The Best Movie Gloves

I’m old enough to remember the days when girls and ladies considered gloves the finishing touch in dressing for any occasion, from traveling by air(!) to cocktail parties, to a day in the city. In movies gloves, like cigarettes, give rise to a ballet of expressive movements that can be very evocative and even help to tell the story and reveal the character. The movie gloves on my list of favorites are not wool or leather gloves worn for warmth or protection; these are indoor gloves, worn for elegance. Well, except for a couple.

1. Let’s Make Love You can glimpse Marilyn Monroe wear two pairs of gloves in this trailer for her movie about a wealthy man who tries to shut down a satiric musical show because it makes fun of him. The pair I love is the short daytime gloves she wears in the elevator, while Yves Montand is kissing her and singing.

2. The Age of Innocence Director Martin Scorsese shows us that sex and violence can be powerfully portrayed even without guns and goodfellas. In this story of impossible love based on the novel by Edith Wharton and set in 19th century New York high society, Daniel Day-Lewis kisses Michelle Pfeiffer on the wrist under an unbuttoned glove and it is as erotically charged an image as has ever been filmed.

3. Little Women Older sister Meg loans a glove to her impetuous sister Jo so that they can both be properly attired at a party in this film of the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott. Jo has spoiled one of hers and it would be unthinkable for well-brought-up young ladies to go out without them, so each wears one and carries one. Later, her sister Meg’s glove also plays an important role in a romance.

4. Woman of the Year Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn began one of the great on and off-screen love stories in this film about the romance between a sports writer and a columnist. The gloves (and hat) she wears to her first baseball game are hilarious.