Birthday Adventures Part II - The Vanity Case

Last weekend I decided to have "Part II" of my birthday celebrations - why should birthdays be limited to one day or one weekend?

For the second half of my birthday I decided to have a glamour party with a local Wellington business - The Vanity Case. Its a bit like having a tupperware party - only about a MILLION times more awesome!

When you hold a glamour party, the lovely Claire will come over to your house and give you a vintage make-over, which includes hair and make up. Claire also sells a lovely range of products from the USA called Besame and as well as hair styling products.

Claire is also so knowledgeable about vintage beauty and make-up as well as the Hollywood starlets of old - she's part make-up artist, part historian and all awesome.

Before deciding upon my style she passed around this vintage hair styling book and asked my friends to choose a style for me. They actually chose something quite similar to the style on the cover - a kind of 1940's style with a fringe! I don't even remember last time I had a fringe - primary school I think.

Claire told us that most vintage hairstyles are based on curls - so first up I had to have my hair curled and then she worked her magic in regard to the style.

Oh DARLING - I look FABULOUS!

I think the I actually like this look better with my glasses than without - I actually meant to but my contact lenses in before Claire arrived for the party, but due to a little bit too much time spent at a jumble sale in the morning (opps) I kind of ran out of time to sort myself out. When Claire had finished up, all my friends were like - oh that looks great and when I put on my glasses they seemed really amazed. A good pair of glasses is certainly worth the investment. What do you all think about my 1940's style?

Claire also teaches vintage styling classes here and I'm hoping I can take some of these classes soon, I'm particularly interested in the 1960's class. But I'm always keen to learn more about hair and make-up and generally being fabulous!

Fortieth Film - Night of the Hunter

I am finally making some progress with my "110 films in 2010" as I am now up to film number forty!

Rich had already seen this film before on the big screen with Joseph and I hope sometime I will have the chance to see it on the big screen too.

In this film, Harry Powell is a rouge who spends his time finding down and out widow's with money hidden away somewhere. He marries the widow and dispatches with her and runs off with the loot. All whilst posing as a preacher that everyone in the film seems to be rather taken with. He is honestly one of the most despicable characters I've ever seen on screen - you really don't like this guy and want him to get what's coming to him.

Whilst in prison, he meets a man whose on death row for killing two people and stealing $10,000 (which I imagine would have been a huge amount of money in 1951).

The man he's met in prison hid the money before he was arrested and only his children know where the money is - his wife has no idea.

Upon his release from prison Harry Powell decides to find the grieving widow, Willa Harper and her two children Pearl and John. His plan is to marry Willa and of course take off with the loot. The whole town is transfixed with this preacher man and almost immediately he is married to Willa.

Things go pretty much down hill for the Harper family from here, Willa doesn't know where the money is so Harry spends most of his time bullying the children to find out where it is - whilst Pearl holds a soft spot for the "preacher", John remains loyal to his dead father and insists that he and Pearl keep their father's secret.

Ironically the money that was stolen by the children's father is inside the doll that Pearl carries everywhere with her - meaning the money is literally under Harry's nose the whole time.

Eventually, being the rouge his is, Harry gets tired of finding out the location of the money the "nice" way and decides to kill Willa and claim she's run away. Leaving everyone in town feeling sorry for him having to raise two children on his own.

Without their mother's protection, John decides it's time to make a run for it. After a chase the children manage to get away from Harry by travelling down stream in a skip.

The film appears to be set in the depression era, where I assume many children were abandoned by parents who could no longer care for them. With this in mind, John and Pearl travel through rural area's sleeping where they can and finding food wherever they can get it.

However, finally they are found by Miss Cooper, who is officially one of my favourite female characters in a film.

There are so many films with weak female characters who don't know how to get along in the world without men.

Miss Cooper is the exact opposite of that - she is already looking after three children when John and Pearl arrive and has no problem taking on two more, as she says during the film about the new additions to her brood, "I'm a strong tree with branches for many birds. I'm good for something in this world and I know it too".

The rest of the film revolves around Harry trying to get the children (or money) and Miss Cooper trying to save them.

This is a much longer review than I usually write for a film but I simply loved Night of the Hunter, I won't say how it ends thought, because you're going to watch it and find out how truly beautiful and amazing it is for yourself!