by Cláudio Alves
Since 1939, Gone with the Wind has been re-released countless times in American theaters. This year, it's enjoying another of those on April 7th, 8th, and 10th to celebrate the picture's 85th anniversary. While defined by gross politics and a nostalgic view of the Confederacy that was already cause for contestation by some in the 1930s, it endures as a symbol of Old Hollywood craftsmanship at its peak. Indeed, it's difficult to think of a production that better exemplifies the sheer ambition of the studio system, its grandeur, and stunning spectacle. Technical ingenuity abounds, as does an eye for powerful imagery. It's so beautiful that some of its shots endure as cultural artifacts, even when divorced from their origin.
Today, I want to celebrate one aspect of its splendor near and dear to my heart – the costumes by Walter Plunkett. Specifically, I've given Scarlett O'Hara the same treatment Bella Baxter got,...
Since 1939, Gone with the Wind has been re-released countless times in American theaters. This year, it's enjoying another of those on April 7th, 8th, and 10th to celebrate the picture's 85th anniversary. While defined by gross politics and a nostalgic view of the Confederacy that was already cause for contestation by some in the 1930s, it endures as a symbol of Old Hollywood craftsmanship at its peak. Indeed, it's difficult to think of a production that better exemplifies the sheer ambition of the studio system, its grandeur, and stunning spectacle. Technical ingenuity abounds, as does an eye for powerful imagery. It's so beautiful that some of its shots endure as cultural artifacts, even when divorced from their origin.
Today, I want to celebrate one aspect of its splendor near and dear to my heart – the costumes by Walter Plunkett. Specifically, I've given Scarlett O'Hara the same treatment Bella Baxter got,...
- 4/7/2024
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
Ann Roth on her backstory for dressing Jude Law’s Dickie Greenleaf in Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr Ripley: “I knew where he went to prep school and I knew that his father, who was an international guy, had assorted New York Saville Row clothes.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the third part of my series of conversations with Ann Roth, we discuss one of her first jobs in the “movie business”, which was working with costume designer Irene Sharaff on Vincente Minnelli’s Brigadoon, starring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse. Sharaff, a five-time Oscar winner had wanted Ann Roth to come to California.
Gene Kelly and Van Johnson in Vincente Minnelli’s Brigadoon - costumes by Irene Sharaff
The Civil War era costumes by Plunkett in Victor Fleming’s Gone With The Wind under David O Selznick and Ann Roth’s (BAFTA...
In the third part of my series of conversations with Ann Roth, we discuss one of her first jobs in the “movie business”, which was working with costume designer Irene Sharaff on Vincente Minnelli’s Brigadoon, starring Gene Kelly, Van Johnson and Cyd Charisse. Sharaff, a five-time Oscar winner had wanted Ann Roth to come to California.
Gene Kelly and Van Johnson in Vincente Minnelli’s Brigadoon - costumes by Irene Sharaff
The Civil War era costumes by Plunkett in Victor Fleming’s Gone With The Wind under David O Selznick and Ann Roth’s (BAFTA...
- 12/27/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Batsheva Hay, who likes Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite and loves Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, on George Cukor's Little Women, costumes by Walter Plunkett: 'It's so good' Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze Greta Gerwig's upcoming Little Women with Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Laura Dern, and Louis Garrel, could make a lot of new people discover Batsheva Hay's clothes, which found their way onto Jacqueline Durran's costume design inspiration board. As in a Möbius strip, Louisa May Alcott's novel and the various movie incarnations influenced the designer's aesthetic in the first place. Isabelle Adjani at Cannes in the Eighties, Kiki Smith's Wolf Girl, Katharine Hepburn off The African Queen, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Frida Kahlo, Romy Schneider, Sissy Spacek, and Jules Bastien-Lepage's Joan of Arc are some of the extraordinary images assembled by Batsheva on Instagram as muses.
Batsheva's clothes...
Batsheva's clothes...
- 2/22/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Blu ray
Kino Lorber Home Video
1938 / 1.33:1 / Street Date July 10, 2018
Starring Tommy Kelly, May Robson, Marcia Mae Jones
Cinematography by James Wong Howe
Directed by Norman Taurog
Though Hemingway suggested “all modern American literature” comes from Huckleberry Finn, a case could be made for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as the great American campfire tale.
David Selznick’s picaresque film version of Mark Twain’s bucolic farce plays out through the producer’s rose-colored glasses – an elegy to “the beautiful past, the dear and lamented past.” The brisk adaptation by screenwriter John Weaver (only 91 minutes) is a laundry list of Tom’s greatest hits – his graveyard vigil with Huck Finn, the pirate escapade, the hair-raising cavern finale – all are adventures ingrained in the collective unconscious of most sentient human beings – even those who never cracked a book.
Directed by Norman Taurog, a man who specialized...
Blu ray
Kino Lorber Home Video
1938 / 1.33:1 / Street Date July 10, 2018
Starring Tommy Kelly, May Robson, Marcia Mae Jones
Cinematography by James Wong Howe
Directed by Norman Taurog
Though Hemingway suggested “all modern American literature” comes from Huckleberry Finn, a case could be made for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as the great American campfire tale.
David Selznick’s picaresque film version of Mark Twain’s bucolic farce plays out through the producer’s rose-colored glasses – an elegy to “the beautiful past, the dear and lamented past.” The brisk adaptation by screenwriter John Weaver (only 91 minutes) is a laundry list of Tom’s greatest hits – his graveyard vigil with Huck Finn, the pirate escapade, the hair-raising cavern finale – all are adventures ingrained in the collective unconscious of most sentient human beings – even those who never cracked a book.
Directed by Norman Taurog, a man who specialized...
- 7/28/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Irene SharaffIf Catherine Martin wins an Oscar this year for her work on The Great Gatsby, she will join prolific costume Designer Orry-Kelly as Australia’s most Oscared individual. If Martin wins both of her nominations? She will become the first Australian to ever win more than three statues (having already won the same two for Moulin Rouge! 12 years ago). We’re not here to talk about Martin, nor Orry-Kelly really, but that’s an interesting statistic nonetheless. One of Orry-Kelly’s wins was for An American in Paris, which he won alongside Walter Plunkett and the main subject of this entry, Irene Sharaff.
Sharaff was a 15-time Oscar nominee for her work as a costume designer and was also nominated once for art direction, which certainly places her as one of the designers' favorites. She doesn’t have the famous name of, say, Edith Head or contemporaries Sandy Powell,...
Sharaff was a 15-time Oscar nominee for her work as a costume designer and was also nominated once for art direction, which certainly places her as one of the designers' favorites. She doesn’t have the famous name of, say, Edith Head or contemporaries Sandy Powell,...
- 2/14/2014
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
From Dorothy's shoes to Christian Bale's batsuit, costume is a crucial, although often unnoticed, part of film. Bee Wilson takes a tour of Hollywood's wardrobe department at the V&A's starry new exhibition
Carole Lombard "was just a tootsie when she came to Paramount," a movie insider once remarked. What transformed Lombard into a 1930s screwball goddess, the most highly paid in Hollywood in her day, were her gorgeous costumes, flowing, ornate and bias-cut. Designer Travis Banton "saw things in her even she didn't know she had". It was said of Banton that he could take a girl to lunch and instantly see what qualities he needed to accentuate. In Lombard's case, he weighted the gowns to drag backwards, giving her the elongated stature of a star. One of Lombard's most dazzling Banton dresses can be seen in the forthcoming Hollywood Costume show at the V&A. It is...
Carole Lombard "was just a tootsie when she came to Paramount," a movie insider once remarked. What transformed Lombard into a 1930s screwball goddess, the most highly paid in Hollywood in her day, were her gorgeous costumes, flowing, ornate and bias-cut. Designer Travis Banton "saw things in her even she didn't know she had". It was said of Banton that he could take a girl to lunch and instantly see what qualities he needed to accentuate. In Lombard's case, he weighted the gowns to drag backwards, giving her the elongated stature of a star. One of Lombard's most dazzling Banton dresses can be seen in the forthcoming Hollywood Costume show at the V&A. It is...
- 10/12/2012
- by Bee Wilson
- The Guardian - Film News
Special From
By Barbara Lovenheim
It seems improbable for a new slant on Katharine Hepburn to emerge, but the upcoming exhibit Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the five excellent essays in the new Skira/Rizzoli companion book "Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic" are provocative and eye-opening. Contrary to Hepburn’s public image as an indifferent fashion rebel who wore slacks in public years before pant suits came into vogue, Hepburn cultivated her counter-culture image deliberately and with great precision when she became aware of its publicity value, eventually ordering custom-made slacks and shoes and, on the sly, ordering handmade French lingerie.
“I think you should pretend you don’t care,” she once remarked to Garbo, who captivated Hollywood with her mannish suits, hats, and Ferragamo flat-heeled shoes. “But it’s the most outrageous pretense.
By Barbara Lovenheim
It seems improbable for a new slant on Katharine Hepburn to emerge, but the upcoming exhibit Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the five excellent essays in the new Skira/Rizzoli companion book "Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic" are provocative and eye-opening. Contrary to Hepburn’s public image as an indifferent fashion rebel who wore slacks in public years before pant suits came into vogue, Hepburn cultivated her counter-culture image deliberately and with great precision when she became aware of its publicity value, eventually ordering custom-made slacks and shoes and, on the sly, ordering handmade French lingerie.
“I think you should pretend you don’t care,” she once remarked to Garbo, who captivated Hollywood with her mannish suits, hats, and Ferragamo flat-heeled shoes. “But it’s the most outrageous pretense.
- 10/12/2012
- by NYCityWoman.com
- Huffington Post
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Since the 1960s, show business legend Debbie Reynolds has been stockpiling and promoting the preservation of Hollywood costumes, props and other memorabilia. Now she is selling her whole collection…
The auction is to be held in several stages by Profiles in History, a leading dealer of autographs, manuscripts and vintage signed photographs. Costumes featured in the first sale include: Gene Kelly’s 3-pc wool herringbone suit by Walter Plunkett for Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Audrey Hepburn’s embroidered lace ‘Ascot dress’ from My Fair Lady (1964) designed by Cecil Beaton, Adrian’s gingham test dress for Judy Garland used for the first two weeks of filming The Wizard of Oz (1939), Vivian Leigh’s green velvet drapery dress hat (with bird adornment) for Gone With the Wind (1939), Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Tramp’ bowler hat (well,...
Since the 1960s, show business legend Debbie Reynolds has been stockpiling and promoting the preservation of Hollywood costumes, props and other memorabilia. Now she is selling her whole collection…
The auction is to be held in several stages by Profiles in History, a leading dealer of autographs, manuscripts and vintage signed photographs. Costumes featured in the first sale include: Gene Kelly’s 3-pc wool herringbone suit by Walter Plunkett for Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Audrey Hepburn’s embroidered lace ‘Ascot dress’ from My Fair Lady (1964) designed by Cecil Beaton, Adrian’s gingham test dress for Judy Garland used for the first two weeks of filming The Wizard of Oz (1939), Vivian Leigh’s green velvet drapery dress hat (with bird adornment) for Gone With the Wind (1939), Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Tramp’ bowler hat (well,...
- 2/23/2011
- by Chris Laverty
- Clothes on Film
Thanks to donations from over 600 people in North America (and some beyond) $30,000 has been raised to restore now fragile dresses from Gone with the Wind. They do give a damn, etc.
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas rolled out a campaign that took just three weeks to gather funds. The center plans to restore five gowns that were all worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.
Jill Morena, collection assistant for the Ransom Center commented on the state of the costumes, which although had been housed in a temperature controlled environment were still in a state of disrepair:
Most costumes are not constructed to last beyond the production of the film nor are they finished in the same way as a ready-to-wear garment. We’ve taken steps to prevent further damage, but we want to be able to safely display and share the dresses.
Gone with the Wind...
The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas rolled out a campaign that took just three weeks to gather funds. The center plans to restore five gowns that were all worn by Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.
Jill Morena, collection assistant for the Ransom Center commented on the state of the costumes, which although had been housed in a temperature controlled environment were still in a state of disrepair:
Most costumes are not constructed to last beyond the production of the film nor are they finished in the same way as a ready-to-wear garment. We’ve taken steps to prevent further damage, but we want to be able to safely display and share the dresses.
Gone with the Wind...
- 9/3/2010
- by Chris Laverty
- Clothes on Film
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