Gap-Toothed Women

Little-known but extremely wonderful documentary about the title-referenced women, including actress-model Lauren Hutton and Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor. A delightful look at how beauty can be found in the most offbeat places; the comments from the amateur belly-dancer at the end wrap up the movie (and its viewpoint) beautifully. Short and sweet; would make a perfect double feature with Steve Martin's ROXANNE

"The Egyptians thought that women with spaces in their teeth, the moon would shine through the space in their teeth onto their vocal chords and make them sing like beautiful birds."

In addition to the bits of folklore and the reference to The Lady of Bath in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, who was also gap-toothed, I loved how the women interviewed had such a sense of authenticity in what they were doing with their lives, each in their own way. There was also a vibe of acceptance for one's appearance, defying cultural biases defining "beauty," which was pretty cool. Short, unique, and sweet documentary from Les Blank.

Les Blank's benign little doc on the unchartered territory of gap toothed females is a harmless goof featuring both anonymous and famous (Sandra Day O'Conner, Lauren Hutton) endowed with the Alfred E. Neuman (MAD) grin. Engaging and inoffensive with nearly all the interviewees in good spirit dispensing interesting background stories it's overlong at 37 minutes, the topic exhausted by 25. But given the amiable charm of all the participants easy to understand why it might.

Les Blank spent most of his career making documentaries about quirky topics. One of his most famous is 1987's "Gap-Toothed Women", focusing on a number of females who have a prominent diastema in their front teeth. Part of the documentary's purpose is to challenge the common standard of beauty, but also to show how these women have managed to live their lives regardless. Interesting stuff. I recommend it.

I saw this documentary in a high school film class as an example of a documentary. It is a positive light hearted look at women dealing with their gap teeth. For those of you who like to make fun of people's misfortune, you might like this. For all the others who want to check out or study a good documentary, this is for you. Yes it is an odd choice, but i don't think it is a waste of time, like some of the c**p i have seen lately.