:09:01
"Sunset Boulevard" was
an interesting challenge for Edith Head.
:09:02
He was hard at work in Bel Air,
making with the golf sticks.
:09:05
She and Billy Wilder
and Gloria Swanson got together
:09:09
and came up with a particular concept
for the clothes.
:09:09
You need $300? Of course I could
give you $300, only I'm not going to.
:09:12
They did not want to have Swanson
wearing 1920s styles.
:09:15
- No?
- I'm not just your agent.
:09:17
She was living in a 1920s-type house
:09:18
- It's not the 10%. I'm your friend.
- You are?
:09:19
that had never been remodelled
since Norma Desmond's glory days.
:09:22
The finest things have been
written on an empty stomach.
:09:23
But the basic lines of the clothes
were the New Look
:09:25
Once your talent gets into that
Mocambo-Romanoff rut, you're through.
:09:28
that Dior introduced in 1947.
:09:29
Forget that! It's a car I'm talking
about. Losing it is like losing my legs.
:09:31
And how they brought Norma Desmond
into this was just to exaggerate more.
:09:33
Greatest thing that could happen.
Now you'll have to sit down and write.
:09:37
One of the problems was that the
New Look accentuated waistlines a lot.
:09:38
What do you think I've been doing?
I need $300.
:09:42
Sweetheart, maybe what
you need is another agent.
:09:42
The ideal at that time was to have
a very tight waist and a very full skirt.
:09:48
Gloria Swanson,
though she was still quite thin,
:09:51
her waist was not as trim as it had been,
and she did not wear a waist-cincher.
:09:57
As I drove back towards town,
I took inventory of my prospects.
:09:57
There just aren't any faces like that
any more.
:10:00
Maybe one. Garbo.
:10:01
They now added up to exactly zero.
:10:03
Apparently,
I just didn't have what it takes.
:10:04
Those idiot producers... those imbeciles!
:10:07
The time had come to wrap up
the Hollywood deal and go home.
:10:08
Haven't they got any eyes? Have they
forgotten what a star looks like?
:10:11
Maybe if I hocked all my junk, there'd
be enough for a ticket back to Ohio,
:10:12
I'll show them.
I'll be up there again, so help me!
:10:15
Edith's dress around the studio
was always very conservative.
:10:15
to that $35-a-week job at the copy
desk of the "Dayton Evening Post",
:10:19
Some of the other lady designers would
wear fabulously glamorous clothes.
:10:20
if it was still open, back
to the smirking delight of the office.
:10:25
Edith was brilliant
about packaging herself,
:10:25
All right, why don't you
take a crack at Hollywood?
:10:29
Maybe you think you could...
:10:29
and realised early on
that she was not a glamour girl.
:10:32
Uh-oh!
:10:33
So she had that well-dressed
school-marm look.
:10:36
No matter when you see
pictures of Edith, she's maintained it.
:10:40
You always know exactly who it is.
:10:42
She generally wore black and white
or beige and brown.
:10:46
Once in a while she might wear red.
:10:49
She always wore white gloves
when she was at Paramount.
:10:52
And she generally wore dark glasses.
:10:55
This wasn't unusual
in the '30s and '40s,
:10:58
when most movies
were in black and white.