Edith Head: The Paramount Years

Edith Head - The Paramount Years (2002)

*** (out of 4)

Nice tribute to Edith Head, the legendary costume designer who spent over forty-years at Paramount. Head biographer David Chierichetti tells pretty much her life story including how she started working at the studio, her favorite director to work with, what type of style she tried to bring to her work and he also goes into detail about why she created all of these amazing clothes but quite often dressed very bland herself. Fashion designer Bob Mackie is also interviewed about his thoughts on what Head did for the profession and Rosemary Clooney is also on hand talking about her working with Head on WHITE Christmas. At just 14-minutes there's really no way this could be a definitive look at the work of Head but for the most part I think it gives one a great idea of who she was and why she remains so famous decades after her death. We get clips from dozens of the film's she worked on as well as hearing that TO CATCH A THIEF was her favorite film. We also hear about the work on SUNSET BLVD. and ROMAN HOLIDAY, which we get to see Audrey Hepburn's screen test footage.

This is included as an extra on the 2002 DVD release of "Sunset Blvd". It's a short piece on costume designer Edith Head who designed the costumes for "Sunset" and hundreds of other movies. Along the way she won 8 Oscars and is now considered to be a legendary figure. I agree that Head was a genius--but this short is pretty flimsy. If you're looking for any personal insight into her life forget it. It is somewhat interesting to see her sketches and final designs for the movies (Grace Kelly's wardrobe for "To Catch a Thief" is stunning) but I was basically bored. Also one of the narrators is a guy wearing lipstick and who has a seriously bad perm. He knows about Head and her costumes but really! I question the judgment of using a guy who looks like a reject from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". His appearance at first makes it impossible to concentrate on what he's saying. Head deserves better than this short. Still--it's better than nothing!

This short doco on Edith Head, costume designer for Sunset Boulevard, is mainly hosted by a lipsticked and powdered David Cherichetti, which gets an added laugh when he comments on Edith's own eccentricity of wearing dark glasses. The story given behind her behavior is that she wanted to make herself look inscrutable, though we are told to the contrary that she was a master people person and therefore presumably wouldn't need to be so hidden. The real reason may be that she thought it gave her a mystique that her school-marm look otherwise denied.

Points of interest here include Head's savvy in incorporating ideas of stars (which she claimed as her own) to get them to request her again, the designs for Audrey Hepburn for Roman Holiday and Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard that hid the actresses' flaws (collarbone and waist, respectively), how Elizabeth Taylor's tulle evening gown from A Place in the Sun was much copied, and that her favorite director was Alfred Hitchcock and favorite film was To Catch a Thief.

This mini-documentary did nothing for me. You have a guy, David, who is talking of Edith eccentricities of those glasses, while wearing what looks like something Seinfeld was tricked into wearing on the Tonight Show in one of the better Seinfeld episode. I mean please, paging Mr. Blackwell, you're needed at the front desk. Anywho, it's relatively short, but I still wouldn't recommend it. I've seen much better. It just makes me long that Paramount did a better job on the Special Edition. It IS a great movie. the extra should compliment that. Alas, they didn't. This short featurette can be found as an extra on the Special Edition of "sunset Blvd." My Grade: D+