The opening scene of the film sees the actress Gloria Grahame is in her dressing room at the Dukes Theatre in Lancaster, UK, unpacking her toiletries and getting ready to perform in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams [1].

She takes out a can of L’Oreal Elnett hairspray.

The perfume sitting on the dressing table is Chanel No. 5.
[1] The film is based on the last years of the American actress’ life. It’s true she performed at the Dukes in 1980, but she had the leading role in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, not in the Williams play as seen in the film.











A refillable atomiser of Chanel No. 5 can be seen on the dresser, too.

There are toiletries and perfume bottles on the protagonist’s dressing table. Some of them are generic vanity bottles, but we can give a name to others. The tall ribbed bottle with gold cap, for example, is the Guerlain natural spray cologne bottle, used for different fragrances from 1964 to 1977.
The black bottle with gold accent, on the other hand, is by Chanel. Let me spend a couple of words on this. When I first saw it, I thought it was the spray bottle of No. 5 eau de parfum (the dip tube is showing). Later, I had second thoughts: was this bottle on the market in the 1980s? Plus, is the dip tube really showing? The picture is not that clear.



Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling) appreciates Sandy’s aftershave. Like a 
A real Chanel perfume appears later in the film, when Sandy visits his sister (Anne De Salvo). Chanel no. 5 refillable atomisers (one small, one big) can be seen on a plastic tray on her dresser.












Lenora Rauch (Maria Schrader) gives her sister Ingrid (Carina N. Wiese) a bottle of Chanel no. 5 as a present for her birthday. The perfume is not visible but the white box with black trims is unmistakable. No wonder Ingrid is so happy: Chanel no. 5 is literally a piece of European culture she’s not allowed to buy, since it’s not available on the East-German market.





