They tried to frump her up, but Dorothy McGuire was too much of a cutie to be called that. It's just a little hard to swallow.
shareI thought she was a perfectly normal looking girl, and I can't understand why nobody would dance with her. But, this is a movie, and you have to suspend your disbelief to enjoy a movie.
X
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Try as they might, the film's makeup artists could not mask or even diminish the beauty of Ms. McGuire's unbelievable cheekbones. What beautiful eyes, she had!
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You said:
She was ostracized simply because she couldn't see any worth in herself, thus she didn't think of fixing her hair or wearing makeup.I feel exactly the opposit. I feel that if somebody is secure with who they are, they don't feel a need to live up to an artificial standard of beauty. I'm perfectly happy with the face God gave me, and I do not feel a need to wear makeup. In my opinion, anybody worth knowing does not really care what somebody looks like. My hubby met me and fell in love with me all while I was wearing the face I was born with.
You said:
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She was ostracized simply because she couldn't see any worth in herself, thus she didn't think of fixing her hair or wearing makeup.
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I feel exactly the opposit. I feel that if somebody is secure with who they are, they don't feel a need to live up to an artificial standard of beauty. I'm perfectly happy with the face God gave me, and I do not feel a need to wear makeup. In my opinion, anybody worth knowing does not really care what somebody looks like. My hubby met me and fell in love with me all while I was wearing the face I was born with.
X
Thank you very much! I have a minority opinion, so it's nice to have somebody agree with me once in a while.
Thanks for writing!
X
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www.X-Evolutionist.com
^^I think a lot of people feel that way, it isn't farfetched at all.
shareI don't think they really tried TOO hard to frump her up. And not many women in Hollywood like to do it, Bette Davis being the big exception. She would let herself look like hell for any good role. I mean, look at her in Now Voyager---Charlotte Vale----now THATS a frump!!! So they certainly could have made DM more unattractive if they wanted to...
shareI don't think I feel like the writers of the movie want us to.Both Oliver and Laura were too filled with self pity about not looking like everyone else.Laura talked big to puff Oliver up but she was dragging around herself before he came.The way she acted at the dance?? If she had stood up straight,brushed her hair and put a little make-up on she'd have been fine.People have injuries that make the look far wore than Oliver and people accept them.He was a war hero.Even the owner of the cottage was a major drag.I actually got sick of her putdowns of how they belonged there away from the world.Like the others said you take what your born with,keep a good personality and you'll go far.
shareOh yeah they put that big black unibrow on Bette!
And they could have given Laura unsightly moles or warts and given her fake teeth but like you said they didn't try to hard at all.
I first listened to the Lux Radio Theater version from the Internet, so it was left to my imagination as to how the 2 main characters looked. When I finally saw the movie on TCM, they weren't as "bad" looking as my imagination had conjured. The makeup artists for this movie weren't put to the test. The technology was there (Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc), so it may have been a matter of money to finance the extra makeup effort.
I repeat, they were not intended to be BAD LOOKING at all, just not peak of aesthetic beauty, they made themselves ugly by how they saw themselves.
By Grapthar's Hammer.......what a savings.
The whole thing in a nutshell is that when the movie was being made, they didn't make her up for the parts of the movie where she was supposed to look plain and homely. Personally, I think they had to play up the eyebrows to get a unibrow appearance going, but that's just me. Then for the parts where she and Robert Young were seeing each other from the inside (as I put it) they just put make up on her as they usually would.
shareHe was hardly disfigured either.
share<My hubby met me and fell in love with me all while I was wearing the face I was born with.>
LOL, mine too. It's a little late but you have my vote too :)
Every once in a blue moon, I get the urge to look more "girly" and I buy makeup and put it on. But it is just so uncomfortable. It feels like dirt sitting on my face.
I trust I make myself obscure.
That's what I don't get! Maybe she wasn't a Jane Russell-type bombshell but for goodness sakes, the average woman wasn't either. It was a bit silly and ludicrous that not a single soldier would dance with her at the Halloween party. I don't know, maybe 1940's beauty standards were different than contemporary ones.
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I saw this for the first time (seems to be my theme) and caught about the last 35 minutes and so I did get to see the facial(?) effects departments attempt to make the actress look scarred. 'Homely' seems about right. People tend to forget themselves that they actually are that superficial and the slight disfigurement on both the actors but especially more so for the actress would have been looked at by someone, and this is in the 40s? where people's hang ups about race says much, as unpleasant and unsightly. Get real.
I am the only one here who apparently feels this way, but I just saw the movie and definitely saw a difference between Spinster Laura and Glamour Laura. The eyebrows, the hair, the teeth, the lipstick -- isn't that why we love Hollywood?
shareWhen you love someone, you don't see their imperfections !
shareHollywood, since it's inception, had always set the standards for, and been a shrine to, beauty. The film was made at the height of the "Pin Up Girl", who was invented to keep the soldiers' morale going (think Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable). The public was conditioned to expect a certain look on screen and off; even Rosie the Riveter was wearing a Veronica Lake peek-a-boo until accidents on the job forced Ms. Lake to change her do to a more safety-conscious style. I had to crack up when that little kid described her as "homely" to Herbert Marshall. I guess he had some Vargas Girls up on his bedroom wall, right next to pix of The Lone Ranger.
shareIt's funny how many posters here seem to think that they didn't make her ugly enough or Oliver more scarred & hideous looking, that wasn't the point of the film. These 2 characters have had a certain disadvantage aesthetically but not more so than most people, what damaged them the most was how they saw themselves & their inability to see the beauty in them, all they saw were their imperfections. She was supposed to look homely & plain, not ugly at all; & he was supposed to be scarred but not jarringly so; what damaged or made them ugly was how they saw themselves & they projected that unto others, that is what most people saw in them, the ugliness of their character or insecurity transmuted into their physical bearing.
By Grapthar's Hammer.......what a savings.
But she really was homely looking. I don't mean to brag but I'm from the Philippines & there are many girls here who are very beautiful indeed compared to plain Jane in this film.
By Grapthar's Hammer.......what a savings.
Unfortunately it's no different at all today; less than a year ago Brittney Spears played a 'homely' receptionist on How I met your mother. There was no 'Mask' make-up,- she (briefly) wore a pair of glasses, but otherwise looked like herself. Yet the guy she liked found her so repulsive he literally ran down the street to avoid bumping into her.
In 'Love potion no. 9' Sandra Bullock was another hideous pariah; again, a pretty woman wearing glasses. And as with Enchanted Cottage she has to resort to magic just to get a date.
it reminds me of the scene in The big sleep (1946) when bogart goes to spy on Geiger's bookshop, and he ends up speaking to sonia Darrin who he asks to remove her glasses as she will look better! haha it must have just been that glasses were deemed as unattractive on women back then, as I thought Sonia looked just as good with them on as off.
the word 'homley' in this film makes me chuckle...basically a polite version of ugly!
'All for one and one for all! You go first, I've got a bad leg.'
The bookstore clerk in 'The Big Sleep' was Dorothy Malone (who I thought looked very sexy with dark hair and glasses).
You're right -- there was rhyme popular back around the time (and before and after): 'Men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses'. If you look for it on TCM, you can occasionally see women (usually teachers, librarians, etc.) in 1930s-1950s films whip off their glasses and stash them in a purse before they run into a guy they want to impress.
And I think Malone was homely in this film--certainly in contrast to her usual screen appearance--but what really sold it was her acting. I seem to recall that she was a bit more 'uglied up' in the exteriors (and at the canteen dance), but that her 'homely' look was softened somewhat when she was inside the cottage, and as the film went on. I suppose I'll just have to see it again... :)
'We all dream of being a child again - even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all...'
I saw it too. Her hair was very limp before her transformation, her skin was pale, her eyebrows were not shaped & there was something about her teeth especially. But even with all of those changes, she wasn't supposed to look ugly, just plain & homely. I admire the make-up artist for such a transformation, I thought it really good w/ much restraint. Often you see such leaps & bounds in transforming actors and actresses into difigured & incomprehensible half-human orcs, it is easier to create exaggerations rather than the subtleties of what makes one homely or plain rather than ugly vs. beautiful.
By Grapthar's Hammer.......what a savings.
Yes, they give her slightly frizzy hair and some unplucked brows, and she STILL looks like a beautiful actress.
shareNot every women wantS to pluck their brows.Or some try but mess up badly.Same thing with waxing.And it can cost alot of money to keep getting it profeshionally(Sorry for spelling)done.
shareThreading is the best way to do it.
Happiness often sneaks through a door you didn't know you left open.- John Barrymore
I don't agree. I think she looked pretty frumpy. Maybe not enough to be ostracized, but significantly enough not to be considered pretty.
I think the make-up artists were able to achieve the frumpy look they were aiming for.
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It was silly that they tried to imply that she was too ugly to find love...(utterly ridiculous because she's adorable!) not to mention, as if there are no homely men on earth? Some men are very shallow about the women they date, even more shallow than women. They aren't very forgiving of physical flaws, but usually having a nice or even average figure can make up for that. I find it strange that no one even asked her to dance out of politeness.
I think the film was more about the character's loneliness and alienation more than anything. She's not necessarily alone because she's homely, but because she does not love herself and doesn't seem to have very many friends because of this. Often people who aren't confident in themselves hesitate to develop friendships with people. Of course it makes it even more difficult when people keep rejecting you.
When the two characters become close and eventually fall in love, their physical flaws disappear because they don't matter to each other anymore. Why should you care what others think of your face when someone loves you for who you are? Not only that but they obtain an entire group of friends and peers that they didn't have before. There was never any physical transformation, but an emotional one.
Look, when I said 'ugly', I meant Hollywood ugly. Not ugly ugly
shareThe low lighting cast shadows on DM's face. Try shining a flashlight (torch) from below your chin and look in a mirror.
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