes, and there's a sense

0:35:170:35:22

of having made it and displaying that having made it through dress.

0:35:220:35:28

And that's very not British.

0:35:280:35:31

Arnie, you're through.

0:35:320:35:34

You hired these mugs, they missed.

0:35:340:35:36

Now you're through. If you ain't outta town by tomorrow morning,

0:35:360:35:40

you won't never leave it except in a pine box.

0:35:400:35:42

I'm taking over this territory.

0:35:440:35:46

Many British cultural critics of the time

0:35:460:35:48

dismissed cinema as neither art nor smart. The arrival of cinema sound

0:35:480:35:52

provided them with more ammunition

0:35:520:35:54

to fire at the Americans.

0:35:540:35:57

When the talkies come in, there's a lot of concern about

0:35:570:36:00

the ways in which sound will affect the use of the English language,

0:36:000:36:03

so there's various commentators who say things like,

0:36:030:36:06

"We don't want people saying, 'Oh, yeah,' and, 'Says you,'

0:36:060:36:09

"and all this terrible American slang, how vulgar.

0:36:090:36:12

"We want to have a film industry which reminds people of the

0:36:120:36:16

"greatness of British literature, of the beauty of the English language,"

0:36:160:36:21

and so forth, and so on.

0:36:210:36:23

What are you driving at?

0:36:230:36:25

Jean Harlow was a star who had a massive worldwide impact, mainly

0:36:250:36:29

because of her trademark hair, the platinum blonde,

0:36:290:36:33

but also because of her manner.

0:36:330:36:35

You bet you ain't.

0:36:350:36:36

You think I sit home all day looking at bracelets? Ha!

0:36:360:36:39

Of all the dumb bunnies.

0:36:390:36:41

What do you think I'm doing while you're out pulling your dirty deals?

0:36:410:36:45

Waiting for Daddy to come home?

0:36:450:36:47

She had this very rough, sharp, wisecracking way of speaking which

0:36:470:36:51

meant that when she was situated in films which were often high-class,

0:36:510:36:56

she's often dressed in shimmering white frocks, pictured in hotels,

0:36:560:37:01

in luxury homes, she appears to be in a way both at home as a film star

0:37:010:37:07

and out of place as Jean Harlow, the woman from the street.

0:37:070:37:11

And I think that paradox, in a way,

0:37:110:37:13

was something that made her very appealing to British audiences.

0:37:130:37:17

I have told you a million

0:37:170:37:20

times not to talk to me when I'm doing my lashes.

0:37:200:37:22

Then don't you talk to me when I'm shaving.

0:37:220:37:26

Hollywood created for the female audience, because they were

0:37:260:37:29

female supported stars,

0:37:290:37:32

they created the concept of the woman who's tremendously well dressed,

0:37:320:37:36

and always in wonderful tailoring and beautiful white frocks,

0:37:360:37:41

and this and that and the feathers,

0:37:410:37:43

but always with the right thing to say.

0:37:430:37:46

There was no l'esprit d'escalier for these dames. They had it on the

0:37:460:37:49

tip of their tongue. Rosalind Russell in Front Page,

0:37:490:37:53

"Whack, whack, whack", and this was a kind of, for me, healthy fantasy.

0:37:530:38:00

This was the empowered woman

0:38:000:38:02

who also attracted women because she looked great,

0:38:020:38:06

her make-up was great, her hair was great, but she was nobody's fool.

0:38:060:38:11

But in the land of opportunity, things were far from perfect.

0:38:110:38:16

America's rags to riches story was suddenly going into reverse.

0:38:160:38:20

'And in the richest country in the world,

0:38:200:38:22

'in towering Wall Street, disaster.

0:38:220:38:27

'The money castles came crashing down and fortunes dissolved in a day.'

0:38:270:38:33

Mass production had fuelled a spending spree that couldn't

0:38:340:38:37

be sustained, and in 1929 the US stock market collapsed,

0:38:370:38:43

creating a worldwide financial disaster.

0:38:430:38:46

The Depression only affected part of Britain,

0:38:470:38:51

but where it did affect in the North

0:38:510:38:53

and North-East, Wales, Scotland, it was very real.

0:38:530:38:56

The cinema could provide escapism from that, of course.

0:38:560:39:01

It's very interesting, in places like South Wales, where there was a strong

0:39:010:39:06

tradition of miners' institutes, a lot of miners' institutes would build

0:39:060:39:10

a cinema or hold film shows in their halls, and though the people running

0:39:100:39:16

the cinema or the miners' institutes would want to have good,

0:39:160:39:22

socially educative films,

0:39:220:39:24

often what the population wanted was just glamour.

0:39:240:39:27

They wanted to see Shirley Temple in

0:39:270:39:30

the Good Ship Lollipop, they wanted films which showed a better life.

0:39:300:39:33

They wanted to lose themselves for a couple of hours

0:39:330:39:38

in something that was lovely, rather than necessarily having the

0:39:380:39:43

realism, which they had plenty of in their daily lives.

0:39:430:39:46

There you go.

0:39:460:39:47

Thank you kindly.

0:39:470:39:48

I don't suppose you have any loaf bread at all?

0:39:520:39:54

Look inside.

0:39:560:39:57

That's mighty.

0:39:570:39:59

I ain't seen that much eatings ever in my born life.

0:40:010:40:04

The poorer and more reduced

0:40:040:40:06

the majority of the population, the greater the level of glamour,

0:40:060:40:11

beauty and escapism that they want to see on the screen.

0:40:110:40:15

One of the interesting things about cinema in the 1930s is that it

0:40:210:40:26

continues to grow, audiences continue to rise, people still are drawn in by

0:40:260:40:32

the glamour of the cinema, despite the fact that there's a Depression.

0:40:320:40:36

Working-class men and women

0:40:360:40:38

still wanted to spend their money on the cinema, and were still attracted

0:40:380:40:43

to the dreams and fantasies of the whole Hollywood scene.

0:40:430:40:47

In the 1930s, a new state of the art movie theatre was opening every week

0:40:590:41:03

on the British high street.

0:41:030:41:05

Bigger, better, and still easily affordable, the Hollywood experience

0:41:050:41:10

moved up a gear.

0:41:100:41:11

'Scenes of enthusiasm such as the district has never witnessed before,

0:41:110:41:15

'but for the grand opening of the Odeon cinema.'

0:41:150:41:17

Cinemas in the 30s were the first introduction to luxury

0:41:170:41:20

for a lot of people.

0:41:200:41:21

There were carpets, soft lighting,

0:41:210:41:24

usherettes in uniform, cigarette girls, people selling chocolates.

0:41:240:41:29

They were known as dream palaces and this is what they were, really.

0:41:290:41:32

And of course the architecture showed that.

0:41:320:41:35

For the price of a shilling, you could come off the miserable

0:41:400:41:43

streets of Glasgow, or the Elephant and Castle, and you could sit in a

0:41:430:41:48

soft velour seat surrounded by soft lights, be served by an usherette,

0:41:480:41:53

and also the cinema owners were very well aware of that

0:41:530:41:57

and they encouraged their pageboys, cigarette girls,

0:41:570:42:01

to welcome people in as if it was The Dorchester on the Old Kent Road.

0:42:010:42:06

Hardship and poverty fed our desire for escapism.

0:42:060:42:10

And Hollywood, even in a depression, managed to

0:42:100:42:12

deliver just what audiences needed.

0:42:120:42:16

Gold Diggers Of 1933 - you get these shining stars who were like gods and

0:42:270:42:32

goddesses. They do these glamorous films, and then 100 dancers jump out.

0:42:320:42:38

# We're in the money

0:42:380:42:40

# We're in the money

0:42:400:42:42

# We've got a lot of what it takes to get along... #

0:42:420:42:46

In Gold Diggers Of 1933, Hollywood puts its own spin on The Depression.

0:42:460:42:50

Nothing, it seemed, could get America down.

0:42:500:42:53

# We've got a lot of what it takes to get along... #

0:42:530:42:56

The key moment, for me, is the point where one of their mates shows up and

0:42:560:43:01

says, "There's an audition, there's a new show going on. We must all go

0:43:010:43:04

"down and audition." And they realise that they can't audition

0:43:040:43:07

because they don't have any clothes to wear, they don't look glamorous,

0:43:070:43:11

they don't look like showgirls

0:43:110:43:12

because they've had to pawn all their clothes.

0:43:120:43:15

And the one person who has got a job,

0:43:150:43:17

has got a job in a drugstore, and she's wearing the drugstore uniform.

0:43:170:43:22

And so they draw lots to see

0:43:220:43:24

who will get to wear the frock that she's wearing in order to go to the

0:43:240:43:28

audition in order to then try and get them all jobs.

0:43:280:43:30

You've got to give Carol that dress.

0:43:300:43:32

Don't, I've got to go back to the drugstore.

0:43:320:43:34

We'll give you something good enough for a drugstore.

0:43:340:43:36

-The dress belongs to them. I'm a hostess there.

-Stand still.

0:43:360:43:39

So am I a hostess. I've got to entertain Bonnie

0:43:390:43:42

with the idea of putting us to work.

0:43:420:43:43

There's this real sense in which

0:43:430:43:45

even a uniform from a drugstore is glamorous enough

0:43:450:43:50

to be able to then market yourself as a showgirl,

0:43:500:43:55

to then market the glamour of what a showgirl represents.

0:43:550:43:58

# We're in the money

0:43:580:44:00

# Come on my honey

0:44:000:44:02

# Let's lend it, spend it, send it rolling around... #

0:44:020:44:05

There's a sense in which, if you can pretend to be the thing

0:44:050:44:10

that you're trying to be, you can pass in this economy as that thing.

0:44:100:44:15

Don't forget to stand in the light, Carol, when you're

0:44:160:44:19

talking to Barney. They know what they're doing

0:44:190:44:21

when they dress their hostesses in that drugstore.

0:44:210:44:23

Well, you don't look bad.

0:44:230:44:24

Take two.

0:44:270:44:29

And behind the scenes at the movies, Hollywood's big players were

0:44:310:44:35

starting to dictate women's shapes and sizes.

0:44:350:44:38

Cut. Cut.

0:44:410:44:42

'The production numbers of director Busby Berkeley provide not only

0:44:450:44:48

'escape from The Depression,

0:44:480:44:50

'but a rare combination of picture and sound.'

0:44:500:44:53

Busby Berkeley is a good example of the search for the perfect form,

0:44:550:44:59

the perfect woman. He'd line his chorus girls up against a grid

0:44:590:45:02

to make sure that their measurements were all in proportion

0:45:020:45:06

and that they achieved a standard of beauty.

0:45:060:45:08

'Weight, shape, colour of eyes and hair, dancing ability and screen

0:45:080:45:12

'personality form the basis on which the girls are being selected.'

0:45:120:45:15

With Hollywood setting such high standards,

0:45:210:45:23

British women now had to start worrying about the whole package.

0:45:230:45:29

This is when people discovered calories.

0:45:290:45:31

Not only are people copying Hollywood stars and their diets and lifestyles,

0:45:310:45:36

but they're also starting to count calories for the first time.

0:45:360:45:39

The most popular bestseller of the 1920s was a diet book.

0:45:410:45:45

This was the beginning of the kind of body shaping that we see today.

0:45:450:45:52

The craze for slimming was influenced by Hollywood and a lot

0:45:520:45:56

of the fashions were very clingy.

0:45:560:45:58

Satin is a very slinky, but very unforgiving fabric.

0:45:580:46:03

I think Hollywood did certainly influence people's desire to keep

0:46:030:46:09

their zest for life and health and beauty.

0:46:090:46:12

And Busby Berkeley, all the synchronised dancing,

0:46:120:46:16

the synchronised exercising was very much a 30s thing.

0:46:160:46:20

'The ladies of Cambridge like to feel that they're ahead on most subjects

0:46:200:46:23

'and now that physical training is the rage they're showing the

0:46:230:46:26

'world what they can do.

0:46:260:46:28

'It doesn't guarantee to make them all film stars, but it gives them

0:46:280:46:31

'poise, balance and beauty.

0:46:310:46:33

'As far as the beauty goes, they don't seem to be doing so badly.

0:46:330:46:37

'I'll buy the second one in the third row.'

0:46:370:46:39

There are certain eras were the kind of zeitgeist is

0:46:420:46:47

so strong that everyone wants to join it, everyone wants to look

0:46:470:46:51

like they're supposed to look.

0:46:510:46:55

Really the 20s and 30s is one of those periods where

0:46:550:46:59

the girls of season and the girls working in a shop in Doncaster were

0:46:590:47:05

essentially after the same look.

0:47:050:47:07

They have abandoned the more traditional,

0:47:070:47:10

British concept that the classes dressed to look differently.

0:47:100:47:15

There was a conscious desire among the classes to express

0:47:150:47:18

their rank through their clothing.

0:47:180:47:20

Their parents in 1910 -

0:47:200:47:22

you could have spotted someone's income by what they were wearing.

0:47:220:47:27

That went in the 20s and 30s.

0:47:270:47:29

In the 20s, Paris set the fashion trends, but in the 30s

0:47:310:47:35

it was film stars leading the way in impossibly glamorous outfits

0:47:350:47:40

created by Hollywood's costume designers.

0:47:400:47:44

It's absolutely essential

0:47:440:47:48

to understand how important the film costume designers were.

0:47:480:47:54

They were in their heyday in the 30s,

0:47:540:47:58

much more powerful than the so-called international Parisian designers.

0:47:580:48:02

Adrian at MGM,

0:48:020:48:05

Travis Banton at Paramount, Orry-Kelly at Warner Brothers.

0:48:050:48:11

These men were part of the inner circle of the coterie of the most

0:48:110:48:17

famous, wealthiest and glamourous women in the world.

0:48:170:48:20

And they dressed them.

0:48:200:48:22

They hid their lumps and bumps

0:48:250:48:27

and short necks and small breasts and big backsides.

0:48:270:48:34

They were very powerful and their clothes were much copied.

0:48:340:48:38

When Adrian did an organdie ruffled dress

0:48:390:48:44

for Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton,

0:48:440:48:47

Macy's sold half-a-million copies of it.

0:48:470:48:51

Since the 20s, American

0:48:560:48:58

manufacturers had been exploiting the demand for film star frocks.

0:48:580:49:03

Now British women could achieve the glamourous Hollywood look

0:49:030:49:06

at high-street prices.

0:49:060:49:09

When rayon was invented in the mid 1920s,

0:49:090:49:12

it became the working girl's best friend.

0:49:120:49:15

Nylon stockings, later, so you didn't have to have silk stockings.

0:49:150:49:20

You could have a fashion copy blouse

0:49:200:49:26

maybe for £2 and 10 shillings as it would have been in those days

0:49:260:49:30

which before that would have cost more than double a week's wages.

0:49:300:49:36

In the 30s because of the beginning of mass consumption

0:49:360:49:39

and the beginning of a little bit

0:49:390:49:41

more disposable income, it was

0:49:410:49:44

possible to not necessarily have your mother run up your clothes.

0:49:440:49:48

You could see something in a magazine, you could go to a shop

0:49:480:49:51

and you could buy it. In a sense looking beautiful became

0:49:510:49:56

within the purchasing power of a great deal more people.

0:49:560:50:00

It wasn't just a question of admiring beauty from afar -

0:50:000:50:03

you could try and appropriate it for yourself.

0:50:030:50:06

American-style department stores were now offering shoppers of

0:50:070:50:12

any income a chance to wander around inspecting all the items on sale

0:50:120:50:17

without suffering the embarrassment of having to ask the price.

0:50:170:50:21

Woolworths was a great model.

0:50:230:50:25

Marks and Spencer's, for example.

0:50:250:50:27

Their chief executives went to America

0:50:270:50:30

to find out how Woolworths was doing it.

0:50:300:50:33

Certainly amongst some of the British cultural elites there was a

0:50:330:50:37

fear and anxiety about the department store,

0:50:370:50:42

the materialism which it was supposed to encourage,

0:50:420:50:45

the informality of the display

0:50:450:50:48

and interaction between shopkeeper and the public.

0:50:480:50:52

To some extent they became another avenue

0:50:520:50:55

of Americanisation in the period.

0:50:550:50:57

America continued to fascinate British audiences.

0:51:070:51:09

Yet what they were seeing was neither entirely accurate,

0:51:090:51:14

nor especially good for their health.

0:51:140:51:17

Most cinema-goers got a completely

0:51:170:51:21

false impression of what America was like.

0:51:210:51:24

It was either the wide skies of Montana and the cowboy films,

0:51:240:51:27

or it was the chrome and glass-plated Manhattan penthouse.

0:51:270:51:32

Every hour the Martini hour.

0:51:320:51:34

Respectable women before

0:51:370:51:39

the war didn't smoke or drink in either America or England.

0:51:390:51:44

When women started smoking in public and getting drunk,

0:51:440:51:50

it was a revolution.

0:51:500:51:55

Do you realise we've been sitting here for over an hour

0:51:550:51:59

without smoking?

0:51:590:52:00

I was just thinking that.

0:52:000:52:02

Women were smoking cigarettes

0:52:020:52:04

because American tobacco companies were promoting directly to women.

0:52:040:52:09

The sheer amount of smoking that goes on is enormous.

0:52:090:52:12

It's really shocking to see that today, actually.

0:52:120:52:15

SHE SINGS IN FRENCH

0:52:150:52:17

I think there's something about the gesture of smoking

0:52:240:52:26

that's inherently glamourous.

0:52:260:52:28

I can't tell you what it is, but it's true that even now

0:52:280:52:31

when you watch an old movie and people are smoking...

0:52:310:52:34

It's perhaps also something

0:52:340:52:36

to do with the way the light works on the smoke as well.

0:52:360:52:39

The black and white with the smoke going up to the

0:52:390:52:41

ceiling and the way that it's lit creates an idea of glamour as well.

0:52:410:52:47

There's something elegant about the gesture and the way that you're

0:52:470:52:51

forced to sit or hold yourself when you're smoking a cigarette.

0:52:510:52:54

Cocktails sprang up as a response to

0:52:570:52:59

prohibition in America so we now think of the 20s and 30s

0:52:590:53:02

as being the cocktail era in this country as well, but people didn't

0:53:020:53:06

need to drink cocktails in this country because booze was legal.

0:53:060:53:09

The only reason cocktails were invented was to mask the taste

0:53:090:53:11

of bootleg liquor.

0:53:110:53:13

Yes, America is having a huge influence.

0:53:130:53:17

The fact that people are drinking cocktails at all in England is a

0:53:170:53:20

direct result of American influence.

0:53:200:53:23

To a successful trip and a quick return.

0:53:230:53:28

I can do better than that.

0:53:280:53:30

Here's to all of us just as we are.

0:53:300:53:33

As the 1930s progressed,

0:53:430:53:45

the rising threat of global conflict cast a shadow over the country and

0:53:450:53:50

by the decade's close Britain would once again be at war with Germany.

0:53:500:53:55

By the end of the 30s, women are having to move off centre stage

0:53:570:54:02

and during the war

0:54:020:54:04

in the early days, most of the films were about

0:54:040:54:07

war situations because there was the idea that people wanted realism.

0:54:070:54:12

They needed to have the sort of films

0:54:120:54:15

that would show them how to cope in these impossible situations.

0:54:150:54:19

The big event the whole country is talking about, Mrs Miniver,

0:54:190:54:24

a timely drama tuned to the tempo of the world of today.

0:54:240:54:29

Mrs Miniver, the story of a valiant woman whose love and devotion shield

0:54:290:54:33

her family from the cruellest onslaught of devastation ever

0:54:330:54:37

visited upon mankind.

0:54:370:54:39

Films like Mrs Miniver

0:54:400:54:43

were Hollywood's contribution to the war effort, propaganda to edge

0:54:430:54:47

Americans towards supporting Britain in the fight against Nazi Germany.

0:54:470:54:51

Mrs Miniver takes you from

0:54:540:54:55

this relatively carefree lifestyle through into a wartime situation.

0:54:550:55:02

That film itself traces the shift from glamour

0:55:020:55:04

to fighting for survival.

0:55:040:55:07

In a sense the future does lie with men again.

0:55:120:55:16

# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile... #

0:55:160:55:24

In wartime there would be less call for Hollywood's fantasy.

0:55:240:55:28

British moviegoers wanted a dose

0:55:280:55:29

of traditional values and home-grown pluck.

0:55:290:55:33

# What's the use of worrying..? #

0:55:330:55:37

Part of the war effort was putting on a smile.

0:55:370:55:42

That's something the Americans don't give you,

0:55:420:55:45

that sort of cheeky chappie cheeriness.

0:55:450:55:50

I think it's nice.

0:55:500:55:51

But in a time of air raids, military uniforms and rationing

0:55:530:55:57

our Hollywood gifted obsession with glamour served as a secret weapon

0:55:570:56:02

to boost British morale.

0:56:020:56:05

Mrs Clark made her frock from a pair of

0:56:050:56:08

her husband's old plus four trousers and half a yard of new material.

0:56:080:56:13

Dreams of better lives may have been on hold, but our inter-war

0:56:150:56:19

infatuation with luxury and glamour

0:56:190:56:21

has had a lasting effect on British society.

0:56:210:56:24

I think the glamour of the 1920s and perhaps especially

0:56:260:56:30

in the 1930s left a deep mark on British society and above all on the

0:56:300:56:36

expectations and aspirations of the audiences of the films at that time.

0:56:360:56:41

There's no question that the post-war consumer boom was fuelled by

0:56:410:56:46

the dreams that Hollywood peddled to British audiences in the 1930s.

0:56:460:56:51

That perception of buying into glamour,

0:56:540:56:58

buying into something pretty, buying into something that's like "me time"

0:56:580:57:01

in front of the mirror on the dressing-table,

0:57:010:57:04

whether you approve or disapprove of it, it's very real.

0:57:040:57:07

Even today American films still represent the glamourous lifestyle.

0:57:100:57:16

You don't go to see Ocean's Eleven

0:57:160:57:18

expecting to see a lifestyle that's like your own on the screen,

0:57:180:57:22

whereas you might go to a British film

0:57:220:57:23

expecting to see something more like your own life.

0:57:230:57:27

The artifice of the Hollywood fantasy has become clearer to

0:57:410:57:44

us as the decades pass, yet despite ourselves we're still seduced by the

0:57:440:57:49

tinsel-touched lifestyle we so often encounter in American movies.

0:57:490:57:54

In cinema as in life, there remains a yearning for the undeniable allure

0:57:540:58:00

of Hollywood's golden age and its oh so enticing glamour -

0:58:000:58:05

a glamour that changed the world forever.

0:58:050:58:09

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:200:58:23

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0:58:230:58:26

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