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Fashion & Film Feature

A New Kind of Rebel

Rebel Without a Cause (1955) was the film that gave the confused and alienated teenager an identity. But before James Dean burst onto the screen as sensitive high-school misfit Jim Stark in his Lee blue jeans, white t-shirt and red windbreaker, becoming the embodiment of a generation and cementing his image as cool rebel, another […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

Film Noir Style: Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy

As the clocks turn back and the weather turns cold, I turn back to my favourite genre, film noir, transforming “Noirvember” into one of my favourite months. Joseph H. Lewis’ Gun Crazy (1950) came after two other noir couple-on-the-run films, Fritz Lang’s You Only Live Once (1937) and Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night (1949). […]

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Fashion & Film Feature Thousand Words

Gloria Grahame’s best film noir performances: Part I

One of film noir’s defining actors, Gloria Grahame gave her femme fatale characters a raw, vulnerable sensuality. She was not simply pretty. Her glamour and sexuality hid surprising, unexpected emotional registers. Her bad girls were human. Her characters were smart, daring, warm. I can never quite figure out Gloria Grahame on screen. Isn’t this one […]