Designer Duds

Back Street (1961)

If Disney animators had ever wanted to create a booze-guzzling, nympho-maniacal chipmunk with a nasty temper and a taste for crying binges, they could have based her directly on Susan Hayward. Hayward was, as far as her presence on-screen went, about as chic as a 24-hour-a-day cocktail lounge. That's why it's such a surprise to see her cast here as the world's most sophisticated fashion designer. And even though Hay-ward's character, Rae Smith, is the mistress of department store magnate John Gavin, in which capacity Hay-ward is better equipped, Rae is supposedly a reluctant, a selfless, a saintly "other woman," one who wouldn't go near Gavin if his wife, Vera Miles, weren't an alcoholic bitch on expensive wheels. We don't know of any saintly fashion designers, but if we did know one, we wouldn't have Susan Hayward play her. Then again, in a movie about fashion designers, you're just naturally going to be faced with things that, like the comings and goings of shoulder pads, have no logic to them.

When we are first introduced to Hayward, she's just a Nebraska girl with an itch to sketch dresses, but when she falls for Gavin only to find out he's married, she takes off for New York to make it in serious couture country. Her big break comes from a famous designer who, in addition to making her his partner, says everything about her we're thinking: "Stop bubbling like a breathless ingenue. You don't fool me. You're a shrewd, conniving, opportunistic female and you give me nightmares."

Just as Hayward's career takes off, Gavin, still stuck in his marriage, shows up in New York and comes to her glamorous apartment. Decked out in a floor-length tunic with metallic polka dots that matches the drapes in her living room, Hayward announces, "I'm not cut out to be the Other Woman!" Unable to resist Gavin, she must exit the city, the country and the continent. Her boss won't allow her to simply quit--"Who were you when I met you? A nobody! You couldn't design a shroud!"--so he opens an office in Rome, which turns immediately into a huge success.

Soon Hayward is a chaste workaholic, just like most fashion designers. But then Gavin shows up again. As he runs to scoop up the tipsy Miles, who's done a drunken pratfall and landed face-first on the stairs of a ritzy restaurant, he looks up to see a good Samaritan who's also helping to raise wifey off the floor--yes, it's Hay-ward, who in any other movie would be the boozer who'd done the belly flop. This time the Fates mean for them to get together, which they do repeatedly at a seaside retreat where Hay-ward's series of icky chiffons can waft in the breeze while carefully matching the scenery. Miles figures out Gavin's got someone on the side and tries to kill herself, prompting a move to their Paris home. But Hayward is now hooked on Gavin, and we see her--in her office, where her suit subtly matches the color of the chairs and the candelabra--getting one of many disappointing phone calls from him canceling plans. Finally, she opens an office in Paris so they can really be together. Gavin pulls up to pick up his illicit ladylove (her gray suit perfectly matches his Chrysler) and takes her to the house he's bought for their trysts (her suit matches the stone exterior, too). And so the seasons pass, with many a night spent alone in bed next to the telephone (which matches her nightgown), many a morning spent standing in an airport (in a suit that matches the entire waiting area), and many an evening at home in her empty living room (where her dress matches the wastebasket).

Vera Miles takes forever to figure out who Gavin's mistress is, but when she does it's worth the wait. The big moment occurs when Hayward is presenting her Fall Fashion Preview of Rae Smith gowns to the rich ladies of Paris. At the end of a long procession of fussy dresses, each one something Shelley Long might wear to the Oscars, Hayward comes out to personally present her favorite of her own designs and offer it for a charity auction. The dress is called, she explains, "Wedding in June" (gowns had names in the '50s), and as the model twirls in her pristine white dress, a voice booms from the back of the room to bid "$10,000." Yes, it's Miles. Hayward graciously agrees to have the dress fitted and sent to the new owner. "It's not for me," snarls Miles. "It doesn't matter how it fits--she'll never get to wear it." The audience is rapt. "You've all tried to guess who is the woman, or I should say, the Other Woman in my husband's life," Miles continues. "That mysterious creature who turns up in London, Zurich, Rome. The one he hides away on some back street. I'd like the gown delivered to Miss Rae Smith, in care of my husband!"

Hayward is ruined and cannot show her face in Paris (although if the French are good for anything it is to applaud exactly the sort of behavior Hayward has been engaging in), so she vows never to see her beloved again. "Everyone's laughing. Other people's love affairs are always funny," she tells him. Whereupon Gavin declares he's had it with Miles and will return to Hayward to be with her forever, no matter what. Then he jumps into Miles's moving car to demand a divorce, and she drives them both off the road to their deaths.

Left alone in her stone house, dressed in an off-white bathrobe (that matches her face), Hayward is visited by Gavin's two children. Presumably these dubious remnants of her love life will inspire her to design yet more over-the-top gowns in the future, as a kind of memorial to her passion for Gavin. Perhaps that explains the garish colors fashion took on in the early '60s--one imagines they matched the wallpaper and ceramics in the London flat Hayward moved to with Gavin's children.

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