Remembering ‘the poor soul walking in the rain’: Audience Responses to a Thwarted Makeover inWoman in a Dressing Gown

Abstract

This article emerges from a 2004–5 research project on audience memories of the 1957 British film Woman in a Dressing Gown. It provides general information on the project's objectives and methods before going on to detail one of its major findings: an unexpected degree of consensus among its participants when identifying the film's most memorable scene. The film's heroine makes an effort to improve her appearance by getting her hair done, before her transformation is suddenly and cruelly undone by bad weather; this scene stood out in participants' recollections to a greater extent than any other moment from the film. This article aims to account for the recurrent selection of that specific scene by offering a close reading of respondents' memories of it, with particular reference to the scene's central motif of a thwarted makeover.