Synopsis
This black and white 1946 theatrical short-subject film, directed by H.A. Spanuth and narrated by Virginia Gregg and Ann Tobin, surveys changing representations of women in post-war world society. This episode, Volume 1, number 4, features footage of African women's hairstyles, Hollywood fashion, Jiu Jitsu classes, swimming races, and Russian ballet with female narration (TRT: 10:17).Opening credits. Title over the Statue of Liberty: “Still holding the main bastion in that fortress of the nation, the home, now in fields once strange to her-- Woman Speaks” (0:20). African native villagers. Montage: African women with braided hair, necklaces, earrings, coiled wire adornments and bracelets, anklets (0:53). A painter’s palette, with a title: “Artistic Coiffures by Jean Ball.” A portrait artist sporting a 1940’s American style updo sketches a glamorous visage. Montage of Jean Ball hairstyle portraits (1:41). Women wearing smocks sit in a hair salon under hair dryers, reading magazines, crossing their legs. Three women rise to their feet. Their smocks fall away, revealing a printed two-piece bathing suit, a shoulderless black dress, and a more modest outfit. Closeups of their complex, “dramatised coiffures” (2:02). A woman in a necklace and undergarments poses in front of a patterned curtain. She winks in a closeup (2:32). The woman in the black dress models a multi-stranded pearl necklace and earrings by Eugene Joseff of Hollywood, “jeweler to the stars,” best known for his…
Uploader's description on archive.org
Details
- Running time
- 10 minutes
- Collection
- Ephemeral Films
Subjects on the Internet Archive
- Anne Curtis
- Virginia Gregg
- Ann Tobin
- Jiu Jitsu
- Woman Speaks
- The Congo
- Artistic Coiffures
- Jean Ball
- Eugene Joseff
- Jiu Jitsu Institute