Leader Ladies – or Shirley Cards, or in the off-puttingly Orientalist language by which they’re more traditionally known, China Girls (typically Vibrant Colors). They close out Tarantino’s contribution to the film-nostalgic double-feature
Grindhouse, flashing one after another between the credits in the sort of anachronistic pastiche flourish for which the director is known.
“The images in the end credits are known as Shirley cards. When professionally processing film and prints, the company that produces the equipment and chemistry provides perfectly exposed, but unprocessed film and print tests, along with a copy that has been properly processed. You process one of the pre-exposed tests, then compare it to the control print to make sure everything looks as it should.”
The film, and its fragmentary closing images, are proof enough of some kind of death. (That the credits are set to
April March’s “Chick Habit” – an English-language reworking of the Serge Gainsbourg-penned
“Laisse tomber les filles” that somehow sounds more like a ye-ye anthem than the original – only increases this
hauntological sense that “the time is out of joint”.)
"Drop the Girls"