Autumn Sundays can be a dull affair, so, leave everything behind today and have a laugh with a black and white comedy such as "I Was a Male War Bride" by Howard Hawks.
Released in August 1949, the film was based on "I Was an Alien Spouse of Female Military Personnel Enroute to the United States Under Public Law 271 of the Congress", a biography of Henri Rochard, a Belgian who married an American nurse.
The film, set in post-World War II Allied-occupied Germany, is about French Army Captain Henri Rochard (Cary Grant) who is assigned to a mission with American Lieutenant Catherine Gates (Ann Sheridan).
Though they seem to spend all the time quarrelling, their sex antagonism makes them fall in love. Their wedding is not easy to organise as, being members of two military forces, belonging to different churches and momentarily living in Germany, they have to get married three times, but their problems aren't over yet.
There's indeed no wedding night for them as Catherine has got to go back to the States, which leads to another difficult situation with Henri ending up getting a visa under the War Brides Act as the spouse of an American soldier.
This satirical romantic comedy about bureaucracy develops between gender-confusing misadventures and variations on basic situations that send the couple from pillar to post. Unable to spend his wedding night with his wife, deprived of a bed and of some much needed sleep, Henri will eventually have to dress up as female Army nurse Florence when the Navy sailors do not believe he is a war bride.
The joke for the entire film is on Grant who is usually the romantic hero of the situation: as male authority crumbles, he loses his identity repeating to everybody he meets "I am an alien spouse of female military personnel enroute to the United States under public law 271 of the congress" without getting any help (there is a hilarious scene when the two officers in charge of checking in the war brides in a dormitory, read a bizarre list of the people sleeping there that goes: "139 war brides, 126 children of war brides, nine dogs of war brides, three cats, two canaries, one parrot, and...one war bride - male").
Costumes for this film were designed by Bonnie Cashin (uncredited in the film titles): there is actually not much fashion here compared to other films Cashin worked on, but there are a lot of uniforms and Catherine wears both skirts and perfectly tailored wide-legged trousers, especially when she's riding a motorcycle.
The army dressed women to bury their sex appeal, but Cashin tried to add a feminine twist to the uniforms with a buckle at the waist of the officers' Eisenhower jackets that made them look more legant. The designer also thought about the accessories: Henri in drag looks comical, but there is something that completes his uniform trying to make him look more genuine, a crossbody bag with a minimalist and modern design (it wouldn't certainly look out of place on a contemporary runway) that gives this comedy a classic touch of functionality in the best American fashion tradition.
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