Figure 1.--This is the dream scene from "Pennies from Heaven". A teacher's bored, listless class turns into a group of brilliant, energetic musicians and dancers. They dance on top of their pianos. The children are all emacuately costumed in white. The girls wear white party dresses with ankle socks. The boys wear white short pants tuxedos suits with white kneesocks.

The costuming for "Pennies for Heaven" is mostly adult outfits and are appropriate for the 1930s. There is one scene where children's costuming appears. Eileen is a teacher abd there is a sene set in her classroom.

Initial Outfits

The children in the dance scene were initially casually dressed in a variety of drab outfits. American children't commonly wear school uniforms. Thus the children in the classrrom wear typical 1930s garments. Some of the boys wear knickers as the film was set in the 1930s.

Idealized Dream Outfits

As the teacher dozes off, we are suddenly transported to an idealized classroom. The children are all changed into all white outfits. The girls all wear white party frocks with short ankle socks and the boys wear white short pants suits with white knee socks. The suits are actually junior tuxedos, not regular suits. Quite a lengthy little scene. There is an good shot of the drummer's suit. They even get up on their pianos so you can get a good view of their costumes. Girls might have worn a party frock like these, but boys would have not worn tuxeodes like this. Of course this is all a scene imagined by the day dreaming teacher and this is how some teachers and mothers mat have liked to dress the children to convert them into perfect ngels--which is what the white represents.

White Outfits

We see a lot of boys being dressed in all-white outfits at the turn of the 20th century. White tunuic suits were very popular. Of course whiye sailor suits were popular summer outfits for many years. We also begin seeing boys wearing all white outfits for First Communion in the 1920s. All white outfits were also worn as wedding costumes for younger boys.

Reader Comments

A British reader writes about the all-white outfits seen here, "You say that many Mothers and teachers would have liked to see the children in their charge as "angelic" looking in white - in their dreams! As I have said white shirts were always associated with "best" for boys (school trips/prize giving etc.) and,for me and others who attended, Sunday School. White socks were a no-no for boys - but little boys sometimes wore short ones and I once had to wear long ones due to my Grandmother. (It was Christmas so that was probably her idea of making me look "angelic"!). When my Gran bought me the white socks she also bought me a red bow tie and a red pullover. She thought that red and white would look "Christmassy". I never saw a school tie in all white - probably the only colour there never was although stripes including white were common of course. (I bet there wasn't a grey solid tie either although I have seen black and white - black alone would signify a funeral). I always hated wearing my tie (as you know!) but I must admit that when I wore one, school or otherwise, against a white shirt it did look good - better than against the grey shirt but appearance wasn't my main concern even if it was Mum's, the teachers' and Gran's! When I wore the red bow tie against the white shirt that Christmas that was the least of my worries as it was the socks that caused me so much grief even overtaking my check shorts in the "don't want to wear" stakes but that was a one off and I'll tell you about it some other time if you want. On the Christmas theme boys did wear all white if they were "angels" in the school nativity play but only then. As I have said before Mums preferred boys to wear grey shirts and grey socks were the school rule whereas girls wore white blouses and socks - maybe because they weren't expected to get them so dirty. On the other hand my older brother wanted to always wear white shirts to primary school and Mum let him and took a pride in having them gleaming white - even if it was I who had to help with the washing while he was playing cubs football. I never saw any boy wearing white dress *shorts* though. P.E. kit at secondary school was all white and we wore the shorts for cricket/tennis etc. Some boys at my grammar (secondary) school had proper (i.e. not pull ups) white shorts for this but although white shirts were common for best and, occaisionally white kneesocks (e.g. cub bands). White shorts for best were extremely rare I'd say. The socks for P.E./Cricket tennis etc. were short ones and for sports that seemed o.k. Boys in the cricket team had proper long "whites" for trousers. Proper dress white shorts might be fine on a film set but Mums would just know that they would not stay white for long no matter how well behaved we were - even on school trips/family visits etc. I even came home with food/grass stains on the white shirt that I was "forced" to wear for best. If we had had to wear white shorts as well my Mum would probably have gone mad! That is why, like me, she preferred grey (and even the girls skirts and gymslips at primary school were grey - although you are right that for dress up's like birthday parties they might wear white dresses/skirts. Boys always wore darker shorts - either school grey or various others that came out - dark blue or brown velevety later or (horrible memory) checked like my "best" (according to Gran) ones.) Anyway just a thought - I'll write about our school nativity plays and the costuming later if you wish (maybe when it is more seasonal!). The point being that Mums had ideal ways of how boys should look - yes all white suits would be nice - but they were also practical so they had to compromise. White shirts and occaisionally socks were fine - shorts would just be going too far! Just another thought while I am in the mood. Blazers at most state schools were probably mainly black (with the school badge or some trim) for the same reason - not showing the dirt. Funnily enough "blazer" originally came from posh (boating?) wear and meant brightly coloured. I also see that even the bow ties in this film costume are white."

Created: 1:52 AM 9/20/2006
Last updated: 9:19 PM 9/20/2006