The Women He Undressed

Starring: Darren Gilshenan, Deborah Kennedy, Nathaniel Middleton

Directed by: Gillian Armstrong

Written by: Katherine Thomson

100 minutes Rated M

Hollywood can be thankful to our great wide land for stunt men, writers, directors, actors, soundtrack composers, directors of photography and more. They’ve had our best and recognised them through myriad awards, rightly so. Sometimes back home though they have not always been as well known.

You’d think a man from Kiama who had designed costumes in 282 movies for actors such as Bette Davis, Rosalind Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood, won three Oscars and been the favorite of Jack Warner (and the go to guy for anyone at Warner Brothers) would be a hero in his homeland. Surely there’d be a building or two, a street, a scholarship or a fashion design college named after him. At least his name would be as prominent and recognisable as Nicole Kidman, Errol Flynn, Peter Finch or Heath Ledger surely? Um actually no.

Orry George Kelly was born in December 1897 in the coastal town of Kiama NSW looking up at the

stars on those clear skies every night. Only a couple of decades later he would be dressing stars of a different kind in the Hollywood studio lots of Warners, MGM and Universal. He was a gay man who didn’t hide that fact at a time when the man he loved had to hide his predilection lest his career be doomed. That man was a struggling Brit looking for a housemate Archibald Leach. Archy and Orry lived together for many years as Leach’s career steadily grew and exploded under the name Cary Grant. Orry’s status grew also as he worked on films which became classics - Casablanca, Some Like it Hot, 42nd Street, The Maltese Falcon, Gypsy, Mame and Oklahoma.

This finely crafted and extremely entertaining (as well as educational) documentary is told through minimal archival footage, comment pieces from Jane Fonda, fellow costumiers Ann Roth (a protégé of Kelly’s) and Catherine Martin, Angela Lansbury and others and dramatic monologues reconstructing Orry’s story performed by Darren Gilshenan sitting mostly in a red rowboat (don’t ask)- Deborah Kennedy plays his mother Florence, who gets to offer her input while hanging up the washing on a grassy hill in front of a lighthouse (again don’t ask).

I did find this monologue enactment a bit naff, theatrical and jarring. I think a bit more reliance on archival footage or simple reconstruction dramatically without the cheesy stuff would have been better. I like my documentaries to be ‘real’ and tell the story as is. As always though that is the device the filmmakers chose and it is what it is. There is surprisingly little footage of Orry Kelly himself (although his Oscar acceptances are quite available on YouTube) and frankly I don’t know if it simply does not exist, was too expensive to use or too hard to find.

Let me assure you though there is still a lot in the film and it does work well and I loved it. There is even a bit of a mystery to end the film off with. His memoirs are discussed throughout the movie, the knowledge of his relationships, particularly with Mr Leach are pondered upon especially what the memoirs might have revealed. But most of all, what happened to the memoir manuscript itself? Well stay tuned viewer, the movie has news!

This is a film for all Australian filmgoers, especially lovers of the days of Hollywood as it was. It is a great resource for students of filmmaking and film history. It is ultimately a choice piece of documentary making by a skilled film-maker.

I learnt a lot from ‘Women He’s Undressed’ but most of all I was entertained and delighted by a worthy homage of an Australian we all ought to have known about, celebrated and taken pride in.

Good on you Orry Kelly.

4 out of 5