From 1957 to 1992 to 2022: Three Generations of Social Mores
Angela Lansbury passed away on October 11, just 5 days short of her 97th birthday. A major stage, film, and television presence for 70 years, she was best known to American audiences as Jessica Fletcher in the long-running television mystery series “Murder, She Wrote” (1984-1996), one of the most successful Sunday-night shows in U.S. television. The series also garnered Lansbury herself ten Golden Globe nominations (four wins) and twelve Emmy nominations, the most any actress has ever gained in the category of “Lead/Best Actress in a Drama Series.”
In 1992, Lansbury starred in a slight little made-for-TV film called “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” The film, in which Lansbury played the character of Ada Harris, charwoman extraordinaire and determined devotee of haute couture, was based on an equally-slight though enormously popular novel (novella, really) by the writer Paul Gallico, who published his post-War fairy tale in 1958; the story itself was set in 1953 (1992 version, which opens in the season of the Queen’s Coronation Ball) and 1957 (both film versions conclude just after the 1957 Dior collection; Dior himself died in October of that same year).
In 2022, the film was remade (with some changes to the plot, although the overall arc remains the same), with the actress Lesley Manville assuming the lead role.
Somewhat oddly, the reviews we’ve resorted to in order to test the temper of the critics this time round did not make reference to Lansbury’s 1992 film, although there were passing references to the original novel on which both movies are based. Admittedly, Lansbury was still alive when the 2022 film was released, and film critics are not paid to write in-depth analyses of the prototype and its remakes. But we – being neither a critic nor paid – rushed right home to view the 1992 version immediately after the cinema, and below we offer some observations.
In 1957, Britain was continuing to recover from World War II; in fact, fabric (among many other things) was still being rationed. Poverty and wealth brushed shoulders in the mansions of the rich, where poor women (“charwomen” in 1992, updated to “cleaners” in 2022) entered for a few hours each day to straighten, dust, polish, wax – they didn’t do the “rough” work, but rather the daily upkeep. Ada Harris, a World War II war widow (twelve years on, Ada’s husband’s death still hasn’t been confirmed in the opening scenes in the 2022 version), is such a one. She lives in a basement bed-sitter in Battersea, commuting by bus with her close friend and fellow-char Vi Butterfield.
In the earlier version, Ada is in one of her regular clients’ mansion one day when she comes upon two ball gowns recently purchased by her employer, who is invited to the coronation ball (the year is 1953). She asks Ada for advice about which to wear, and Ada – ever practical and well-up on the Queen’s preferences during the 1950s – proposes the pale blue gown (indeed one of Elizabeth II’s favorite colors when she was passing through her “pastel” phase).
There is a similar scene (many of the 1992 film’s scenes are re-enacted, though with subtle changes) in the 2022 version; this time, however, there’s only one dress for which Ada’s employer had paid 500 pounds (“500 quid!” Ada repeats in astonishment). No mention is made of the coronation ball (is it even 1953? Perhaps not), but the gown’s pastel colors are those of the 1950s. Here though, Ada has a word to say to her employer Lady Dant (played by the ever-recognizable Anna Chancellor, aka “Duckface” in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” [1994]), who hasn’t been paying her regularly. She’s put off by Lady Dant, who is rich but seems to believe her cleaner doesn’t really need her wages. The casual cruelty is straight out of 2022 Downing Street every day of the week.
From that point on, Ada (i.e. both Ada-Lansbury and Ada-Manville) becomes obsessed with owning that supreme object of desire, a Christian Dior dress. Where and how can a charwoman/cleaner amass a sum of that magnitude? Scrimping and saving are emphasized in the 1992 version, plus a tad of luck. There’s less scrimping and saving in 2022 (how much would be necessary for a £500 dress that today has an estimated value of £500,000?) and a lot more luck. Ada-Manville is fond of the races – not horse races, but greyhound races – and she bets all her savings (£100) on a raggedy, scraggly hound named “Haute Couture” (Hah!). Her bookie, Eddie (more of him later), tries to dissuade her, but nothing doing. Haute Couture of course comes in last, but Eddie – who is Ada-Manville’s quasi-love interest – has, unbeknownst to her, held back £10, placed it on a sure winner, and Ada ends up with considerably more than she’d brought to the track. Both Lansbury and Manville find a diamond brooch on the ground, turn it in, and receive rewards from the owners (in 1992, £25 for a piece “worth thousands”), but Manville’s Ada has an additional piece of luck.
The war references are different for the heroines in the two films. Ada-Lansbury’s beloved husband was exposed to mustard gas in the “Great War” (40 years previously), while Ada-Manville’s equally-beloved husband was a pilot in the war from which Britain was still rebuilding in the fifties; he was shot down and pronounced missing, but the dreaded telegram only arrived more than a decade later when his remains were discovered. Much to her shock, a young officer visits her one day to announce that she’s now entitled to a “war widow’s pension” (yes, once upon a time Great Britain had a social welfare state). And so …
Off to Paris they go, each in search of their dream dress (in actuality, their dreams) at the famed House of Dior. Both women, predictably, get lost in their search for 57, Avenue Montaigne where Dior had opened his operation a decade earlier. Here, the 2022 film introduces several elements of stark realism: Ada-Manville is directed to Dior by three homeless men (no, they’re not flâneurs), who obligingly offer her a swig of wine before she sets out (on foot – Ada-Lansbury has the francs for a taxi). When she arrives at the couturier’s – massive, pristine, white – the surrounding streets are awash in overflowing garbage due to a strike (ingeniously linked to the plot later in the film).
Both women magically arrive on the day on which one of the twice-yearly shows is set to begin; both are treated disrespectfully by Management, at least until they pull out the rolled-up pounds from their handbags and throw them down – a challenge and a temptation, as it turns out that the House of Dior’s clients aren’t as prompt with their payments as charwomen. The fact that both Lansbury and Manville come armed with cash is treated as a rare event, fervently desired but rarely experienced.
[Note: Dior did in fact have a hard time remaining financially solvent in the fifties; he himself died of a heart attack in the year when the story is set, and the House was rescued by the introduction of prêt-a-porter – in the U.S. in the late forties, where it was referred to as “off the rack,” and in France in the 1960s. Prêt-a-porter was designed for a different market, the upper middle class – wives of professional men, and today, women professionals. It turned out that the buyers’ market for an enterprise that employed 700 seamstresses across 15 workshops needed to be larger than the wives of the 1%, which is a lesson trickle-down advocates should have taken to heart 30 years ago.]
The 1992 show, where Ada-Lansbury is seen more sympathetically by the “Directrice” (masterfully played by a haughty-but-ultimately-humane Diana Riggs) once she’s plumped down several rolls of bills on the small desk in the reception room, includes an appearance by none other than Princess Margaret, to whom Lansbury directs a deep bow (to the embarrassment of other attendees – so gauche!); there are no princesses present in the 2022 version, just women with scads of money accompanied – or not – by their husbands or paramours. The Marquis de Chassagne kindly accompanies Ada to her seat (in the front row, no less) – a role beautifully enacted by Omar Sharif in the 1992 film. More of the Marquis later.
The dress, the dress – for both women, it comes down to #89, “Temptation.” Each Dior dress (around 170 in total for an actual show) was baptized. The 2022 film, which was produced on a much bigger budget than the made-for-TV film, includes a range of recreated pieces from the actual 1957 season. The film’s costume designer Jenny Beavan (who’s received 11 Academy Awards for costume design) was given access to the House of Dior’s archives and recreated with the help of master cutters around 20 of the actual show’s designs. It’s a pretty spectacular cavalcade of beautiful models and even-more-beautiful dresses for every occasion.
The dresses chosen by each Ada, #89, were different: Ada-Lansbury’s was a pastel pink confection, Ada-Manville’s is a deep blood red tea gown (Dior, a superstitious man, considered red his lucky color and included at least one red dress in each show) in the signature “fit and flare” cut for which the designer was renowned. But in Ada-Manville’s case, we learn that Dress #89 has already been promised to a wealthy repeat patron, and since each dress was produced for only one client, Manville must settle for her second choice, Dress #73 (“Venus”), in forest green (so, Christmas colors).
When the two Adas learn that their dress will require 3 (then 2, then 1) weeks to produce – they hadn’t understood that they couldn’t just buy the dress used for the show and head off – despair ensues. The solution in each case is for Ada to stay with Dior’s young and eligible accountant, André Flauvel, whose sister is conveniently out of town.
André provides one of the love interests in both films – Ada is a born match- and peace-maker – as he is hopelessly smitten by Dior’s most beautiful model, Natasha. In the 1992 version, Natasha confides to Ada that André is “boring” like all accountants – she’s dating an older and clearly richer man initially – but she also confides that her life’s dream is to marry a man who loves her and have lots of children with him (surely closer to the 1957 mindset than the 1992 one). The 2022 Natasha has been radically updated – she reads Sartre at every opportunity, a taste she happily (or unhappily, given that it’s Sartre) shares with André. There’s no mention of her childbearing aspirations – rather, she wants to drop out of modeling and attend university to study Existentialism.
A telling little detail about the Natasha-and-André affaire: in the 1992 version, Natasha is car-less, while André has a modest little convertible; in the 2022 version, Natasha has the cute convertible and André, a motorcycle – perhaps reflecting the salaries of supermodels today versus those of accountants.
In any case, Ada gets to stay a week longer thanks to André and Natasha’s – and everyone else’s – generosity. In both films, she has fittings (fun!) and spends the rest of her days and evenings getting to know gay Paris: in the 1992 adaptation, she, André, and Natasha spend an evening at the Parisian equivalent of a beer garden (Natasha refers to it as a taste of “le vrai Paris”), while in 2022 they visit what appears to be the Folies Bergère – a cabaret-style music hall where the music is loud and the costumes, scanty. There is also further contact with the Marquis de Chassagne, involving a common love of flowers in 1992 (Ada’s late husband had been a gardener in London) and a love of flowers + in 2022.
The widowed Marquis in both versions is extremely rich, but also a prince of a fellow instinctively drawn to Ada’s kindness and humanity. In the earlier version, he invites her to his office (he’s the “Minister without Portfolio”) for an elegant luncheon accompanied by champagne; in the 2022 version there’s none of that. But in both, he explains to Ada why he was drawn to her: she reminds him of the kindly charwoman at his school in England when he was a little tyke. He called her “Mrs. Mops.” There’s a considerable difference in the reactions here. Ada-Lansbury takes it well (in fact, her nickname at Dior will henceforth be “Mrs. Mops”); Ada-Manville doesn’t – she’d had feelings for the Marquis, and those feelings are dashed as the hard reality of the class divide crushes her dreams of incipient romance (all this apparent in just a few seconds of following Manville’s facial expressions in 2022 – she’s a masterful actor). Ada-Lansbury, on the other hand, delves deeper into the Marquis’ private life – it turns out that he is nearby the flower market to watch his daughter and granddaughter emerge from the latter’s school each day – they are estranged for reasons left vague. Lansbury’s character reunites them, of course; there is joy all round, and the reasons for estrangement vanish in an instant.
A week passes, during which both Adas manage to clean André’s messy flat, Ada-Lansbury with the active assistance of her Natasha, who has no qualms about getting down on her hands and knees and scrubbing and waxing the floors ‘til they shine; The 2022 Natasha is less involved in the cleaning endeavor. Another interesting (telling? again, who knows?) detail: when André goes shopping for provisions in 1992, he returns with a single bag of food; in 2022, he returns with two. It’s still 1957, mind you, but prosperity’s arrived in the world of Parisian accountants.
The 2022 version includes another two plot twists before Ada-Manville departs for London: first, that pesky garbage strike – it turns out that the arrogant and rude client who’d gotten first dibs on Dress #89 was the wife of the owner of the garbage collection company whose workers were on strike – her husband had been skimming funds from the company’s coffers, and thus workers weren’t getting paid their fair wages. She also hadn’t been paying her Dior bills, which was apparently a not-uncommon habit in 1957 and, probably, in 2022 as well. And so, “Temptation” is again available.
Near the end of Ada-Manville’s sojourn in Paris, Dior announces that he’s letting go many of his seamstresses and other support personnel. Ada-Manville is having none of that, and she leads a protest of all the workshop’s employees to the office of the Maître himself, accompanied by the rather hapless but intelligent accountant André, who’s had an idea about how to rescue the House of Dior from inevitable financial ruin. The seamstresses crowd into the office; André is allowed to have his say, and the Great Man himself listens – and thus is rescued the House of Dior.
(Note: There’s a bit of temporal compression here, of course, but in fact Dior was in dire financial straits by the late fifties, after a decade’s operation; it was only by expanding to ready-to-wear for the upper middle class, and into other fashion-adjacent production lines such as fragrances [“Miss Dior” and so on], handbags, etc. – that the name survived. But the expansion happened in a somewhat different sequence than that delineated in the film.)
Finally, our Adas can return to London, Dior dress safely tucked away in their single suitcase. But wait, there’s another problem – import duties, to wit 6 shillings per pound, a total of £165 for poor Ms. Lansbury (who’d arrived in Paris with a total of £9). The scenario solves this in a very adroit way at Customs – it’s one of the cleverest scenes in the 1992 film. There’s no issue with Customs in the 2022 version (nobody wants to witness Brexit-in-action these days), so Ada-Manville arrives safely home with Dress #73.
But where is Ada to wear such a dress in 1957 London, in Battersea no less? In the 1992 version, it’s a little unclear whether she ever wears it or not – when her friend-and-colleague Vi Butterfield protests that the dress is useless because Ada will never have an opportunity to wear it, Ada insists that she has worn it – her friends in Paris have held a ball in her honor before departure. But was the flashback to the “ball” real or imaginary? We are left guessing.
Ada-Manville’s dress has a more complicated adventure upon return. One of Ada’s clients, a Marilyn Monroe wannabe and client named Pamela Penrose, is invited to an event by a man who could/might advance her career – but she has nothing to wear! Ada loans her #73, only for Pamela to head straight for a burning fireplace in the course of her big evening – poor #73 catches fire (also, poor Pamela) and is ruined. Tragedy and heartbreak ensue.
But be still, my heart: the tragedy of a Dior dress’s destruction makes the society pages, which in turn make their way to Paris, and a plot is hatched by the Dior team: Dress #89 is remade to Ada-Manville’s measurements (they’ve kept them, of course), and the beautiful creation is sent to Battersea along with a bouquet of flowers (Dior was very fond of flowers himself, his favorite being the delicately-scented lily of the valley; each of his fragrances contains at least a hint of Dior’s childhood spent in his Mother’s garden).
And Manville gets to wear her dress for real: she dons it for a dance at the Battersea local community center, where the camera allows her a grand entrance down a rickety staircase. And lo and behold, Archie (her bookie) is love-struck at the sight of her. Manville, now officially a war widow, will have her second chance at love.
It is said of great works of foreign-language literature that they deserve a new translation each generation. Language, like living organisms, evolves, and new readers deserve to read the masters in a translation resembling their own idiom. Here we have a novel set in the post-WW II generation, filmed for television a generation later, and filmed for the screen a generation after this.
Generally speaking, the 1992 version is far closer to the ethos and social mores of 1957: Ada is a kind, poor widow who accepts her lot in life, i.e. cleaning the homes of the prosperous. She endures additional privation for three years to be able to purchase her dream, and is actually able to manage it. When in Paris, she displays the fortitude for which her generation was famed. There’s no hint of a desire to cross class lines; rather, there’s a bond established between Ada-Lansbury and all those toiling at the fashion house. The universal language is that of openness, determination, and a bit of well-intentioned meddling in the affairs of those whom she encounters: Natasha and André, the Marquis and his daughter/granddaughter, Madame Colbert (Riggs’ character was also a war widow; her husband was killed in the Resistance and Lansbury manages to persuade the Marquis that she should receive a letter of commendation and the Croix de Guerre from de Gaulle).
The 2022 film exudes a sense of being much closer to the present. The class divide here rankles, explicitly and implicitly, throughout the film. Ada-Manville’s first employer (she of the Dior dress) has been stiffing her on wages; the homeless men in Paris and the garbage-collectors’ strike assault our conscience upon her arrival (especially in contrast to the pristine luxury of the House of Dior at 57, Avenue Montaigne); her budding romantic feelings for the Marquis are nipped by his recollection of “Mrs. Mops”; Mme. Colbert’s husband appears to be suffering from PTSD, once known as “shell shock”. These plot alterations are small but revealing, and the vibe they give off is that of 2022, not 1957 or even, 1992.
And then, there’s Vi in the 2022 film, played by the black actress Ellen Thomas. Vi is Ada’s colleague (she fills in for Ada while she’s in Paris) and closest friend – they ride the bus together to work, they spend their evenings together, they go dancing together at the community hall. Would this relationship have been credible in 1957? In 1992?
The reviewers we consulted prior to writing this essay make much of the 2022 film’s “froth,” “escapism,” and mediocrity:
“The trope of the laughably frumpy worker bee, filled with optimism and quiet wisdom, is demeaning … Despite its gleeful showcasing of beautiful clothes and vibrant midcentury Parisian sights, the film is caught between its fantasies and its principles, landing somewhere more annoyingly clueless—and dull—than it out to be.” (Beatrice Loayza for the NYT, a young and very woke film critic indeed).
The Financial Times’ reviewer is clever, giving us such small linguistic gems as “The couture doesn’t lack hauteur,” “It takes nous to make a movie this sweet without rotting your teeth,” and (of Manville) “Eliza Doolittle redrafted as her own Henry Higgins.” As for the film itself, “A sharp eye passes over money, class, and business.” But how, exactly, we might ask – the FT reviewer doesn’t bother to elaborate.
Some reviews point out the parallels with the 2017 film “Phantom Thread,” in which Manville played the Mme. Colbert character. But no one recalled the 1992 film. Well, fair enough. Most reviewers are young – some probably weren’t born in 1992 – and anyway, how much research can you do for a 500-word review, one of several you’ll pen that week?
One thing the reviewers all agreed on, however: Manville is superb in the role, infusing it with warmth, strength, and humanity – she’ll probably receive one or more of the big film nominations for 2022.
We, on the other hand, think “the film’s the thing” – Manville’s great, but it’s the sharpish edges, the clash of classes, that made this recent version seem so au courant for us. The director, Anthony Fabian, may not even have been aware of the nuances that contemporized the original story / fairy tale – after all, in 2022 we take for granted that garbage strikes are an everyday occurrence, that no member of the nobility would go out with a cleaning lady, that rich men’s wives live on credit, not cash, and that the poor need their dreams just like everybody else. What’s the difference between owning a single item of bespoke luxury clothing and an inner city child’s desire to own an iPhone, after all? If you’ll never own a house or a car, if you’ll never have a job that pays more than minimum wage, if you’ll never have decent health insurance or get out of debt, don’t you still have the right to dream, to hope for something better?
I wish I could say that Britain’s seen the error of its neoliberal ways today, but no – the overall lightness of the cinematic vehicle is belied by the small details we’ve noted above. We’ll close with a link to George Monbiot, writing in the Guardian earlier this week, for a preview of what’s coming to the real England in the near future. It’s a nightmare, not a fairy tale.