‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ director breaks down film’s classic movie nods

Kiss of the Spider Woman, as adapted for the screen by writer-director Bill Condon, is both a film version of the 1993 Broadway musical and a love letter to big old-fashioned movie musicals of the 1940s and ’50s.

The film tells the story of political prisoner Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a man imprisoned for his homosexuality under a dictatorial regime in 1980s Argentina. Molina shares a cell with revolutionary Valentín Arregui (Diego Luna), and the two men bond as Molina tells tales of his favorite mid-century movie star, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez), and her best film, Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Through his recounting, the film comes to life for both of them, with Lopez’s Ingrid playing Aurora, Molina as her right-hand man, Kendall Nesbit, and Valentín as suave photographer, Armando. For these sequences, Condon aimed to transport audiences into the world of a classic movie musical, in the style of the Arthur Freed unit at MGM in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In fact, Condon was so dedicated to that concept that he drew inspiration from the source material, nodding to everything from Judy Garland in Summer Stock to Gene Kelly in An American in Paris. Here, Condon guides us through his reference points, ranging from beloved classics to quirky hidden gems.

Les Girls

Kiss of the Spider Woman‘s production design and musical numbers take the most direct influence from Hollywood musicals. That’s highly evident in this set for „Gimme Love,“ which takes its vivid red backdrop from 1957’s Les Girls.

„It’s that wonderful design approach that certain Hollywood musicals had,“ Condon says of the reference point. „There’s these broad brushstroke painted sets, instead of typical ultra-realistic sets. They highlight the artificiality. This all-red room was very much a model for us. Many of these musicals were able to express these emotional states and conditions through their use of color.“

You’re caught in the web

As the evil Spider Woman, Lopez dons a vampy look that feels more akin to the bobbed looks of the 1920s, but the artificial jungle is what Condon really wanted to hammer home, turning to films like 1950’s Nancy Goes to Rio and Pagan Love Song for an impressionistic vision of these exotic locales.

„Molina says, ‘It was set in a mythical South American country, part Argentina, part Brazil, and a hundred percent Hollywood,'“ explains Condon. „That’s what this is, the Hollywood idea, in 1950, of what Rio might’ve looked like, which basically looks like everywhere else for the most part.“

In Pagan Love Song, Esther Williams gets to perform some of her signature swimming, but not before she brings to life a fantastical version of Tahiti in the vivid dreams of Hazard Endicott (Howard Keel). „It’s Hollywood exoticism,“ says Condon. „The imagery here is more the exotic painted sky presentation of South America. It all has the same vibe.“

Latin Lovers

While Gene Kelly was a major touchpoint for Diego Luna’s alter ego role of Armando, Condon also wanted to include some true Latin stars of the classic Hollywood era as well. For that, he turned to Ricardo Montalban in 1953’s Latin Lovers, whom he modeled Armando after in this scene.

Lana Turner, who features opposite Montalban here, was also a powerful point of reference for Lopez, who modeled the persona of star Ingrid Luna after a combination of Rita Hayworth and Turner.

The Lady from Shanghai

In conceiving of and constructing both Ingrid Luna and Aurora, Condon was strongly inspired by Rita Hayworth, an iconic star of musicals and film noir. She started her career as Margarita Carmen Cansino, one-half of the Latin dance duo, the Dancing Cansinos. When she got to Hollywood, Hayworth’s name was changed and her hairline altered to hide her Spanish heritage.

But one of the biggest moments in her career came when she dyed her hair platinum blonde to play the femme fatale in Orson Welles’ 1947 film The Lady From Shanghai. Condon wanted to evoke a similar surprise by having Lopez’s Ingrid Luna/Aurora go the same striking shade of blonde. „Rita [in that movie] is still a shock the way that this is a shock,“ he explains. „You’re not used to seeing her that way. That was more of the model, even if it’s not a musical.“

„She never stopped being Latin“

A large part of using Hayworth as a model also stemmed from her complicated relationship with her roots. In Spider Woman, Molina says of Ingrid Luna, „No matter how much they tried to make her American, she never stopped being Latin.“ That’s visible in the film-within-a-film’s musical numbers and Lopez’s casting. But Condon also felt it was something that could be said of Hayworth, particularly in this number from 1952’s An Affair in Trinidad, in which Hayworth dances sensually and in bare feet.

„That was an interesting dichotomy that Rita Hayworth was always negotiating and navigating,“ Condon reflects. „And there are numbers like this one where she does connect to her Latin roots in a very, very exciting way.“

Lopez found an invigorating parallel between Hayworth, her character, and her own life. „That was something that I identified with very much,“ she says. „I’ve never been one to try to conform to everything that I should be, but being more authentically ‘Jenny from the block,’ this little Puerto Rican girl from New York. That’s who I’ve always been, and that’s who I’ll always be. As much as I can transform into these different characters, at the heart of who I am, is that.“

I’ve got music

For Armando, Condon wanted to model the character on the most luminous star of classic movie musicals, Gene Kelly. In „Gimme Love,“ Luna appears wearing the same black polo shirt with a sharp white collar that Kelly immortalized in his legendary climactic ballet in 1951’s An American in Paris.

Initially, Luna wanted to go more subtle, eschewing the collar and wearing a simple black shirt. „So, I rehearsed in that and immediately discovered that in a sea of other men wearing black T-shirts, he didn’t stand out,“ explains Condon. „And then you realize, ‘Oh, that’s why they made those clever decisions in 1951, because it is the thing that pops. It’s the collar.’ So, the collar became essential.“

Pretty as a picture

One of the key romantic interludes between Armando and Aurora takes place in Armando’s dark room, directly recreating the title song sequence from 1957’s Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn and cinema’s other most iconic male dancer, Fred Astaire.

„The idea of a musical number happening in a dark room is what we are paying homage to in our number,“ says Condon. „In Funny Face, Fred Astaire is playing a version of [photographer] Richard Avedon and Diego Luna here is basically playing the Richard Avedon of South America. He has taken pictures of Aurora, and they are having a playful dance as they connect over the pictures. The song, ‘An Everyday Man,’ is about capturing the everyday moments in life.“

Forget your troubles…

For one of the biggest numbers in Spider Woman, Condon decided to combine two iconic looks — that of Chita Rivera, who originated the role of Aurora/the Spider Woman on Broadway, and Judy Garland singing „Get Happy“ in her MGM swan song, 1950’s Summer Stock.

Condon did want to include nods to the original stage show, and this crisp white tuxedo look was a major touchpoint. However, costume designer Colleen Atwood trimmed the look into shorts to echo the iconic ensemble Garland sports in one of her most famous numbers. Lopez also notes that she drew from Garland’s legacy as a „powerhouse performer“ in her approach to the role.

„It’s as if Chita Rivera and Judy Garland got married and gave birth to Ingrid Luna in that number,“ says Condon. „The white tuxedo that Chita wore in the ’93 production is iconic for that number. But giving it that extra bit of Hollywood glamour, we also looked at Judy Garland’s equally iconic, if not more iconic, costume in Summer Stock and merged the two.“

You knock me out…

Lopez gives nothing short of a knockout performance in Spider Woman, so it’s fitting that Condon took a lot of inspiration for the staging of various musical numbers from Cyd Charisse’s rendition of „Baby You Knock Me Out“ in 1955’s It’s Always Fair Weather. Of course, there’s the obvious parallel of a green dress here, but Condon was particularly struck by the number’s arrangement of bodies in space.

„The thing there is the style in which a major dance number was built,“ he explains. „It’s groupings. She is always in the center of a group — in this case, a group of boxers — and they form one tableau in the ring. Then, they form another tableau and another tableau. That’s very much what we did when we built ‘Gimme Love.'“

Gotta dance

One look at Lopez’s green dress in „Gimme Love“ and it’s impossible not to conjure images of Cyd Charisse in Singin’ in the Rain, who appears only in the film’s climactic dance number, „Broadway Melody.“ Atwood specifically chose this shade of green to mimic Charisse’s unforgettable dress.

Tony Duquette

Though there were plenty of renowned production designers in classic Hollywood, Condon wanted to pay tribute to legendary interior designer Tony Duquette and the unique contributions he made to MGM musicals. That’s particularly prominent in production designer Scott Chambliss’ design for a luxurious nightclub in Spider Woman. The white bare trees evoke the antlers featured in the background of this sequence from 1952’s Lovely to Look At, which Duquette designed specially with Vincente Minnelli (who directed only this scene in the Mervyn LeRoy film).

Only in the movies…

For „Only in the Movies,“ in which Molina/Kendall parades down a giant staircase and is surrounded by glamorous women dressed in red, Condon turned back to the stage. He based his concept for the number on the final 12-minute fashion show from 1969’s Coco, a Lerner and Loewe musical about designer Coco Chanel, as played by Katharine Hepburn in her one and only musical role.

„There was a short scene that I ultimately cut of him dressing mannequins in red that then gets referred to in this last number,“ Condon notes. „This isn’t a Hollywood movie musical, but the vibe of it, [choreographer] Michael Bennett’s grace and beauty, and what Cecil Beaton designed was really a touchstone for us here. We all love a good staircase.“

Kiss of the Spider Woman is in theaters now.