"Only a groomed woman deserves her name"


            Fashion, utopia and stardom in Czechoslovak film musical Lady of the rails


The 1960s socialist Czechoslovakia witnessed a series of liberalization tendencies. Apart from
relieving the political-ideological pressures, the decade also brought substantial changes in terms
of lifestyle. Film musical Lady of the rails (Dáma na kolejích, 1966) addresses these shifts
through female emancipation and fashion. Departing from earlier visions of a liberated woman
through the notions of work, this movie offers an image of a strong, powerful heroine through her
look. While delivering this compelling message on the importance of personal style and grooming, it
also points to the limits of such position. Therefore we are going to argue that Lady of the rails
articulates a utopian space of couture fashion as a vehicle for equality of the sexes. On one hand
the seductive vision of a stylish, empowered lady was presented as accessible to any working class
woman. On the other hand, the pages of period lifestyle magazines, the musical form and the bitter
finale tell a different story of a very limited transferability to the everyday reality.
Accordingly, casting proved to be central for negotiating these conflicting tendencies. Considered
for the main part of Marie from the early start, Jiřina Bohdalová brought into the project her
multifaceted stardom. As a leading Czech comedienne, associated mostly with television and radio,
she supported the notion of Marie as an ordinary woman next door. Simultaneously, Bohdalová's
histrionic acting and her ability to wear extravagant dresses contributed to her position of an
exceptional star. Analyzing and contextualizing costumes and star performance in Lady of the rails
will hopefully enrich our understanding of Czechoslovak cinema apart from the artistic discourse
surrounding the new wave. Therefore we would like to bring more scholarly attention to the notions
of entertainment, female emancipation and fashion, all of which ruled the 1960s in Central Europe
as well.


References:

·         Dyer, Richard (2002): Only entertainment. London and New York: Routledge.

·         Dyer, Richard (1998): Stars. London: BFI Publishing.

·         Rinke, Andrea (2006): Eastside Stories: Singing and Dancing for Socialism. Film History
18, No. 1, pp. 73 - 87.

·         Bartlett, Djurdja (2010): FashionEast: The Spectre that haunted Socialism. Cambridge: MIT
Press.

·         Havelková, Hana - Oates-Indruchová, Libora (eds.) (2015): Vyvlastněný hlas. Proměny
genderové kultury české společnosti 1948-1989. Praha: Slon.


Authors biography:

·         Šárka Gmiterková is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Film and Audio Visual Culture,
Masaryk University Brno, Czech Rep, where she is writing her thesis on prewar versus postwar Czech
film stardom. She regularly presents her research outcomes in Czech Film Studies journal Iluminace.
Her work was published in Journal of Celebrity Studies and in the upcoming volume Popular Cinemas
in Central Europe: Film Cultures and Histories.

·         Miroslava Papežová is a graduate student at the Department of Film and Audio Visual
Culture, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Rep, where she completes her thesis on Czech film songs in
the 1960s. Her work was published in Iluminace and Cinepur journals.