"This wig weighs a ton"
Saturday, October 15, 2016 at 3:00PM Editor's Note: We're celebrating Marie Antoinette at the movies each afternoon for a week
Gee this wig weighs a ton.
Singin' in the Rain is, of course, a beloved movie about our beloved movies. There's lots of broad goofing on Hollywood history for movie buff amusement. But sometimes the gentle ribbing is actually pointed jabs. When Lina Lamont enters the shot above to shoot The Dueling Cavaliers the joke is bigger than her constant whining...
What kind of a dope would wear this?"
Um... this kind of a dope, Lina.
Poor Norma. The bitchy divas in movies are always taking jabs at her from Joan Crawford onward. But by 1952 the First Lady of MGM had retired and had long since learned to get her own claws out. Jungle red.
Yup, Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont is entirely decked out in one of Norma Shearer's 1938 Marie Antoinette costumes including the exact same wig! What's more, perhaps to make sure people in the know got the joke, the portable dressing room Gene Kelly's Don Lockwood emerges from for "The Duelling Cavaliers" also belonged to Norma Shearer.
* Trivia courtesy of the The Great Movie Musical Trivia Book
Reader Comments (6)
This has been a public service announcement.
I love Norma as Marie Antoinette, also thanks to the fab Adrian costumes (why wasn't there Best Costumes Design Oscar back in the 30s?)
One of my favorite Hollywood jabs in the movie.
Here's some trivia about the 2006 film. The guy who designed Marie's wigs was named Leonard as it's a reference to the guy who designed the hair and wigs for Barry Lyndon which had costumes designed Milena Canonero who would also win the Oscar for Best Costume design for Marie Antoinette.
Norma's Marie Antoinette is a marvel of both costume and production design and one of the films that should have absolutely been in color. Probably if Thalberg had lived it would have been but he died when it was in preproduction and Mayer wouldn't approve the added cost to an already very expensive film. It is one of Shearer's best performances her theatrical style is well suited to the imperial nature of the role.
SIGH.
Jean Hagen was such a genius in Singin' in the Rain!
Oh, and Norma was quite lovely too.