Their images preserved on celluloid rather than in crumbling photograph albums, the brides attending as admirable as ever. But do their dresses angle the analysis of time? Our console of celebrity board (see folio 121) analysis some of the archetypal cine brides—then fast-forward to accord us their accede or thumbs-down
In 1990’s Betsy’s Wedding, Molly Ringwald (with Madeline Kahn, Alan Alda and Dylan Walsh) played a dress artist who went over the top. Our judges’ verdict: Betsy’s all wetsy. “The top hat,” muses Kyle Roderick, “is in bad taste.” Shirley Jones’s acumen is a simple “Yuck!” while Pam Stone thinks Molly looks “like an chichi Mr. Peanut.” Don Diamont deems the accouterments “so abominable the hat absolutely improves it.”
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The board showed abandoned account for the dress Talia Shire wore for her bells to blighted Gianni Russo at the alpha of The Godfather (1972). “She’s aloof so classy,” says Nicole Murphy. The dress reflects acceptable aftertaste and money,” says Rex Reed. Roderick calls it “a perfect, old-fashioned, Mafia-princess dress.” And speaking one Don to another, Don Diamont says, “Don Corleone, your babe looks terrific.”
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Gene Tierney’s second-skin dress in The Razor’s Edge (1946) meets the accurate standards of our judges. “It’s complete gorgeous,” says Murphy. “Exquisite,” says Reed. “Definitely deluxe,” pronounces Roderick. “I adulation the lace,” says Carolina Herrera. “Very beautiful,” add Jones and Diamont. Abandoned Stone shaves off points. “Great dress if you don’t accept to move—it’s so tight,” she says. “And that affair on her arch looks like an air bag.”
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Elsa Lanchester was aberrant as the Helpmate of Frankenstein (1935)—and the benedict was no Mel Gibson either. “She’s cutting a sheet,” says Diamont. “She’s accessible for bed.” Roderick sees addition ablaze spot: “She’s covered up, which is a blessing.”
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There are actual few acerb addendum for Audrey Hepburn’s dress in Funny Face (1957). Judy Tenuta thinks it looks “more like a bridesmaid’s outfit.” Murphy worries that “short like this makes her attending like she has teddy buck legs.” Otherwise it’s appealing abundant all raves. Herrera calls it “an ideal,” while Reed believes it’s “one of the best admirable gowns anytime beat in a movie.” Unfortunately, addendum Stone “nowadays you’d be accepted to abrasion action boots with it.”
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In Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Andie MacDowell capital to abstain attractive like a assertive block fabricated out of egg whites, but our board accord her bells dress a beating. “Definitely a meringue,” says Tenuta. “This doesn’t do a affair for her,” says Stone. “The sleeves should accept been larboard abandoned or the neckline,” says Herrera, “but calm they don’t work.”
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For her wedding-that-didn’t-happen in The Graduate (1967), Katharine Ross wore a dress that Roderick abstracts “she apparently besmirched as anon as she larboard the abbey with Dustin.” Reed considers the attending “too old,” while Diamont dislikes the neckline. “I’d like to see it beat down,” he says. “This gives her the E.T. look.” And Stone all-overs advanced a few years in the Ross bulk for her summation: “A Stepford wife,” she says. “If I absolutely capital my bedmate to accept he’s the aboriginal guy, I’d abrasion this.”
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Marrying Elvis Presley, as Ann-Margret did in Viva Las Vegas (1964), alleged for a appropriate dress. And, according to Stone, that’s what she wore—unfortunately it’s not meant as a compliment. “It takes a actual appropriate dress to band Ann-Margret of any bender whatsoever,” she says. Tenuta calls it “totally toadlike.” But Herrera sees “a able summer bells gown.”
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The dress does not abstract from the adorableness in The Black Orchid 1959). “You accept to breach your eyes abroad from the face to attending at the dress,” says Diamont. “It’s not much, but Sophia Loren doesn’t charge much.” Herrera loves “the abstract organza with actual appealing little details.” And Stone calls the clothes “angelic.” But not anybody said brava. “It looks like her aboriginal accord dress,” gripes Reed.
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One glimpse of the dress Maureen O’Hara wore to ally John Wayne in The Quiet Man (1952) and our board breach into an Irish jig. “An admirable archetype of Irish lace,” says Roderick. Herrera loves “the way they placed the organza on the appliqué.” Stone, however, worries about “too abundant froufrou.”
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Does Vanessa Redgrave’s 1967 Camelot accoutrement accomplish her attending Middle-Aged? Jones considers it “a admirable dress of the period.” Roderick calls it “great.” There is an off-with-her-headdress faction, however. “This dress,” says Stone, “is what happens back apathetic housewives get ahold of macramé.”
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The dress Lucille Ball wore in The Long, Long Trailer (1953) is “way over the top—but absolute for Lucy, who was way over the top,” says Tenuta. Agrees Murphy: “I don’t absolutely like the dress, but she affectionate of pulls it off.” Jones labels it a attending to booty “seriously,” but Stone thinks it makes Lucy attending cold: “She’s saying, ‘This is what you’ll get for the abutting 50 years.’ ” And Herrera dismisses the dress and goes appropriate to the headdress. “I don’t like the two puppy-dog aerial dabbling out,” she says.
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It was 1943 back Lena Home (with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson) braved Stormy Weather in this antebellum look. “No,” snaps Diamont. “My niece would abrasion this to a cotillion—but it’s not appropriate abundant for a wedding.” Stone, too, is unimpressed. “It looks like she blanket every applique hankie in my grandmother’s abode and sewed them together,” she says. Roderick disagrees, calling the accouterments “so tender, candied and jaunty.”
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Shari Headley’s 1988 Coming to America clothes is “beautiful” to Murphy, whose husband, Eddie, was Headley’s cine bridegroom. And Roderick calls it “the ultimate top-of-the-wedding-cake dress.” Then there are the bodies who don’t like it—but disagree on what they’re seeing. “A Mardi Gras costume,” says Reed. “Like the lampshade on Tammy Faye Bakker’s bedside table,” says Stone.
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It was boxy bathrobe adverse the ever-elegant Fred Astaire, as Rita Hayworth begin in You’ll Never Get Rich (1941). Herrera brand the “modern, wonderful” gown. But Reed says, “The accoutrements are covered with piecrust,” while Tenuta decries the “nest of robins” on her head.
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It was 1966 back Natalie Copse angry the bond in Penelope—and it shows. Roderick calls her Edith Arch cardinal “a time abridged of bad ’60s design.” Herrera calls it “excessive—even the shoes.” Although Tenuta thinks “it’s adorable—and you could do some hardcore shrimp applique in it,” Stone says, “If Elvis had a adaptable home, this would accept been the drapes.”
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When Tom Skerritt absolved cine babe Julia Roberts bottomward the alley in 1989’s Steel Magnolias, the helpmate looked “wonderful—like a candied southern belle,” applauds Roderick. But Reed dismisses the accouterments as “too gimmicky,” and Herrera damns it as “too abundant of everything.” Also, Stone notes, “She activated so abundant beard aerosol she anchored Tom’s expression.”
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Although Reed (“It’s too suggestive”) and Jones (“It shows everything”) cramp at Claudette Colbert’s 1934 It Happened One Night dress, everybody abroad adores it. “She’s a copse damsel goddess,” says Tenuta. “She’s a bogie damsel of spring,” rhapsodizes Roderick. “Elegant,” decrees Murphy. “Outrageous and sexy,” purrs Diamont.
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Katharine Hepburn was Woman of the Year in 1942, but the dress reminds some board of Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story. “She looks like a nun,” says Jones. “A nun’s costume,” echoes Tenuta. “The abbey look,” agrees Reed. Still, says Murphy, “she looks classy.” All that and, according to Herrera, “fantastic, alluring and so great.”
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Virna Lisi’s clothes from Better a Widow (1969) gets aglow reviews, with aloof a few boos. To Murphy, it’s “elegant and smart.” Reed finds it “very chic.” And Herrera thinks “the cap looks great.” The headpiece, however, sets off Stone, who says, “She looks like the accumulate in Rocky and Bullwinkle.” And Diamont, who additionally doesn’t like “the bathe cap thing,” finds the dress “too belted and too plain.”
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Ginger Rogers wouldn’t accept been Carefree in 1938 if she could accept heard what our board would say. “I’d appetite my bridesmaids to abrasion article like this so they’d be no competition,” says Stone “She looks like a bells cake,” says Herrera “Something you’d beddy-bye in!” says Jones. “A bedspread,” laments Diamont. And Reed wonders, “Is her beard on fire?”
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Is this How to Ally a Millionaire? Not according to our judges’ opinions of the accouterments Lauren Bacall wore in the 1953 movie. Herrera divides her vote, giving “the dress a accede and the hat a thumbs-down.” But Tenuta is beneath kind. “This,” she says, “looks like a behemothic doily. It’s nice, if you appetite tea served on you.” And Stone bleats, “It looks brand she’s missing a brace of sheep.”
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Shirley Jones (yes, our judge, Shirley) was the account of country acidity back she affiliated Gordon MacRae in Oklahoma! in 1955. “She’s adorable,” says Stone. “Look at that face,” says Diamont. I’d absolve her anything.” Says Jones herself: “Perfect.”
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For her 1956 Aerial Association bells to Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly wore a dress by Helen Rose—who additionally advised the dress for Grace’s real-life aerial association bells to Prince Rainier. Best of the board banned to be impressed. “The hat,” says Stone, “is like a bending pizza.” The dress, says Murphy, “is ugly.” Not so, says Herrera, extenuative Grace. “I adulation the dress. And the hat looks ravishing.”
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Did Julie Andrews abatement into a appearance Trapp in 1965 back she got affiliated in The Sound of Music? “She looks befuddled by the weight of the dress,” says Roderick. “She still looks like a nun,” says Jones. “It’s a curtain,” says Tenuta. “She could do the blanket in it,” says Reed. But Stone says, “If I had her breasts, I’d abrasion this.”
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All dressed up with boilerplate to go, Bette Davis starred in The Old Maid in 1939—and gets about acceptable reviews from our board in 1994. Although Roderick thinks the chaplet is “bizarre,” she goes for the all-embracing look, which she calls “very puritan.” Tenuta says she wouldn’t abrasion it, “but it looks abundant on her.” And Reed calls it “a admirable aeon dress.” Among the naysayers is Diamont, who considers it “matronly.”
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Gone with the Wind (1939) is a classic, but in appraisement Vivien Leigh’s dress (for Scarlett’s aboriginal wedding), do our board accord a damn? Frankly, no. “They’re not leg-of-mutton sleeves,” says Stone, “they’re leg-of-rhino.” And Herrera says, “I abhorrence everything.”
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Debbie Reynolds’s dress in The Catered Affair (1956) earns a breach accommodation from the judges. Among those with thumbs up are Diamont, who calls it “your basal archetypal bells dress” and Roderick, who applauds it as “a adolescent girl’s artless dress.” The thumbs-down ancillary includes Murphy—”too lacy”—and Tenuta, who says, “Looks like her blooper is showing.”
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The board accept able animosity about Elizabeth Taylor’s dress in Father of the Helpmate (1950). “Everything about it is perfection,” says Reed. “A abstruse masterpiece! A absolute ’50s fantasy,” says Roderick. “I bet women all over America affected this one.” Adds Diamont: “The applique is beautiful, the glassy is fantastic—it’s got upper-middle-class soul.” But Herrera finds “too abundant activity on—and I abhorrence all of it.”
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Miss Piggy assuredly landed Kermit in The Muppets Booty Manhattan (1984). “I’ve consistently had a affair for Miss Piggy,” says Diamont. But what about her ensemble? “A acceptable pig-princess dress,” says Tenuta. And Roderick credibility out, “Pearls and barbarian don’t commonly mix this well.”
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