Everyone Buys a Dress

In a series of four vignettes, the purchase of the latest Paris Model (1953) effects the lives of five women in France, in New York and in Los Angeles.

We picked this film because it had some excellent actors in the cast, but having them there didn't help. This is an AWFUL movie. Even at a mere 80 minute running time, it felt like we were watching the movie forever. The script is bad, the sets are cheap, even the dress that is the focus of the film looks like it came from the bargain-basement in Walmart.

The picture consists of four stories; each focus on women who buy this particular dress design (unlike the 1942 Tales of Manhattan where a tailcoat's owners are the focus, it is NOT the same dress). Gogo Montaine (Eva Gabor) in the first vignette buys a Paris original (and charges it to one of her lovers). Gogo is in the boyfriend business - she gives them the look, and they melt at her feet. Except, while Ms. Gabor can be really funny, and she is quite pretty, giving the sultry "look" is not really in her acting ballpark. She looks remarkably silly and unconvincing as she tries to seduce a variety of men into doing what she wants them to do. It's not all her fault - the camerawork also succeeds in making her look idiotic rather than alluring.

In the next story line, the usually wonderful Paulette Goddard plays Betty Barnes, an avaricious secretary in New York City on the make for her married boss Edgar Blevins (Leif Erickson). She purchases her dress (a knock-off of the Paris model - in the first story we see a woman sketching and taking notes at the Paris showroom) in order to seduce Blevins. She's such a despicable woman, you can't possibly root for her, and you surely don't like her. Leif Erickson's characterization is of a unattractive, henpecked husband who is also unattractive. When you see his wife Cora (Gloria Christian) during a phone conversation, you don't think too much of her either. With no-one with whom to sympathize, what's the point?

In the next tale, the dress has become even cheaper (it's now "a copy of a copy of a Paris original"). Marion Parmalee (Marilyn Maxwell) is attending a retirement party for her husband's boss, and she wants to make sure that Patrick James Sullivan (Cecil Kellaway) names her husband as his successor. How better to do it than to wear a sexy dress and tease P.J. into naming Jack (Robert Bice). She needs to get P.J.  away from his wife Nora (Florence Bates), but that, she reasons will be easy with this marvelous dress. As with the prior tale, we have a thoroughly unpleasant, greedy woman, and a horribly lecherous man that you can't wait to get their comeuppance. Cecil Kellaway is ill-served in the part - he's usually an appealing actor; here, he is just creepy.

This particular segment has the benefit of Florence Bates as Nora (one of the only nice people in the film). Ms. Bates, who is best remembered as the odious Mrs. Van Hopper in Rebecca (1940) was equally adept at comedy and drama  - my favorite of her roles was as Florence Dana Moorehead, the author who likes to "eat good" in I Remember Mama (1948). Ms. Bates started out to be a pianist, but had to change careers due to a hand injury. Then, she got a degree in mathematics, and taught math; after her 1909 marriage, she stayed home to raise their daughter. A divorce led her to study law and become the first female lawyer in Texas. Her father's death resulted in her working with her sister in their father's antique store, which Ms. Bates sold after her sister's death. When her second husband (to whom she was married from 1929 until his death in 1951) lost all his money, the family moved to Los Angeles and opened a successful bakery. She went onto the stage after she arrive in LA (she'd done some bilingual radio work in Texas); an introduction to Alfred Hitchcock led to her role in Rebecca and her film career. This film was her last one; she died the following year of a heart attack at the age of 65.

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The final yarn has Marta Jensen (Barbara Lawrence) buying the dress from a thrift shop. She's eager to convince her boyfriend, Charlie Johnson (Robert Hutton) to propose marriage. Charlie, however, is a cheapskate and a bore. While Marta seems a nice enough girl, her eagerness to marry this louse is distasteful. Ms. Lawrence gives the part as much as she can, but she's working opposite Mr. Hutton who is about as engaging as a piece of white bread. Tom Conway, totally miscast as he Maharajah of Kim-Kepore, repeats his role from the Paris story; he might as well be sleepwalking for the energy he brings to it. The whole episode is set in Romanoff's - except it's an obviously cheap imitation (TCM article). We do have a guest shot by "Prince" Michael Romanoff - he's the only personable character in this segment. 

The original title of the film was Nude at Midnight (AFI Catalog), the name of the dress all the women purchase (AFI Catalog). You can see the dress in the lobby card below. The movie really has nothing to offer, and we strongly suggest you pass this one by should it ever show up on your TV screen.