NARRATOR: From 1974 to 2013, Saturday Night at the Movies, created by the beloved Elwy Yost, pulled back the curtain on the magic of cinema. In this series, we delve into TVO's treasured archives to uncover often never before seen footage revealing the secrets of the silver screen from the legends who built it.

ELWY: If you ever read any of Cecil B. DeMille, he said three things made a good movie-- sex, sets, and costumes.

NARRATOR: A truly unforgettable costume doesn't just clothe an actor. It helps shape the character's identity and gives audiences an instant connection to who they really are.

JOIE HUTCHINSON: The Seven Year Itch.

ELWY: Seven Year Itch. This is the famous--

ELWY: That's the dress that blew up!

GUEST: Apparel that defines the character, any apparel. To work in films is to be. The way you dress is to be. To play Sidney Falco was not that difficult. In fact, it's not difficult to play any part. Put on the clothes, you look like it. And if you look like it, you are it. Every costume is an aid to that actor or actress' character.

ELWY: The slimness of the waist, I can't believe that. I think in those days they didn't realize that it was a problem. It seems a small thing but sometimes externally, the little things, make a performance. A look, the hair, the coat.

NARRATOR: Costume design is storytelling in fabric form. With every sketch and stitch, designers craft outfits that transform characters. Designers such as Adrian, a pioneer of Hollywood glamour and creator of the most famous shoes in cinema history, Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, set the standard for iconic costume design.

NARRATOR: Irene Sharaff's creations of more than 60 costumes for Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra earned her a well-deserved Oscar. Travis Banton's memorable outfits for Marlene Dietrich. Travilla's archetypal pink gown for Marilyn Monroe. And Jean Louis' ingenious engineering for Rita Hayworth's dress in Gilda, along with his sparkling masterpiece sketched by a young Bob Mackie that continues to be a red carpet scene stealer.

NARRATOR: Walter Plunkett's drape dropping work in Gone With The Wind isn't just part of cinematic history... Costume designer Bob Mackie made it one of the most unforgettable moments in US television history when, in 1976, Carol Burnett swept down the stairs in her parody "Went with the Wind".

NARRATOR: In the world of Hollywood glamour, it takes a shining star to earn the nickname "Sultan of Sequins". Yet, after dressing stars like Cher, Diana Ross, and Elton John, Bob Mackie cemented his legacy.

ELWY: Well, Bob Mackie... costume designer for Pennies from Heaven, it sounds like hammers from heaven, Bob.

MACKIE: Well, that's what it is.

ELWY: Where do you get your research, your inspiration, your ideas? Or does it just simply come out of your head or...

MACKIE: I've always had inspiration for Bernadette Peters, I've known her since she was just practically a baby and, uh, I've enjoyed designing for her. Also, it's a period that's very rich with looks.

ELWY: It's the '30s.

MACKIE: And we're borrowing from films and musicals of the time. I worked on Funny Lady with Herbert Ross with Barbra Streisand and, uh, did Diana Ross' clothes for Lady Sings the Blues. Everybody's fantasy is based on films of that time.

ELWY: So you look at them yourself and get ideas and--

MACKIE: Exactly. And, again, we borrow from films because that's what people know.

NARRATOR: Yet, when it comes to costume design, one name stands above all others. Edith Head.

SALLY: Edith Head was, of course, the premiere designer as far as Hollywood is concerned. She frequently worked on 50 films at a time. She had vast armies of people who worked with her, and for her. She came in one day, Theadora Van Runkle said to her, "They're fornicating on the American flag." And all Edith said back was, "Hm, what are they wearing?"

NARRATOR: In 1938, Edith Head became the first woman to lead a major Hollywood studio's costume department. She designed on over 1,000 films, creating iconic looks for stars like Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bette Davis.

CHIERICHETTI: Edith Head was nominated for 35 Academy Awards and she won the award eight times. No other costume designer comes close to Edith Head's record. She remains the most awarded woman in Academy history.

EDITH HEAD: You see, when you will have won a large Oscar, you are entitled to what we call a miniature. Now, I think Walt Disney had the most that I can remember, and he made them into a bracelet for his wife. He said, "Why don't you do something?", and I said, "I don't like bracelets, they jangle." He said, "Well, you're a dressmaker in a way, why don't you make a pin cushion?" So, there's the world's only jewel pin cushion.

EDITH HEAD: What does a costume designer do? It's a long story. Through the medium of our clothes we are asked to translate an actor or an actress, or a child, or even an animal, into whatever character they're playing in the film. And so, many people confuse us with fashion designers. That we are not. In other words, we work completely absolutely from something called a script.

EDITH HEAD: The script says the girl is beautiful, she has lovely clothes. The script says the girl is a mess, she looks like a slob. In other words, we have no control over what we're doing. Whether I like it or not has nothing to do with it. But we have the magic of asking the public to believe the same actor or actress is a different person every time you see them in a film. See, to me, that is pure magic.

EDITH HEAD: The director, I think, is possibly the captain of the ship as far as I'm concerned. After I will have read the script I will go to a director, to a Hitchcock or George Roy Hill, whoever it might be, and say, "Is there anything particular about the script?" If it's a Hitchcock, he'll say, "My dear Edith, just read the script."

NARRATOR: The producer gives you a certain amount of money and you have to figure out how to do it with that amount of money. When Edith Head was doing The Carpetbaggers with Carroll Baker, she had to reuse old costumes for a couple of the scenes because they warned her she was just going over her budget. When they were doing Sunset Boulevard, Edith went and found some of the shoes that Gloria Swanson had worn in the '20s, and she used them again in 1949. And Edith was great at arriving at a consensus that would please everyone.

EDITH: I talk to the cinematographer. Now, I discovered in television there are certain things, not pure white, still things of that sort. Also I find out in certain sequences, perhaps in a film which might be done at moonlight, they would like to avoid certain shades or blues or somet-- Sometimes there are technical reasons. So I show all samples of fabrics and sketches to the cinematographer. Obviously I work with the art director because, for instance, I wouldn't want to do a white suit and a white set.

EDITH: Assuming you were an actor... I would not show you a sketch and say, "Robert Redford, do you like this?" I would show you three sketches and I would say, "This sketch will make you look much more handsome and virile, this sketch is more sympathetic. Third sketch is more dramatic. Which of these three sketches will help you transform yourself into the film you're playing?" So he will say, "Well, Edith, I think this is lovely but I'd rather have an open neck." So, when an actor or actress will have worked with me, they're now part of it. And that's why I don't have any repercussions later on.

ELWY: Let's talk All About Eve, great picture.

EDITH: All About Eve, first place, you have a superb actress who knows exactly how she wants to work and what she needs. You have a superb script and, of course, great director, and a chance to do beautiful clothes. As you will read a script... Something clicks and you say, "A-ha, it's gotta be a brown dress trimmed with sable, I know it has to." In other words, you're so trained that as you read a script you design.

NARRATOR: Bette Davis had a lot of problems. She had a very big, low bustline, a broad neck, and she had very bowed legs. And, fortunately for Edith, the new look stressed longer skirts than what they'd been doing up to that time, so those covered the legs. Because Edith was really good at camouflaging problem figures Bette Davis was very happy with her.

ELWY: Are there very special differences in designing costumes for colour as against black and white?

EDITH: Colour's easy. Oh, of course, because you see, in black and white you have just a plain colour, and also your reds, your greens all photograph grey. So you have grey, black, and white, and you have to do more intricate designing with more detail.

CHIERICHETTI: Edith wore blue glasses originally. And in the days of black and white movies, people involved with the visual aspects of film, such as the art director, the costume designer, the cameraman, were always looking through blue... blue filters to see how something would look in black and white. And also, she didn't want people to see her expression, she was absolutely stoic at all times. You never knew how she felt about something.

NARRATOR: As movies moved from black and white to Technicolor, audiences' expectations for historical accuracy grew. In the past, way, way back, there were no definite rules of authenticity. In other words, the actress had to look like a star, and even if you were a poor starving girl, she'd look fantastic, you know, the old early pictures.

EDITH: I mean, if we had a director who didn't like a bustle, he'd say, "I don't like that big rear end thing"... we would just get-- we would... we would just put a bow on, and there was no question about it. But every time you saw the girl, she would have a beautiful dress on, fresh hair, crisp lovely white, or it could be collared, 'cause nobody, you know, said, "Are you out of your mind?" The public accepted motion pictures as a form of its own. The whole public has changed. If I do a period film in which I made one tiny mistake, I get letters.

NARRATOR: For Cecil B. DeMille's epic The Ten Commandments, Edith was one of many designers tasked with creating historically accurate looks for two dozen stars and 25,000 extras. EDITH: I wasn't the only designer on that. I think we had seven designers. We had one-- I did the female leads, we had somebody who did the male leads, somebody who did the soldiers. We had one designer who did the horses.

NARRATOR: Since the early 1930s, Tinseltown's go-to costume jeweller has been Joseff of Hollywood. Their unique matte metal finish helped reduce glare from the studio lights while allowing the jewels to sparkle.

NARRATOR: Western Costume has been building its reference library since the early days of movie making. It's the largest wardrobe house in North America.

PAUL ABRAMOWITZ: No one has a complete collection like Western Costume. I mean, here you have in excess, the minimum guess we have is a million and a half costumes. I would guess maybe double that. We looked in the corner, we found a lot of Charlie Chaplin's outfits from The Great Dictator. In the year 2020 when they do a movie about the 1980s, you have to have it ready for 'em, they have to know what the look was.

ELWY: we had extreme censorship.

NARRATOR: In July 1934, Hollywood enforced strict self censorship known as the Hays Code, requiring all new films to obtain a certificate of approval prior to their release.

EDITH: We could not show a female navel. Now, of course, a lot of these pictures of DeMille involved a lot of nudity. Now, you could not show a navel. Something rather that I never figured out. We could show a male navel. But not a female navel. And, for instance, we would have Hedy Lamarr, we would stuff a pearl in her navel and give her a jewelled belt. But that is one thing that I resented because, in the DeMille days, we spent... well, we will have spent months doing research, but because of the extreme censorship, we couldn't show busts, we couldn't show navels, we shouldn't show cleavage.

NARRATOR: One film set in the 1920s and shot in black and white pushed both the creative team's skills and the Hays Code to their limits. That's Billy's Some Like it Hot.

NARRATOR: For costume designer Orry-Kelly, Some Like It Hot was especially challenging, as he had to create costumes that convincingly disguised Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as women, while also creating Marilyn Monroe's daring yet tasteful dresses all under the strict watch of "the code".

JACK LEMMON: I remember when we first started though the thing that Billy was very worried about, and rightfully so, was the makeup, and the wigs, et cetera, the entire physical demeanour of-- of Tony Curtis and me. Uh, because it-- Even though it was a broad farce, it had to be believable enough to an audience that they would believe that the rest of the girls would accept us as girls. That was the one crucial thing.

JACK LEMMON: One day, about the fifth day, Tony got a brilliant idea. it was lunch break. we were on the Goldwyn lot. Tony said, "Come with me, I got an idea." suddenly, he takes me by the hand and pulls me into the ladies' room. I mean, a huge ladies' room, there was like 20 or 30 women in there at the same time. we were in the powder room, girls all were freshening their makeup. girls would come by and say, "Hi, how are you? Which one are you on?" in high voices we'd say, "Oh, we're doing a period piece up the street." Not one of them batted an eyeball.

NARRATOR: Great costume design was crucial, but it takes an entire team of talent to create movie magic. In 2,000, the American Film Institute named Some Like it Hot the greatest comedy of the 20th century. Despite receiving six Oscar nominations, it won only one... for best costume design.

EDITH: You know, there's one thing you haven't asked me. Is why I have so many awards. In that period, in the early period, we had both black and white and colour awards. So, it is possible I will have-- I got two awards in one year. One for black and white and one for colour.

ELWY: What do the movies mean to you?

EDITH: What do they mean to me? What do your children mean to you? It... i-i-it's not very different. Uh, somehow or other, you know, you've invested so much of yourself in developing them, in working with them, in seeing through the... the very hard times and enjoying the great times. And then, they're all done. And then, more diff-- More amazing, really, than anything else is that they're immortal. And they... they don't ever change. And they go on and on. Very special, that's what they mean to me.