Tom Maurstad

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Taylor – they're all at the downtown Neiman Marcus, and not just them but many, many more of Hollywood's most legendary and luminous stars.

OK, perhaps that's a bit of a misstatement. "They" aren't actually there; some of these stars, strictly speaking, have been dead for years, if not decades. But they are all gathered together in the exhibit "Through the Lens Clearly: Icons & Images From the Harry Ransom Center," which is being presented by Neiman Marcus as part of AFI Dallas International Film Festival.

The stars are present in the form of costumes, photographs, posters, props and other time-warp totems that are on display throughout Neiman's historic downtown store, a setting that serves to intensify the stepping-back-in-time sense evoked by the collection.

On mannequins displayed among the men's and women's fashions are outfits from cinema's golden past. To call them costumes would be, in most cases, misleading. While the gold tunic with glittering brocade worn by one of the king's children in The King and I most certainly looks like a costume, many of the outfits gathered for the exhibit look not at all out of place among the store's designer crop of current fashions. Take a look at the two-piece ensemble worn by June Allyson in the 1944 feature Music for Millions and then zip up the escalator to the second-floor designer collections for its contemporary counterpart on display in the Chanel collection.

That blurring of past and present continues on the third floor, where a parade of Robert De Niro outfits can at first glance seem like just another group of mannequins sporting a variety of right-here/right-now looks. That neon-coral linen sport coat and matching tie that he wears in Casino is right in step with a spring season that's been all about color, color, color. And those camo-fatigues he wore in The Deer Hunter look like a pajama-inspired outfit from Dolce & Gabbana.

It shouldn't be surprising that an exhibit of movie memorabilia put together by Neiman Marcus would emphasize the synergistic relationship between fashion and cinema. But what is surprising is what an intimate and insightful glimpse into the inner workings of the movie-making process that it provides. Even for an audience schooled in behind-the-scenes and making-of documentaries of countless DVD packages and HBO featurettes, there are things here that produce all kinds of little "Wow" moments. David O. Selznick's copy of the Sunset Boulevard screenplay, full of feverish notations, for instance, gives you an idea not just of cinema's collaborative process but just what a hands-on producer the famously fussy Selznick really was. Also of note is writer Ernest Lehman's sketched-out plans for the Mount Rushmore sequence in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, in which you follow notations such as "Climb down rope here, land on shoulder" with an arrow indicating the death-defying drop between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As a letter from Mr. Lehman posted beside it makes clear – "I climbed halfway up and gave up" – he really tried to work out a chase scheme across the four giant faces that would actually work.

The exhibit, which is up through April 12, is a first-time undertaking by the film festival and sponsor Neiman Marcus, and it provides a welcome counterpart to all the celebrity buzz and new movie hype. "Through the Lens Clearly" is cinema you can stroll through, taking time to enjoy glamour and creativity captured in the amber of time.