TEN EXAMPLES OF GREAT DRESSING-GOWN ACTING IN THE MOVIES

Dressing-gowns are more versatile than you might think. They can signify both soigné upper-class superiority and unkempt low-life sleaze – sometimes both at once. They can be effete, artistic or slatternly – sometimes all at once. In films, the writer or musician often wears a form of dressing-gown while creating; obviously, pausing long enough to get dressed properly would give the elusive muse a chance to flee. But it can also a sign that the wearer has given up on life, is suffering from low self-esteem or can’t face the outside world – sometimes all at once. Or maybe it’s just a sign that the wearer doesn’t need to face the outside world – he has lackeys to do it for him.

Dressing-gown acting in films requires a certain fearlessness on the part of the actor, and enables the costume department to go to town. It positively encourages flamboyance and a demonstrative breaking down of barriers both social and sartorial.

Here, then, are ten examples of Dressing-Gown Acting that made me sit up and take notice.

xxx

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997)

boogienights01[1]

Alfred Molina, as drug dealer Rahad Jackson, fearlessly milks the open-dressing-gown-over-underpants-and-gold-chain look at the tense climax to Paul Thomas Anderson’s story of everyday porn actors. He also runs out into the street in it, firing a shotgun. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he’s rich, decadent and a drug dealer, and drug dealers don’t need to get dressed. See also Eric Stoltz and Rosanna Arquette in Pulp Fiction.

xxx

DECEPTION (1946)

deception01_2

Claud Rains plays a classical composer and orchestral conductor called Alexander Hollenius, who has mad hair, a wicked way with a cigarette, plays the piano in his dressing-gown and pets his cat manaically. In fact, he never seems to bother getting dressed while at home, even when people are coming to see him; I guess some people might call this a smoking-jacket, but I’m calling it a dressing-gown and that’s that.

Here Hollenius is listening to recordings of the cellist (Paul Henreid) who has just married Hollenius’s “protégée” (Bette Davis). Note to younger readers: this is no way to treat 78s. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he is a genius. And jealous. And mad. But above all, because it’s Claude Rains giving one of the most deliciously fruity performances in cinema history.

xxx

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949)

kindhearts03kindhearts02

Nothing says social-climbing more succinctly than the design of a fellow’s dressing-gown. Exhibit A: in the first picture Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price) has just been dismissed from his job as a draper’s assistant and, clad in a bog-standard robe befitting his humble status, is calculating how many D’Ascoynes stand between him and the dukedom.

Exhibit B: even behind bars and mere hours away from being hanged for murder, Louis, now the Duke of Chalfont, exudes aristocratic nonchalance in a velvet dressing gown with stylish quilted lapels, the antithesis of the robe he was wearing earlier in the film. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Louis is demonstrating that keeping up appearances is everything.

xxx

LOLITA (1997)

lolita04

Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film of Nabokov’s novel may be preferable to Adrian Lyne’s version in many ways, especially for James Mason as Humbert Humbert and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze, but Lyne’s remake trumped it in some areas, not least Frank Langella’s magnificently creepy performance as Humbert’s alter-ego, Clare Quilty, which knocked spots off Peter Sellers’s jokey party turn, Sellers’s sublime dancing at the school ball notwithstanding.

Then again, Langella is one of the best actors in films, so it’s no shame to be out-Quiltied by him in this paedeophiliac showdown of gothic proportions, so out to lunch it almost makes the film worth catching on its own.

Of all the dressing-gown performances cited on this blog, Langella’s is the most fearless. He is wearing nothing underneath his robe and is not afraid to show it as he flees shrieking down the corridor, away from Humbert and his gun, or plonks himself down bare-buttocked at the piano to (apparently) bash out Grieg’s Piano Concerto. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he’s rich, decadent, sleazy, a pornographer and a paedophile. And because he’s morally and mentally adrift.

xxx

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942)

manwhocametodinner02manwhocametodinner06manwhocametodinner05manwhocametodinner04

Monty Woolley (a friend of Cole Porter) plays egocentric and obnoxious radio personality Sheridan Whiteside (a character based on Alexander Woollcott, celebrated critic and member of the Algonquin Round Table) who slips on the icy steps outside the home of a prominent Ohio family. The family is then forced to put up with him recuperating from a broken leg in their home over the Christmas holidays.

As can be seen from this pictures, Whiteside models a variety of loud dressing-gowns and smoking jackets, dominating the home of Mr and Mrs Stanley not just with his overbearing personality but with his sartorial choices. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he’s an invalid (albeit one who is exaggerating his injury). And because he’s a media star from the big city who can do as he pleases when visiting the provinces.

xxx

PYGMALION (1938)

pygmalion06

Here we see Leslie Howard teaming his dressing-gown with a professorial pipe in Anthony Asquith’s film of the play by George Bernard Shaw, which also served as the basis for the musical My Fair Lady, and for which Shaw and his co-writers won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Yes! GBS won an Oscar!

Howard plays Professor Higgins, a professor of phonetics so arrogant that he doesn’t think twice about receiving visitors, especially ones form the lower classes, in such a state of casual semi-dress. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he’s too busy being a boffin to worry about putting on clothes. 

xxx

SECRET WINDOW (2004)

secretwindow01

Johnny Depp plays Mort Rainey in David Koepp’s film of a novella by Stephen King. Rainey is recovering from a breakdown after discovering his wife was having an affair. Now he’s hanging out in a secluded cabin in rural upstate New York, suffering from depression and writer’s block. As if that weren’t enough, a weird fellow turns up on his doorstep and accuses him of plagiarism.

Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Are you kidding? Divorce, depression, writer’s block, plus his dog is stabbed to death. Why would he not wear a dressing-gown? Depp, of course, manages to rock the dishevelled look, but the dressing-gown is well-chosen and grungy rather than sexy.

xxx

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1950)

strangersonatrain02

Interesting to note this is the third film on this list in which the protagonist is pitted against his alter-ego, and the third film in which the character’s homosexuality is either implicit or implied. Perhaps in these cases the dressing-gown signifies unfettered immorality, a case of daring to dabble where the more repressed individual wouldn’t dream of dabbling. Or not.

In any case, Bruno Anthony’s dressing-gown only confirms everything you suspected of this character: he’s a sociopathic murderer who will stop at nothing. Just look at him. Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? Because he lives with his mother.

xxx

WOMAN IN A DRESSING GOWN (1957)

Woman-in-the-Dressing-Gown_header

As you may have noticed, all the other examples of dressing-gown acting on this page are of men. Women in films don’t wear dressing-gowns so much as peignoirs, deshabillés or wrappers, fine examples of which are so numerous that even a cursory selection would fill several blogs, so I thought seriously about limiting the choice exclusively to male characters.

But how could I possibly ignore a film that actually includes the term “dressing gown” in the title? Not only that, but what Yvonne Mitchell is wearing could never ever be described as a “peignoir”. It’s a dressing-gown. Why is she wearing a dressing-gown? Because she’s suffering from a clear case of clinical depression, because her husband is having an affair with a younger woman and is asking her for a divorce. Duh.

xxx

WONDER BOYS (1995)

wonderboys01

Michael Douglas plays Gray Tripp, a professor of creative writing at a Pittsburgh university whose first novel was a big success. But that was seven years ago (although take it from me – seven years is chickenfeed in writers’ years). Tripp’s writer’s block takes a different form to that of Mort Rainey in Secret Window – he’s on Page 2611 of his second novel, and there’s still no end in sight. Curtis Hanson’s campus yarn, adapted from the novel by Michael Chabon, shows Tripps’ life going into freefall one winter weekend as he shambles around in a grotty dressing-gown.

Why is he wearing a dressing-gown? The usual suspects – writer’s block, his wife has left him and his mistress, who is married to the head of the English department in which Tripp is a professor, announces that she’s pregnant with his child. Also, please note that he’s a writer, and we writers are notoriously bad at getting dressed in the morning. Personally, I don’t actually write in my dressing-gown, though I do often team what I’ve been wearing in bed with a couple of other garments selected at random from the bordel that is my boudoir. Because I know that if I were to stop to get dressed, that would be half the day gone.
xxx
xxx 
xxx
You may also be interested in:
xxx
THE TOP TEN WALLPAPER MOVIES

xxx

VOUS SEREZ NUE MERCREDI SOIR: FRENCH PULP PAPERBACK COVER ART

xxx

MY DECADENT CAREER

xxx

DRESSING-GOWN ADDENDA

Peter Sellers in Lolita (1962)

biglebowskidressinggown

Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Dirk Bogarde in Modesty Blaise (1966)

Advertisement

20 thoughts on “TEN EXAMPLES OF GREAT DRESSING-GOWN ACTING IN THE MOVIES

  1. Pingback: CAT OF THE DAY 048 | CATS ON FILM

  2. Also, Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone. In this case, it’s because he’s recuperating. He get’s to hobble with a stick, too.

  3. Oh, good call. I think I shall have to build an annex to house pictures of the Great Dressing-Gowns I have inadvertently omitted. I saw another good one on Dirk Bogarde in Modesty Blaise the other day.

  4. Pingback: A FEW NOTES ON CLOUD ATLAS or LO CUT SALAD « MULTIGLOM

  5. Pretty sure there was some damn fine dressing gown action in Tht Thin Man series… Plus green street in The Maltese Falcon. Perhaps a follow-up article – the film noir gown?

  6. Pingback: THE BOX: REVIEW | MULTIGLOM

  7. Pingback: Anne Bilson Offers “Ten Examples Of Great Dressing Gown Acting,” Starting With Rahad Jackson « Movie City News

  8. Surely Ted Levine as Buffalo Bill in Silence Of The Lambs deserves a spot on this list, it’s certainly the dressing gown scene that’s stuck with me the most, for better or worse…

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s