Jonah, that is one amazing sequence. And it’s a better montage of the last 80 years of Hollywood than, I’ll wager, anything we’ll be seeing on tonight’s Oscar yawneroo. (One of the truly appalling reflections on the state of the Academy Awards show is how plonking and paceless their wretched montages are.) The key, I think, is the eyes – holding you in their gaze as cheekbones widen and lips part and hair moves up and down.
On the beauty bit, though, I think you’re wrong. There’s nothing homogeneous about, say, Myrna Loy and Jean Harlow or Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. I think the montageur picked the kind of Golden Age glamor we still respond to – Marlene, Hepburn, etc – but he excluded a lot of the girl-next-door types – Ruby Keeler, say – which is a category in which tastes do, indeed, change.
Anyway, it’s a relief to start the day with something other than Hillary’s superdelegate count.