Why do period dramas FILMED in the 1960s get the hairstyles so wrong?

[BOFster]

I've always noticed this. They take so much care with things like the cars and the military uniforms, yet completely cock it up when it comes to the hair. Here are a few examples from films supposed to be set in WW2.

Was it a reluctance to have the actors look uncool? And do you think we get in right nowadays, or will people watching in the future be scoffing at the obviously-2010s hairstyles?

Yes! Julie Christie is always backcombed.

I like the Robert Bolt film Lady Caroline Lamb but it is so 1972.

Agree totally. But yes, I think it's still wrong in many cases. Check out this totally authentic looking 1941 US Navy nurse.

I always notice this but I think it happens in other decades too. My mum and I were talking about this the other day!

ROFL at Pearl Harbour link . They do it on TV too- Happy Days was terrible for it. And MASH. And The Waltons.

Check out Barbara Stanwyk as a 19th Century frontierswoman in Big Valley...

What really got me [sad life] was Drew Barrymore's hair in The Wedding Singer. Everyone else, even Adam Sandler, had fairly authentic vertical 80s haircuts. She had 90s flat straight hair, with a centre parting FGS! I would have died rather than have a centre parting in the 80s.

You can't beat Kevin Costner's awesome 'handsome mullet' in Prince of Theives.

Of course, Robin Hood would have eighties hair. It all makes sense :)

Absolutely Morris. 'Ye mullet' a well known mediaeval request at ye barber's shoppe.

And (getting petty here) DP and I fell out for days over the pretty doctor on
Dallas Buyers Club. The rest of the film was so well steeped in the eighties. But here comes gorgeous lady doc (Jennifer Garner? Bland, anodyne beauty anyway) with totally current hair and makeup.

DP thought she was fine, I nearly dumped him.

What about those bridesmaids and Diane Keaton in The Godfather. 1970s fashions in the 50s.

www.folkstory.com/images2/godfather_wedding.jpg

Lord yes Mardy. Surely they had the budget to get it right - they just don't believe we will find non-current hair attractive.

HUGE budget film for the 1940s creates perfect 17th century look for Margaret Lockwood

The past is always is re-interpreted slightly by the present, I expect we are doing it now in our period drama but it won't become apparent until we have a new perspective twenty years hence.

I think we are better at getting the period look now. Take Mad Men for example - I think I read they even have to wear sixties underwear for the authentic look.

And the period detail in things like The Theory of everything is stunning.

I haven't seen the Theory of Everything but I already suspect the make-up won't be right!

I think every epoch of film-making does this. Even if they get the hairstyles right, the eye makeup is almost always a dead giveaway.

One of my current faves on this front is Sleepy Hollow. All the flashbacks to the late 18th century show the men as they would have been (see numerous portraits of the period): clean shaven, with powdered wigs. All except our rather buff hero who has hair au naturel and a hipster beard!

Wow- wasn't Margaret Lockwood stunning?

I'm nodding FURIOUSLY in agreement with Drew Barrymore. We know she looked a bit more like this, so even if her character needed it toned down, she'd have at least had a permed bob.

God how intresting , Id never thought of this before < off to google calamity jane>

Close

I'm pretty sure they didn't have those extremely pointy bras in the 1870s Wild West .

Coco

I think people expect too much. Nobody wants to see what people actually looked like in say, the 17/18th century....who is going to tune in to an authentic show starring a short balding man with no/black teeth, some pox scares and a big red bulbous drinkers nose, instead of a modern good looking dude?

They want the actors to attractive to current audiences.

It is bizarre to think that the wedding singer was set in 'yesteryear' a mere 10 years before it was made (1995/1985) and that was now 20 years ago!

Things changed much more in those 10 years than the 20 years since.

I saw an old episode of Happy Days on Gold the other day and was struck by this. Most of the younger male characters had hair that was long enough to go over their collars, this would have been an absolute no no in 1950s America, when the Beatles came on the scene in the early 60s their "long" hair shocked people.