Yesterday, a depressed and horny holiday lady! Today, a faithful and soulful Christmas wife. In The Preacher’s Wife, directed by Penny Marshall, Whitney Houston took over the role Loretta Young played in the original film, 1947’s The Bishop’s Wife. In it, she plays Julia, the wife of preacher Courtney B. Vance, dutifully standing by her husband as choir director while he goes through a crisis of faith while faced with the potential closure of their church. God sends them Dudley, an angel in the form of Denzel Washington, who immediately ingratiates himself into the bemused family. Seeing that their marriage is under considerable strain, Dudley convinces the preacher to take his wife out to a jazz club, just like the old days. At the last second, he’s forced to leave because of a parishioner’s health issues, leaving Julia to come down the stairs in her finery, ready for a night of fun.
Disappointed to hear that the night won’t be happening, she heads upstairs to change before Dudley, who is clearly smitten with her, offers to take her out instead.
If you put Whitney Houston in a velvet dress and shoot a scene where she goes to a club, you can pretty much write what happens next.
While Julia, Whitney’s character, is intrigued by Dudley and even has some un-wifely feelings toward him, the movie makes perfectly clear that she’s not the type of woman who’d entertain thoughts of cheating on her husband, so this entire scene is extremely, sometimes overwhelmingly chaste by Hollywood standards. The dress, from costume designer Cynthia Flint, embodies that vibe perfectly. She’s inarguably beautiful and even lightly glamorous in it, but this is the dress of a modest woman who’s out for the night and not unwilling to have some fun. The neckline offers just enough skin to indicate that this is an evening dress, but not enough to suggest anything remotely improper. The shape and style are incredibly simple and the lack of color speaks to her humility, but the light touches of jewelry also speak of a woman who knows about a more glamorous life but opted to leave it behind her for love and faith. It couldn’t have been easy to take 1996 Whitney Houston and tamp down on her innate glamour while still leaving her cinematically beautiful, but Flint, Marshall and Houston all did a fantastic job of it.
Next up: Christmas magic!
[Photo/Still Credit: Walt Disney Studios – Video Credit:Life is Worth Living/YouTube]
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Blake Lively Attends the ‘Blake Brown and Stoney Clover’ Holiday Pop Up Event in Annina
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Christmas Movie Dress Advent Calendar Day 24: Vera Ellen in WHITE CHRISTMAS
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