Editor's Note: We're celebrating Marie Antoinette at the movies each afternoon for a week
Gee this wig weighs a ton.
Singin' in the Rain is, of course, a beloved movie about our beloved movies. There's lots of broad goofing on Hollywood history for movie buff amusement. But sometimes the gentle ribbing is actually pointed jabs. When Lina Lamont enters the shot above to shoot The Dueling Cavaliers the joke is bigger than her constant whining...
What kind of a dope would wear this?"
Um... this kind of a dope, Lina.
Poor Norma. The bitchy divas in movies are always taking jabs at her from Joan Crawford onward. But by 1952 the First Lady of MGM had retired and had long since learned to get her own claws out. Jungle red.
Yup, Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont is entirely decked out in one of Norma Shearer's 1938 Marie Antoinette costumes including the exact same wig! What's more, perhaps to make sure people in the know got the joke, the portable dressing room Gene Kelly's Don Lockwood emerges from for "The Duelling Cavaliers" also belonged to Norma Shearer.
* Trivia courtesy of the The Great Movie Musical Trivia Book