Berlei Cinema Advertisement: It Isn't Done
Clip 1: The ‘futility of careless dressing’
1 min 31 sec
Taken from the advertisement Berlei Cinema Advertisement: It Isn't Done (1930)
Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be G
Availability of the complete title
Curator’s clip description
In an elaborate fitting room, careless Barb is always losing things. She has lost her shoes, and she just may lose her heart this evening too! But she despairs that her evening dress is ‘frightful’ because it ‘flops where it should fit and fits where it should flop’. Attended by a refined and fashionable Ms Blake, Barb learns that it is because she has no foundation beneath her frocking. Ms Blake gets out the tape measure to check her body size.
Curator’s notes
Despite some bad acting (both women were employees of the Berlei Organisation and not professional actresses), there are moments of comedy to this clip, especially from the youthful and careless Barb. She pouts and flops her way through the advertisement and even manages some cheekiness in her delivery of the line ‘but I can’t wear a tape measure’. The refined Ms Blake can barely conceal a polite laugh.
Lauren Williams, curator
