Gillian Armstrong’s bio-pic about Orry-Kelly is a cornucopia of reminiscences of the man who, until Catherine Martin pipped him by one, got more Oscars than any other Australian to date.

Who’s Orry-Kelly, do I hear somebody ask? Born in Kiama in 1897 and dying in Hollywood in 1964, he designed costumes and other visual elements for nearly 300 movies, many of them classics in their own right.

Armstrong’s film is rich in history, youthful images of actors who have long since gone to the big back-lot in the sky wearing costumes he designed and built, inviting cinema enthusiasts to play “Who’s that?” It’s also delightfully entertaining. An exhibition of them will open in Melbourne next month.

For many, the film will deliver its best satisfactions when dealing with Orry-Kelly’s relationship in New York and later Hollywood with young Englishman Archibald Leach. The two were lovers. In their split, Leach was vindictive and cruel. Nobody in Hollywood, a community that thrives on gossip and innuendo, knew about it. But Orry-Kelly had writing skill. He detailed his memoirs in a manuscript that everybody thought had been lost or destroyed. But it was not so. And Armstrong’s film makes good use of it.

Leach became a big star. We know him as Cary Grant.

At Palace Electric from July 16.