Angela Lansbury as Em in 'The Harvey Girls' Designed by Helen Rose

Three-piece period suit, jacket and skirt of forest green wool, jacket with leg-o-mutton sleeves, peplum embroidered throughout with jet bugle beads in a shattered spider web motif; matching full skirt ornamented with three extremely large butterflies with multi-color sequins and jet beads, trimmed at hem with jet beads in a matching spider-web motif; pale salmon ruffled prop dickey. (Bias label read [1348 Angela Landsberry [sic]]).

The Best of MGM"," Elizabeth Miles Montgomery"," Brompton"," 1986"," pg. 99 (photo).

Angela Lansbury was a smart and alluring worldly-wise women which is probably why she was always cast in roles much older than she really was. She had recently received an Academy Nomination for “Gaslight,” when she took on the role of the saloon singer in love with the same man as Judy Garland in the Wild West musical extravaganza “The Harvey Girls.” Although she was a fine singer herself – a fact that would later show itself in future films and Broadway shows- her voice was dubbed by Virginia Rees.

Helen Rose designed the costumes for the musical and perfectly crafted the theme of the film, the simplified idea of good girls vs. bad girls, into this costume. It is ornamented with beaded spider webs on the bodice and lower skirt and in the web on the skirt are beaded butterflies. But in the end, as in all proper MGM musicals of the time, she does relent and release Garland to seek her true love. The dress was later worn in “It’s A Dog’s Life,” 1955 and “Cimarron,” 1960.