Dorothy Gale Screen Used Dress From The Wizard Of Oz
photo: icollector
"Dorothy Gale" scene specific screen used black-and-white gingham pinafore dress from The Wizard of Oz.(MGM, 1939) When Dorothy Gale of Kansas opens the door to Munchkinland, Barbara "Bobbie" Koshay, Judy Garland's camera double, is wearing this one-of-a-kind dress. After Koshay opens the door, she backs out of the frame as the camera moves through the doorway. Meanwhile, Judy Garland, wearing a bright blue gingham dress, walks into frame and the full Technicolor lighting of the Land of Oz. This pinafore is styled exactly the same as the screen used blue-and-white costume. The bodice is lined with ochre-colored cotton. Featuring hook and eye bodice closure and snap skirt closure. Includes the hidden pocket on the right side of the skirt for Dorothy's handkerchief. MGM cleaning label attached to the inside of skirt. This is the only black and white pinafore known to exist. Accompanied with a Judy Garland-worn blouse used in the initial weeks of filming (with a different pinafore) under the direction of Richard Thorpe (October 1938). The "Judy" blouse is constructed of white organdy with puff sleeves, Peter Pan collar, front button decorative panel with six pleats, with a blue and white polka dot bow attached at the neck and back snap closure. Inside bias label handwritten in ink, "Judy Garland." On inside neck is handwritten in ink, "NO. 8"; on collar is handwritten in ink, "NO.8". Orange MGM cleaning tag attached with staple. Blouse has some discoloration, water staining with splitting at the rear shoulders and blue dye transfer on back left shoulder. Of all the "Dorothy" dresses that have appeared at auction over the years, this is the only example that has the distinction of being definitively scene specific and screen used. The importance of this dress cannot be overstated as Wizard of Oz historians agree it is one-of-a-kind, unlike the blue gingham dresses of which many were made and worn on screen. An historic costume, embodying the ingenious and dazzling visual effects from the most beloved film of all time. Provenance: Camden House Auctioneers, May 20, 1989, Lot 392.
photo: icollector
"This screen-worn dress from The Wizard of Oz is of crucial significance in film history. The use of sepia-toned filmstock was, in itself, a novelty at the time," as stated by William Stillman in The Road to Oz: The Evolution, Creation, and Legacy of a Motion Picture Masterpiece: What remained, however, was the intent to manipulate the film medium by starkly contrasting the Dust Bowl farm with the Technicolor fantasy of Oz, thus adhering to L. Frank Baum's description-and W.W. Denslow's accompanying pictures-of Dorothy's homestead and surroundings as grey and barren. John Nickolaus, head of M-G-M's film lab, intended to use "Technicolor black and white" stock (standard black-and-white film printed in sepia tones) in order to create prairie landscape that was as monochromatic as Baum described it. Nickolaus had already experimented with the sepia platinum toning process on The Good Earth (1937) and The Girl of the Golden West (1938). In December 1938, Howard Dietz, head of M-G-M's advertising and publicity department, heralded Nickolaus's development as one of Metro's great innovations of the year. The Wizard of Oz was intended to be presented in Technicolor from the start, and consideration for achieving a seamless transition from the monochromatic shades of Kansas to the Technicolor hues of Oz was a technical challenge. After thoughts of stencil-printing-hand-tinting each film frame-were discarded, a simpler approach was used. Barbara Koshay was Judy Garland's height, weight and coloring, and appears on screen, as Dorothy, tumbling into the Kansas pigpen and being lifted into the air by the Winged Monkeys. Koshay would wear an identical dress as Garland, with the exception of its color, and her flesh would be tinted to match the tone of the other Kansas scenes. It was an ingenious solution to have Koshay simply switch places with Garland in the brief yet pivotal scene filmed under Victor Fleming's direction on December 29, 1938."-William Stillman, coauthor of the award-winning book The Road to Oz: The Evolution, Creation, and Legacy of a Motion Picture Masterpiece.