26 thoughts on “SNARK WEEK: Costume Designer Jean-Pierre Dorléac – The Frock Flicks Guide

  1. I beg to differ with you on this week’s roast of Jean-Pierre Dorléac. His costumes for “Somewhere in Time” were extraordinary – and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences agreed, giving him a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Costume Design. Jane Seymour’s dresses were spot-on for 1912, and had incredible detail. There were no zippers or modern polyester fabrics used – his fabric of choice was dupioni silk. And I daresay you must not have watched the film before you wrote this, for if you had, you would KNOW that Christopher Reeve’s suit WAS SUPPOSED TO BE 10 YEARS OLD, attuning to his lack of knowledge of 1912 when he bought it at the costume shop. The pink-haired character Genevieve (the delightful Eddra Gale) makes fun of it at dinner, and Elise even offers to buy him a new suit after their night together. Please revise your review!

    1. Nope! Read our full review of Somewhere in Time & you’ll find out exactly how wrong the costumes are — we watched & made extensive historical comparisons (unlike the costume designer, lol).

    2. I’m know I’m going to regret replying, but it’s Snark Week. There’s even more taking of the piss than usual, and there’s usually a whole lot of piss taking.

  2. My favourites of M. Jean-Pierre Dorelac are of course Somewhere in Time and Serena’s wedding dress from Battlestar Galactica. I vaguely remember Mae West which i liked and all I can say about The Kent Chronicles is if awards were given for poly satin ill-fitting clothes and totally inaccurate costumes, it would win along with North and South with Tits Out.

  3. I confess to ADORING the cheese of “Tales of the Gold Monkey” as a kid. It was like seeing a color version of the films in Matinee at the Bijou or “Bringing Up Baby” (and company) on the UHF channels….

  4. the woman in the Road Warrior picture looks like she has a penis tattooed on her leg. oh my! I’ve seen most of these and yes, they are as dreadful as advertised!!!

    1. ???? It just looks like a random smudge to me.

      The project in question was a 1989 made-for-TV movie, a pilot film for a CBS A-TEAM knockoff that didn’t sell, so I really don’t think so.

      On the other hand, this image is from a video cover on an Italian label (the “48” in the image is part of a store inventory sticker, as can be seen in a fuller version on the IMDb), so it might be a specially posed photo by the video company to help sell it, though I’m sure the costumes in the original were just as crappy.

      (I haven’t seen this thing, just going by what the IMDb showed me after I did a Google Image Search for a better view of that photo.)

      1. Since I’m insane, I located THE ROAD RAIDERS on YouTube, and now I can say that the image is indeed two models specially posed for a video cover, and does NOT depict the actors or the costumes.

        The female lead does wear a somewhat similar outfit for the bulk of the film, but it’s much more modest. The top is a sleeveless uniform shirt, but NOT worn to expose cleavage and midriff, and the shorts actually have about a 3″-4″ inseam and look reasonably period. And instead of that ’80s “mall chick” hairdo, she has a side-parted hairstyle like Rita Hayworth, but messy due to action scenes.

        The men’s costumes, on the other hand– yipes.

        After about a minute of real WWII footage (just to rub it in, I guess), we fade to Bruce Boxleitner in a vintage convertible, in full-on MIAMI VICE mode– white (or pastel, not sure from the video quality) suit with padded shoulders and pushed-up sleeves worn over a tank top, hair combed back, designer stubble, and a “cool Black guy” sidekick in similar attire (including a MAGNUM, P.I. Hawaiian shirt).

        A little later, twin bodybuilders (The Barbarian Bros.) show up in curly mullets and those exhibitionistic, barely-there “tank tops” that are the male equivalent of a “dental floss” bikini. It’s like a WWE tag team suddenly wandered in from another channel.

        And there’s other guys in military uniforms (including human pixie Leslie Jordan in sailor drag, looking like he was dropped in from a road show of DAMES AT SEA).

        Best moment is the aftermath of a plane making a crash landing and the guys climbing out of the wreckage with the product knocked out of their slicked-down hair, so they all go back to their usual blown-out ’80s hair. (“Evil Ed” from FRIGHT NIGHT is one of them, looking exactly the same as he did in that film.)

        Second best moment is when the guys have to disguise themselves as nuns. (I have no idea why they’re dressed as nuns, because I was watching this piece of dreck with the sound off and using the forward button to click through as fast as I could get through it.)

        At one point early on, Tia Carrere shows up in a nightclub in halfway decent ’40s glam. At least, as far as I could tell at the speed I was scanning through this.

        Anyway, even though Jean-Pierre Dorléac wasn’t responsible for the image you posted, he had plenty to answer for in the actual film.

          1. Trust me, if you’d actually watched this one, you wouldn’t have been able to post. The only thing that kept my brain cells functioning afterward was scanning as fast as I could get through it.

            (And yes, I probably should be committed for doing things like this.

            I guess I’m just one of those people that instinctively run into the bad movie, rather than away from the bad movie…)

    1. Oh, he showed even more in the film itself (as did Brooke’s of-legal-age body double), and that was the whole selling point of the movie. (And it sold enough tickets to inspire a knockoff by another studio and a sequel to the film itself.)

      These days, Atkins looks like he was one of the original cast of the California Raisins, so maybe it’s karma.

  5. The best thing about Gold Monkey was the dog. I liked the stories, but the clothes made no impression at all. Thought McDowall was fun as Louis. I think a lot of the time their tongues were so deep in their cheeks they were coming out their ears. Was Donald Bellisario’s first series and the only one that didn’t run for a long time.

    1. Agree about the dog! He was very busy; I think he played the camp dog on MAS*H a few times. :)

    2. It was fun and i was sorry it wasn’t renewed. I didn’t pay any attention to the costumes. I was watching Stephen Collins and Roddy McDowell.

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