When I watch movies, I always take pictures of the kissing scenes!!
Forbidden kisses: captured through the gauzy curtains.
Captured between gentlemen.
Marlene Dietrich in a tux and top hat, Morocco (1930).
Queen Christina (1933) starring Garbo as the queen.
Queen Christina, also. Lean over that fruit bowl, baby girl!
A kiss between servicemen, in Wings (1927).
After seven months of appointments and healing time, my phonograph girl tattoo is finished!
What began as a chalk sketch in 2008, quickly became the cover of #4 of my zine
This lead to a sharpie sketch by Nick, and eventually, ink to skin.
Video Describing the First Sitting
Video Describing the Second Sitting
Nick Baxter – website.
When I watch movies, I always take pictures of the kissing scenes!!
This week’s theme is passionate, uncomfortable kisses
The kind where the teeth clank together.
Where faces are obscured by the light.
Wherein hands clasp backs of necks,
And noses press into noses,
And the smells of fish dinners, of champagne, comingle
And the neckfolds of skin squash into sequinned dress sleeves.
When I watch movies, I always take pictures of the kissing scenes!!
Welcome to this week’s series: the awkward third.
Here is a typical awkward-third-party on the dance floor who are looking at the lusty couple. Can we take this out to the veranda?
This is the ultimate voyeur shot: the guard on the left is watching the visitation with one eye on the clock and the other on the couple.
“Hi! I’m the best friend, and also the third wheel! Gee! You guys look swell!”
This is a still from a 1920s silent (featured on Celluloid Closet) Harem scene, where the woman is being bent over a table of fruit (foreground) and disinterested guard (background).
The third is a bit hidden in this image. Someone is about to enter the room and discover the lusty smooch.
When I watch movies, I always take pictures of the kissing scenes!!
Don’t muss Ms. Davis’s hair, she’s watching!
Now, that’s better.
Cowboy kiss from “Two Fister” (1927) – notice gun pointed at enemy.
A kiss from behind the curtain (Unknown movie).
When I watch movies, I always take pictures of the kissing scenes!!
These stills are from The Love Trap (1929), one of the first films to use sound. This was an incredible movie – the first half was all silent with a musical score that punctuated the action. It also had only a few title cards which left it up to the viewer to read the lips to follow the action. It was so amusing and well done! There is a particularly riviting scene where the heroine has a cocktail spilt on her dress and she’s wandering the streets of NYC half naked in the rain. Halfway through the film the sound comes in, just in time for a lusty revenge scene.
They had fallen asleep on the cab ride to her house. In this scene, they are still sleeping, and a jolt in the road causes them to kiss.
And then they kissed for real.
You can see how sweet these kisses are.
Of course they are married. This is the “welcome home” kiss, where he scales the balcony to meet her.
Now that it’s nearly 95F every day, I’ve started working on my 1920s bathing beauty inspiration board. In a hot place like Austin, it’s always wise to wear a bathing suit under your clothes at all times, because who knows when an impromptu pool dip at an unlocked apartment complex may be in order? Sometimes it’s just too hot to bother with rules!
This is my swimming costume from the 1950s. I traded a girl for it about seven years ago – I had one of those “Mary is my Home Girl” shirts and for some reason this girl really wanted it. I’d say I got the better part of the trade!
These four suits are from Drama Queen on etsy, who hand makes vintage inspired suits. I have my eye especially on the absinthe colored one!
These two stills are from the chorus girl opening scene from “The Love Trap” (1929). Directly after this scene, the stage manager calls Mary (in the patterned bow) to the front to show everyone how she does the dance. He then says “If I ever catch any of you dancing like this, you’ll all be fired, too!” and then he has her Buffalo off the stage. Oh!!
This video has a great version of “Hot Feet” as well as a xylophone intro. I am absolutely hypnotized by the repetitiveness of the dancing feet shots.
A 1927 recording of how to dance the Charleston. It’s very sarcastic and silly!
A 30 second dancing snippet from a Man Ray art video.
This scene is from a bonus movie on the “Stage Door” (1937) DVD. I love how absurd it is – like elevators are ever this big to afford dance offs between total strangers!
I can never get enough of these endless repetition images of the chorus girl dancers. It’s also an excellent study in menswear. Above we have suits and bowties, below, top hats with vests.
And now top hats with canes!
I have literally been planning a trip to NYC for years now in order to attend a Wit’s End event, hosted by the lovely Diane (left). I have been dreaming of starting my own 1920s themed night here in Austin, and Diane has been very kind and helpful about giving me pointers. Photos by Don Spiro.
There was a dance lesson at 8:30, vintage themed cocktails, and dancing! I was wearing a 1930s floor length gown that had rhinestones all over it. A true Coney Island Mermaid dress! I pinned orchids in my hair like a reverse headband and sculpted lots of kiss curls. I can’t describe how a nearly 100 year old dress feels as it slips around ankles and little rhinestones cool on my belly and ribs. It just feels magical, that’s all.
The dancing continued even as we headed to the subways. Check out that girl on the left. She wishes SHE were lindy hopping to a subway performer playing Sugar Ray’s “I Just Wanna Fly” on guitar in the bowels of NYC. Photos are by Rose Callahan.
More serious converstations were held over whiskeys in Brooklyn with Rose Callahan and Kelly.
Rose was an awesome tour guide and I wanted to do so many things she suggested in her pre trip emails!
Oh, and also! I have a pincurling tutorial as part of the newest issue of Zelda Magazine. Please pick up your copy and see me and Bellweather revealing our secret tricks to pincurl sets – with macro pictures! Thank you Diane for including me in the magazine and also for throwing this wonderful event!
I obviously need to go to NYC again soon.
I have a very small head (my mother always laughs at me) but it’s quite handy for fitting into tiny 1920s cloche hats, which are usually size 21 and smaller. The next time you’re at the beauty parlor, request for the back to be “stacked” and they’ll usually cut your hair shorter beginning at the occipital bone. Think Louise Brooks. It’s a very handy cut to have for making hats fit. There is your beauty tip for the day.
Most of my cloches are ill fitting at the moment because the back of my head is overgrown. I haven’t had my hair cut in a while because I haven’t any extra money – a ladies’ haircut in Austin is $50 in most places before tip! I feed myself on nearly $90 a month, so it doesn’t really make sense to spend food money on something that will grow back in 5 weeks. I can manage trimming the front and sides okay, but I can’t stack the back myself. I wish I could pay for just partial haircuts, because I would gladly pay $25 for just the back to be cut and the rest left alone. I have a special technique for cutting my hair that is probably not approved by most stylists. It involves dry cutting the ringlets and then twisting sections that I pincurl and thin them out.
Close up of kitten fabric! I borrowed this image from the Jitterbuggin Etsy shop. By the way, I own another blouse from this shop and I can’t say enough nice things about it. It’s all handmade in Portland, Oregon by the cutest girl, too!
