I suggest you read one girl’s story about Western young ladies, but performed by Soviet actresses.
Today we’ll talk about foreign young ladies, but...performed by Soviet movie stars (or not quite stars). As you know, Western girls have always been played by creatures with a model or near-model appearance. No fat, masculine German women (unless, of course, it is a concentration camp guard), no American women in oversized jeans and worn out shoe covers, with a backpack on their back and a big big big mac in their hands. Only gloss, slimness and fashionable cut pants. Even if we are talking about a girl who, out of poverty and despair, goes to rob people (as in the movie “Mirage”, for example). Thus, Soviet filmmakers, seemingly loyal to Lenin’s cause, planted a sweet “time bomb” on us. We looked and thought - aha! Since all the unemployed losers there are dressed in fashionable white “bananas” and made up like fashion models, then what is going on in the wardrobes of rich people?! True, my mother, who traveled abroad, argued that rich people wear expensive things exclusively to receptions, and in ordinary situations the owner of some reputable company prefers faded jeans and a cowboy shirt. And in general, there are no fewer overweight people in Europe than in the USSR, if not more. And the food is all beautiful, but... nothing. Remember the film with Louis de Funes “A Wing or a Leg”. He plays a restaurateur who fights with the owner of a chain of cheap establishments selling artificial food! It's disgusting! And everything is wonderful with us! But did we really believe?! No! I thought she was saying that on purpose so that I wouldn’t lick my lips at fashion catalogues. They say that the rich despise all fashion and wear it once a year - out of disgusting duty. We knew for sure that girls in the West are all thin, loud and engaged in aerobics. They always have make-up on, a bunch of multi-colored hairpins and elastic bands (the dream of a typical girl-girl!), and there are little things - a ton of tights, a million pairs of chic shoes and all sorts of other shiny joys of life, like a top made of phosphorescent fabric that you need wear with black satin banana pants. So let's get started!
Virginia Renoir - Elena Ukrashchenok. "Search a woman".
So, let's start with the sex secretary (this is not a typo) Virginia Renoir, played by actress Elena Ukraschenok in the film “Look for a Woman.” More precisely, she is not a secretary, but a typist. It’s just that we associated Virginia with the concept of “the boss’s secretary.” He wears unimaginable things, apparently not too expensive. But they are very attractive. The face is doll-like, vicious, and memorable. In Soviet cinema, such a provocative actress would have nothing to offer except such secrets. So, the Renoir girl. It works poorly and prints with errors. But is there happiness in work? Of course no. In clothes, in flirting, in adventures. “Modesty adorns a girl if there are no other adornments,” Mademoiselle Virginia tells us, and then adds: “If people don’t press you in the metro, this does not mean that the metro does not exist in Paris.” This is her attitude towards her personal secretary, a nasty old maid (I won’t be surprised that in fact it is the shy one who has 1001 dirty fantasies spinning in her brain, while the fashionable Renoir is generally still a little girl). But, one way or another, the typist’s pink pants were very impressive then.
Pilar - Elvira Zubkova. “TASS is authorized to declare...” Next to her is the same woman in a fashion photo from 1979.
Further along the course, Pilar is the girlfriend of the main villain John Glebb from the spy saga “TASS is authorized to declare...”. Brave and intelligent KGB officers against sophisticated and cruel opponents! Great movie! So here's Pilar. She was played by Elvira Zubkova, one of the leading fashion models, whom all the little girls knew from the covers of their mother’s fashion magazines. In some sources she is listed as Eleonora Zubkova or simply Elya. I don’t know where this discrepancy comes from. So, Pilar, a woman of fate, a kind of Carmen in disco style. All Western women dressed in this style, almost regardless of age, IQ level and social status. Sequins, flowing fabrics, sandals with silver stiletto heels. A white suit, of course, tons of cosmetics and this golden mesh - it’s a miracle how good it is. Information slipped through the modern press that the beautiful Zubkova was filming in her own luxurious toilets. In general, the girls were very interested in what Pilar would wear in the next episode.
Lady Camilla - Faime Yurno. "A purely English murder." And - she's a model from the 1970s.
The next dream princess is also a fashion model and fashion model, Faime Yurno, who portrayed Lady Camilla in A Pure English Murder. And, since the murder is purely English, then the girl must be foreign-chic. Moreover - lady! Of course, thin, refined, with refined movements. I knew Faime Jurno from the Estonian magazine 'Siluett', which we had at home in large quantities and almost all the issues. Of course, I didn’t know the model’s last name, because for some reason the names of the clothing demonstrators were never specifically indicated anywhere. Faime Jurno is a girl of German-Estonian origin, born in West Berlin, but then her family moved to Estonia. She didn’t star in many films, and mainly because of the chic texture, when it was necessary to show the façade, and not just Stanislavsky’s system. But in general, Western beauties were often portrayed by girls from the Baltic states. Which is probably right. Therefore, our next heroine will also be from the fraternal Courland or whatever it is called there?
Ginny Gordon - Mirdza Martinsone. "Mirage".
So, a Latvian actress with a complex name - Mirdza Martinsone, who played the American girl Ginny Gordon in the film-drama about the horrors of the world of capital - “Mirage” And again white pants, and not the same ones, but very different ones. Apparently, our filmmakers strongly associated white trousers with the world of cleanliness, spiritual impoverishment and uncontrolled striptease. The girl Ginny, despite her desperate financial situation, is stunningly well dressed. Even while throwing herself off a cliff with her lover, she looks like she belongs on the cover of a fashion magazine. I immediately remembered the French viscountesses and countesses who went to the guillotine in powder, flies and lace. In the movie, in addition to the fascinating and tense plot, there was another important detail for entities like me - Western advertising! For some reason, we really liked her then - all sorts of chocolates, jeans, things, junk. Just a detail, but how it decorates. True, to be honest, we looked at all this and understood that it was bad to live there. Although it is bright.
Sheila Birling - Elena Proklova. "Inspector Gull."
...By the way, the next film in which Western advertising was actively used as an image of lack of spirituality and vice was “Inspector Gull”. In it, almost all the roles were played by Baltic Europeans and only the beautiful Miss Sheila Berling was played by the Russian actress Elena Proklova. At the beginning of the picture we are shown the rich and respectable surroundings in which the young British lady lives. There are outfits, a handsome, rich, well-mannered groom, and other...stereo speakers in a separate room. But you and I understand that a girl cannot be happy by definition. Because she is a good person and it is very noticeable. And it's true. Lady Sheila turns out to be mentally ill, a sort of unfortunate bird struggling in a golden cage. Refined-dried relatives do not give her any warmth, and the groom is just a beautiful mannequin. The main idea is that both Gull (who is not an inspector at all, but a humanitarian who escaped from a madhouse) and Miss Sheila have gone crazy in the world of profit and cynicism, and only people with a conscience that is lame on both legs can remain conditionally normal here.
