Recycled costume alert!

Jennifer Ehle as Mrs. Logue in "The King's Speech" (2010).

Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, with Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry in "The Body in the Library" (2004).

It shouldn't surprise me -- indeed, I am more amused than surprised -- that there is a website for recycled-costume spotters: Recycled Movie Costumes (the two pictures are from there).

I'm a bit late to the game on "The King's Speech" here, which I saw a few months ago and thought was absolutely wonderful.  Pooh to those who complain about its historical inaccuracies -- now, sometimes I complain with the best of them about historical inaccuracies in films, but this one I thought did a brilliant job of both compressing a long story and conveying the hard slog of the Duke of York's/George VI's treatment into a mere two hours.

I must admit that I'm rather biased -- George has long been perhaps my favorite of the English kings.  He took a bad situation and did a splendid job.  I always liked the anecdote of Elizabeth replying to someone who asked during the war if the little princesses would be evacuated from the bombing in London, "The children will not leave without me, I will not leave without the King, and the King will never leave."

Here is a clip from around 1938 showing the King making a speech to open the Empire Exhibition at Ibrox Park in Glasgow.  It is difficult not to feel for him from the very start, and to cheer him on in spirit.

THE KING'S SPEECH

Comments

[--Deb]

Thank you for that photo--I liked the sweater when I saw it, but didn't realize it had been used before. (Got to go check out that recycled costume site.)

And I agree--I thought the King's Speech did a great job condensing an elaborate story of a brave man.

[mary lou]

Isn't the internet amazing. I have never noticed recycled costumes, but I have noticed when the same horses were used in different scenes supposedly occuring in different parts of the country - same team drawing a wagon in Texas, say, and a carriage in NYC. Fun link to Pathe, thanks.

[Albertina McNeill]

Ever since I saw "The Body in the Library" with Geraldine McEwan I've wondered whether the large triangular shawl worn in it by Joanna Lumley was made to a pattern by Kaffe Fassett. Do you happen to know?