Mr. Jack in the Dressing Room
Mr. Jack in the Dressing Room
Filmed Mar. 16, 1904, in the Biograph New York City studio. Opens on a stage set of the interior of a theatrical dressing room. Along a bar that serves as a dressing table sit three costumed young women--perhaps chorus girls or members of a burlesque troope--adjusting their hair and makeup in three mirrors hanging from the wall. Two of the women wear very short outfits that show their stockinged legs; the third woman is dressed in a ruffled dress to the knee. A portly, middle-aged man with muttonchop whiskers enters the room, dressed in evening clothes and top hat and carrying a cane. He hands the cane and hat to the delighted women and responds to them in a jovial, familiar manner. He calls in a uniformed boy with a tray of glasses and a bottle, then pours drinks for himself and all the ladies. They toast each other and drink, then the man begins to dance a jig. The women apparently decide to dress him as a woman, placing a tulle apron around his waist as he rolls up his pants legs. ** He is a willing participant in these antics. He is not being forced to put on this skirt. **As he continues his jig, a severe-looking woman in a dark dress, hat, and gloves enters. She reacts in shock at the sight of the dancing man in his skirt, then grabs him and hits him with the parasol she carries. As the young women watch and laugh, the older woman drags the embarrassed man from the room by his ear. ** It is unclear what the women is angry about. Is she upset that the man (her husband?) is weariing a skirt? Or that he has been drinking? Or that he is alone in a dressing room with three scantily clad women? This could be viewed as an example of turn of the century morality.**