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Fashions of 1934

Screening on Film
Recently Restored
Directed by William Dieterle.
With William Powell, Bette Davis, Frank McHugh.
US, 1934, 35mm, black & white, 80 min.
Print source: Library of Congress

Most notable for mischievously riding the edge of the Production Code, Fashions of 1934 features a lot of naughtiness and a trio of lovably unethical lead characters. William Powell plays Sherwood Nash, a charming shyster who ropes Bette Davis’ amateur dress designer into a scheme for bootlegging top Parisian fashions for high prices. In fact, the Berkeley dance number comes as somewhat of a surprise, but when it does appear as an elaborate cog in Nash’s complex ostrich-feather racket, “Spin a Little Web of Dreams” twists into delectable Berkeley decadence, with dancers wearing feather fans, playing living harps and sailing atop an undulating, glistening faux sea. His most astonishing flourish: overhead shots of the plumed dancers forming a beautiful, feathery flower, which opens and closes as if photographed in time-lapse. 

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