Edith Head designed this blue gown, accented with open vertical stitching, for Barbara Stanwyck to wear in the 1949 film The File on Thelma Jordan. The piece was seen again a few years later in the 1952 film Something to Live For, where Teresa Wright wore it as Edna Miller. 

The costume went up for auction at Bonhams in 2019. The auction description describes the dress as follows:

Paramount Pictures, 1950. Designed by Edith Head. Blue-gray linen cap-sleeved day dress with a vertical design of cream-colored stitching from top to bottom, with a flared skirt and built-in cream-colored belt, bearing an interior blue-lettered “Paramount” label inscribed, “Teresa Wright” in black ink. Universally beloved Barbara Stanwyck is believably evil in this underrated film noir directed by Robert Siodmak in which she plays Wendell Corey for a fool. Edith Head, well known for reusing costumes, used this dress two years later for Teresa Wright in Something to Live For (1952) in which she plays an alcoholic. Both actresses wore the dress in their respective films as well as in publicity portraits. Accompanied by 2 publicity stills and a color lithograph of Stanwyck wearing the dress.

Costume Credit: Veryfancydoilies

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This vintage wool suit has had quite the journey. Palace Costume acquired the item from former president Lydon B. Johnson’s estate and had supposedly been owned by one of his mistresses, but which mistress is unknown, and no photo documentation of the suit being worn has been found at this point.

The suit was acquired from a Palace Costume for Madonna to wear in the 1996 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Evita, where she played the role of Eva Perón.

The suit was used the following year when it was worn by Fran Drescher as Fran Fine in the fourth season episode of The Nanny entitled The Facts of Lice.

The gown went up for Auction at Julien’s in 2014, where it sold for $10,240. The auction’s description of the costume is as follows:

A robin’s egg skirt suit circa 1940s…The virgin wool suit comprises a tailored jacket with pearlized and jewel tone beaded sprays and a scalloped hem and a slender-fitting skirt with scalloping and beaded sprays. The jacket has Armand’s of Corpus Christi and Palace Costume labels. The skirt has a Palace Costume label. 

Costume Credit: Mor, Franfinedatabase, Fran_fine_fashion, Brendacooperstyle

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Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness

Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol

How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?

Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.

*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed

So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.

And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:

Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:

Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.

CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.

You can see a video comparison for one episode here: https://youtu.be/ruPVTPCavdM

In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.

Just look at this beauty

You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC

Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.

made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space Odyssey

the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield

The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning. 

I want to talk fantasy.

This shot was achieved with splicing and green screen.

This wild-looking shot (and similar manipulations) was famously achieved by having a professional juggler in a duplicate of Bowie’s jacket and gloves sitting behind him, basically with Bowie in his lap, doing the handwork while Bowie kept his arms behind the juggler. You may have seen a game based on this on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

This? Wires! Splicing! THE CGI TO DO THIS DIDN’T EXIST YET! (The juggler is hidden under the cape. If there’s a scene where he’s wearing a cape, that’s actually probably why.)

And this? This heartstopping shot?

This does appear to be from the version with CGI—

—CGI THAT WAS USED TO ERASE THE SHADOW FROM THE PRACTICAL EFFECT.

The shot itself hasn’t changed. The lift itself was done with wires and Bowie was given some propulsion with an air cannon so he could make that turn at speed. A minor amount of CGI was used in the 30th anniversary to “touch up” the work done in 1986, and one of the things they did was to remove a shadow on the wall from one of the wires.

How about this?

You don’t know it, but you’re looking at a practical effect. In real life, the Ruby Slippers are almost orange. That luxe, rich ruby color showed up on the film as black when the shoes were the correct color, so the costumers adjusted the actual costume to give the color they wanted.

A MODEL OF A HOUSE SHOT INSIDE A NYLON STOCKING ATTACHED TO A FAN.

MAN IN A COSTUME.

HORSES DUSTED WITH COLORED GELATIN.

And this? This is where it would’ve been useful to have CGI. Margaret Hamilton got really badly burned on the steam doing one of her entrance/exits, and ended up in the hospital. THIS is what you use CGI for.

You come into my house and insult practical effects?

I’ll just finish off by reminding you THIS IS ONE, TOO.

That last one, iirc, was there was a double in a sepia-toned costume, and the interior door and wall there was painted brown, so when it was lit and shot it all appeared to still be in the sepia tone of the Kansas scenes, and part of why Dorothy stepped back out of the frame was so the double and Judy Garland (in the proper blue-and-white costume) could swap.

You are correct. The double’s name, by the way, was Bobbi Koshay.

#this is also a purely personal opinion but aged practical effects are charming #in a way that aged cgi is not (via @glorious-spoon)

There are also a lot of backgrounds that are matte paintings!

Lord of The Rings used some incredible miniature sets too.

The real reason CGI has taken over is not because it creates better effects (although it is very useful!) but because it’s cheaper. The practical effects artists have union protections. CGI artists don’t.

CGI (at this point) works well to do things like smooth out practical effects (erase wires, etc).

And when you want a bit of uncanny valley effect, to make actors look like animated characters without hours in the makeup chair.

Use CGI to remove safety gear from the shot, so the stunt people are safer.

And unionize CGI artists so they have safer working conditions & are properly compensated.

I think what modern filmmakers keep forgetting (especially disney affiliated productions) is that actors used to have a much more hands on and involved part. they weren’t just reading lines handed to them in a dark alley ten minutes before filming. they suggested script revisions and could improvise lines on the spot bc they knew their characters.

if mark hamill says “that’s not my luke skywalker” that’s a problem. if temuera morrison had insight into boba fett’s character the producers shouldn’t have just told him to deal with the script he was given. if seb stan was concerned about the lack of closure in the steve bucky relationship that’s an issue! the insane levels of secrecy and treating actors like the only thing they are good for is regurgitating lines is so detrimental to modern film/television

Something to bear in mind is that this isn’t our first turn on this particular merry-go-round.

Back in the early days of Hollywood, when vertically integrated monopolies were the norm and studios, distributors and theatre chains were all owned by the same parent companies, actors were basically treated like cattle, locked into exploitative multi-film contracts, routinely kept in the dark and lied to, and – apart from a handful of the very largest stars – had very little creative input. This would remain the case until a series of massive antitrust lawsuits in the 1930s and 1940s forced the studio monopolies to break up.

Now we’re seeing a shift back toward all film production being controlled by a tiny handful of companies, employing abusive booking practices to push the theatre chains around and exercise de facto control over theatre booking decisions in spite of technically being unaffiliated – and we’re also seeing a shift back toward how actors were treated under the old studio monopolies.

Like, this isn’t just a problem with the cultural zeitgeist. It’s not just a matter of people forgetting how to make good films. There are concrete economic incentives that lead to this sort of behaviour – and just like the first time around, it’s probably not going to get solved any way other than at legislative gunpoint.

if i had seen the transition from sepia to color in wizard of oz in 1939 i would have lost my shit i would've started screaming in the theater

Okay no but like, I am still SO ENAMORED by this transition y’all, ‘cause when Dorothy opens the door of the house onto the colors of Oz, the inside of the house is still sepia toned. And they did that by literally making the interior and the costume and everything SEPIA TONED. You had a double for Judy Garland in a specifically-created sepia-toned dress, in a sepia-toned set, opening the door, backing out of frame, and then the Dorothy that steps back into frame is Judy Garland in her full color costume and makeup, stepping out into the color set.

It’s just

Y’all it’s such a GREAT EFFECT, and this was before computer effects and green screen, it was all practical and yeah it feels like nothing now, but at the time, man, not only was technicolor new, but I’m pretty sure no other movie had done a transition out of b/w or sepia into color, and even knowing it was a technicolor film, that must have just been fucking wild to see! It still is wild to see!! It’s so good.

to state the obvious, this is not meant to be a be all end all guide. it’s just a start for people who wanna know more about some of the essentials of the era. there’s plenty of people and movies i didn’t include but at least now you can listen to vogue and understand all the references.