details of the murder

[auntiemeesh]

I've had a chance to look at the photos from the murder mystery. The only mystery is who the indistinct blobs in the pictures are. The pics aren't pretty, sorry to say. But I managed to scrape up a few decent or semi-decent ones.

lyda_pearl (Ingrid Bergman) and I had an appointment to get our hair done before the show, so that we wouldn't have to bother with that. LP's hair came out pretty well, but the girl was totally clueless about how to do mine, even though I had a picture that I thought was fairly clear. She put product in my hair, but didn't so much actually style it.

Once we got to the school, though, it was a fairly quick matter to fix the hair, get the makeup on, borrow some jewelry from a fellow celebrity and jump into costume. I don't have any pictures that show the costume much at all, but here I am, preshow.



The story:

We gradually trickled into the speakeasy, and were greeted by Noreen and Sam Mackey, the owners of the club.

Before settling down in my seat I mingled a bit. My first stop was to chat with Alfred Hitchcock. He's just recently won an Academy Award for Rebecca, his first film here in the US, so he was very pleased about that. It's important to maintain those professional contacts.

Ingrid Bergman was having great fun with her escort of the evening, a Dr. Lindstrom. Here they are being a bit playful.


It was great fun to interact with and watch Mae West, and Betty Davis work the crowd. Between the two of them, the rest of us might as well not have been there.

The evening went quite well until suddenly, in the middle of the main course, Sam Mackey staggered out of the kitchen, clutched his chest and dropped to the floor, very dead. Suddenly all hell broke loose. A detective (you can see him in the pic with Mae West) named Jack o'Spades was questioning everyone and trying to find out who the murderer was (Sam had been poisoned). In a shocking turn of events, it became clear that Gigi, the best friend of Noreen (Sam's wife) was the guilty one. She'd been having an affair with Sam and secretly resented Noreen for having everything she didn't, so she killed Sam to get back at Noreen. Very disturbing to learn all this while eating birthday cake, you may be sure. (Did I mention that we were all gathered for Orson Welles' birthday?).

Here's a picture of some of the girls and I.

Back row (l-r) is me, Lyda Pearl, Betty Davis, and some socialite food critic (her sister, played by the director, is missing from the picture).
Front row is Noreen, Mae West, Gigi (the murderess) and the Tap Dancing Cigarette Girl (OMG was she a hoot or what?!)

And no, that's not a real cigarette I'm holding. The cigarette girl sold chocolate cigars and bubble gum/candy cigarettes, and as all of Hollywood smoked in those days, we all had fake cigarettes stuck between our fingers all evening. Candy cigs was all I had to eat throughout the entire course of the meal and I munched my way through three of them, one for each course but the appetizer (I hadn't got too hungry yet at that time).

After the denoument, things wrapped up pretty quickly and we, the cast, were able to get out of our uncomfortable costumes and dig in to the food that had been saved for us. Boy was I happy on both accounts! We didn't get the yummy appetizer and salad, but we got the main course and dessert. Mmm. All in all, it was fun, if a little boring at times. The ladies I was sitting with (neither of whom I knew) were a little clueless about how this was supposed to work so they kept asking me questions like how much I'd had to rehearse and whether I was a student at the college. We were all under orders to stay in character in such situations and so had to pretend to be a very offended celebrity when the questions stepped outside the role. That was kind of fun too, I must admit, lol.

Comments

[dreamflower]

That sounds like such a fun evening! And all of you look so glamorous. I think the pics are pretty good!

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

I did manage to find a few photos that weren't entirely blurry, but these were it, lol.

It was amazing how much effort everyone put into their costumes. We had to provide our own, and no one slacked.

[eve11]

wow, sounds like a great time! you look fabulous dahling, you and l_p both. :) :) :) :)

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dahling, we *were* fabulous. *snicker*

*hugs*

[lily-the-hobbit.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful time you've had! Great pictures!

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was an altogether different kind of costuming than I'm used to but still a lot of fun. :)

[slightlytookish]

It sounds like a lot of fun! Too bad they starved you out, though. But at least you all looked nice. Your hair looks great. I love those old-fashioned, wavy hairstyles :)

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

The hair was fun. I possibly would have been better off to let my hair just do its own thing, as it's pretty close to Katherine Hepburn's style all by itself, but I wanted to feel made up, you know?

[mamoulian.livejournal.com]

Dig the hair!

Souds cool.

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

[whtmtnwmn.livejournal.com]

You guys were awesome! I had a heck of a time not laughing out loud, while trying to videotape and take still photos. Oh, I've burned the stills onto a cd for you--remind me to give it to you.
=D

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Lyda Pearl passed the picture CD along to me. Thanks! I'm particularly glad you got pics of the whole cast sitting together because we somehow missed that with our camera. :)

[whtmtnwmn.livejournal.com]

I wish all of the photos had come out good, but at first my camera was on the wrong setting, and then there were lighting and other issues that I couldn't compensate for.

Glad you liked the good ones :)
=D

[wishkey.livejournal.com]

You looked perfect! Retro is a very good look on you. Your hair worked. Looks like so much fun!

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's not a hair style I'd wear every day, but it was fun for that one evening. :)

[ani-no-mouse.livejournal.com]

You guys look great - even Gigi, although her fabulousness may not do her much good where she's headed.

I'm much relieved to hear that the cigs were candy. They broght to mind a card L_P sent me years ago when she was going through a rough time. It featured a Far Side cartoon of a bunch of dinosaur juvenile delinquents puffing away, with the caption, "the real reason the dinosaurs became extinct."

Hope you've had a good weekend after that busy Friday night!

[auntiemeesh.livejournal.com]

Gigi actually made me feel better about my molting feathers, as her purple boa did a fairly good job of molting all over the place too. :)

[topaztook.livejournal.com]

Wow, you look like a great Kate Hepburn! And the hair looks wonderful. Sounds like it was really fun -- glad you at least got to eat some of the good food, eventually. Although candy cigarettes are pretty good, as I remember--- didn’t know they were available anymore.

(Random OT memory: a friend of mine when I was a kid liked to freak out passing cars by sitting in the back seat of her mother’s vehicle, in the winter when your breath creates a frost -- I think they might have had the air on or something -- and “puffing” away on a candy cigarette.)