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Berlei Cinema Advertisement: It Isn’t Done (1930)

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The 'futility of careless dressing'

This clip chosen to be G

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.