Cary Grant as Philip Adams in Indiscreet (1958)

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Cary Grant as Philip Adams, sophisticated playboy economist

London, Christmas Eve 1957

Film: Indiscreet
Release Date: June 26, 1958
Director: Stanley Donen
Tailor: Quintino

Background

Merry Christmas, BAMF Style readers! In the spirit of the holidays, let’s continue looking at stylish dressers in “Christmas-adjacent” fare by focusing on that most famously elegant icon, Cary Grant, in what was reportedly the actor’s favorite among his own movies.

Stanley Donen’s 1958 romantic comedy Indiscreet reteamed Grant with Ingrid Bergman a dozen years after the two iconic stars had shared the screen in Hitchcock’s spy thriller Notorious (1946), though the suspense of Indiscreet is less a matter of international espionage and more romantic intrigue with Bergman’s character believing herself to be engaged in a clandestine affair with a married man… though Grant’s Philip Adams only pretends to be married to limit his commitments to the women he can’t resist.

Before she learns his secret, we’re treated to a brief but lush vignette of the couple’s intimate Christmas Eve when she proves to be a thoughtful gift-giver, gifting her paramour a fiddle that recalls the story he told on their first date of the left-handed violinist.

Indiscreet wasn’t Grant’s first cinematic foray into romantic mischief during the holidays, as he had previously played the charming angel Dudley in The Bishop’s Wife (1947) opposite Loretta Young and David Niven a decade earlier, memorably decorating a tree in just a few spectacular seconds.

Don’t you wish it was that easy?

What’d He Wear?

As opposed to the more function-oriented bathrobes made from a harder-wearing material like cotton, nylon or wool, a traditional dressing gown was established as a more ceremonial garment to be worn by the gentleman at leisure rather than for warmth or to dry off after bathing. Inspired by similar Asian vestments, dressing gowns soon became the de facto “house coat” for gentlemen seeking an additional layer for the intermediate steps of dressing in the morning or undressing in the evening, though this context eventually extended into lounging around one’s own home.

Given the status of its wearers and the context they would wear them, dressing gowns were often made of fine silk with a shawl collar borrowed from the smoking jacket. A refined gent like Philip Adams—or, rather, any character played by Cary Grant—would be expected to have a tasteful dressing gown in his collection to be worn for intimate situations like a couple’s Christmas celebration, worn as one would wear a smoking jacket with shirt, tie, and trousers.

Anna gets the ideal reaction for her Christmas gift when Philip can’t help but to leap to his feet and play his new violin.

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman seek to further their indiscretion under the mistletoe.

Grant wears a full-length dressing gown in burgundy foulard silk with a shawl collar and a wide, tasseled self belt that ties in the front like a sash. The hip pockets and cuffs are detailed with rolled silk piping in solid burgundy. His pajamas are a matching silk, finished on the bottoms with rolled silk piping about an inch or two up the leg similar to the ends of his dressing gown sleeves.

His pale pink cotton shirt tonally coordinates with the overall reddish hues of his outfit, finished with double (French) cuffs and Grant’s usual point collar that he wore to de-emphasize the size of his head and neck, the latter of which made the actor feel particular self-conscious. (And if Cary Grant felt self-conscious about his looks…)

Grant’s dark tie looks solid from a distance, though a closer look reveals what appears to be a repeating series of low-contrast horizontal block stripes. While it’s difficult to discern on my lower-resolution DVD copy of Indiscreet, the duo-tone stripe pattern appears to alternate between black and a dark hunter green… though it may be my seasonal sentimentality that is seeing green. Creative modern neckwear solutions include this knitted tie in navy and green horizontal stripes available via Amazon or this unique “retro-striped” tie in dark green and black via Zazzle.

A glimpse of gold that flashes from Grant’s left wrist suggests that the actor may be wearing his own Cartier Tank, the iconic luxury watch favored by both Hollywood royalty and actual royalty from Clark Gable to Princess Diana.

Grant’s feet aren’t clearly seen on screen, but one can be almost certain that Philip Adams is wearing black velvet Prince Albert slippers with hard leather soles, de rigueur footwear for gentlemen to wear with silk dressing gowns. The only question is whether or not said slippers were adorned with gold embroidering on the vamps.

How to Get the Look

Cary Grant as Philip Adams in Indiscreet (1958)

“Christmas jammies” may be popular this time of year, but more elegant celebrations call for the more refined approach offered by a silk dressing gown. If you’re not sure of the difference between a dressing gown and a robe, ask yourself: would Cary Grant wear it with a shirt and tie?

• Burgundy foulard silk full-length dressing gown with shawl collar, tasseled self-belt, hip pockets, and cuffs detailed with rolled silk piping
• Pale pink cotton shirt with point collar and double/French cuffs
• Dark green and black horizontally block-striped tie
• Burgundy foulard silk pajama trousers
• Black velvet Prince Albert slippers
• Cartier Tank gold watch with white rectangular face on black leather strap

The mid-20th century seemed to be the last hurrah of the gentlemen’s silk dressing gown, and the old-fashioned practice of wearing one around the home is all but extinct. Still, several companies persist in manufacturing silk dressing gowns for men, such as this burgundy silk number from Intimo or—should you be interested in a pattern like Cary wears—these relatively untested garments by LONXU or Sidiou Group in a paisley-printed polyester treated to have a silky finish.

If you’re truly seeking to invest in a quality dressing gown, seek a bespoke manufacturer like Daniel Hanson of Nottingham or a trusted clothier with a prestigious heritage that would include the dawn of the dressing gown, such as Turnbull & Asser or Derek Rose.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and may all who celebrate have a very merry Christmas and a healthy, happy, and safe new year!

Peter Lawford as Jimmy Foster in Ocean’s Eleven (1960)

Vitals

Peter Lawford as Jimmy Foster, resentful profligate heir and 82nd Airborne veteran

Las Vegas, New Year’s Eve 1959

Film: Ocean’s Eleven
Release Date: August 10, 1960
Director: Lewis Milestone
Costume Designer: Howard Shoup
Tailor: Sy Devore

Background

“I made a cardinal rule never to answer the telephone during the month of December,” the urbane Jimmy Foster tells a masseuse deep at work in fixing his back in a Phoenix hotel suite he shares with his wartime pal. “One December, every time I picked up the phone, they’d send me out in the snow to play with my little friends,” he elaborates. “That was at the Bulge.”

Arguably the most famous film featuring the infamous Rat Pack, Ocean’s Eleven starred Frank Sinatra and his celebrated pallies Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford among a group of eleven veterans from the 82nd Airborne who gather in Las Vegas after Christmas “to liberate millions of dollars” from five major casinos as Sin City rings in the new year.

Santa Claus takes Jimmy Foster to task for his holiday crimes.

Lawford had first heard the idea for the plot from director Gilbert Kay, in turn relaying a story he hard heard from a gas station attendant. The actor then bought the rights to what would become Ocean’s Eleven in 1958, originally envisioning William Holden for the lead, until he shared the story with his new pal Frank Sinatra who would take the leading role of Danny Ocean. The Vegas setting was ideal for Sinatra and his cronies, allowing them to work in the early morning, sleep into the afternoon, perform one or two shows each evening at their respective casinos, then show up on set again ready to work until sunrise.

What’d He Wear?

While Peter Lawford hasn’t achieved the immortal fame of his talented fellow Rat Packers like Frank, Dean, and Sammy, the London-born actor was a stylish fashion plate who showcased a fine sense of dress both on and off screen. Unlike the principals in Ocean’s Eleven, Lawford’s Jimmy Foster rarely wears a suit or odd jacket more than once, the sole exception being a dark gray business suit with a single-breasted, notch-lapel jacket that he wears both in Phoenix and while reconnoitering the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

For the night of the heist itself, Lawford wears arguably the dressiest suit from Jimmy Foster’s wardrobe, a dark navy blue lounge suit with a single-breasted, peak-lapel jacket, likely tailored for Lawford by the Rat Pack’s usual tailor Sy Devore, though Lawford was also a Chipp customer around the same time. Al Castiel III reported for Town & Country in 2017 that Chipp was responsible for Lawford’s clothes on the NBC series The Thin Man, which aired its final episode in June 1959, six months before the release of Never So Few (1959) firmly established Lawford as a member of the Rat Pack.

Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford sport dark lounge suits edged out in formality only by the dinner suit, though Dean Martin dresses down his famous tux by wearing it with one of his usual button-down collar shirts.

Lawford’s single-breasted suit jacket is one of two that he wears rigged with peak lapels in Ocean’s Eleven, reviving a style that emerged in popularity during the roaring ’20s into the 1930s “golden age of menswear”. Per the trending taste of 1960, Lawford’s lapels are of a moderate width, styled with a straight gorge and a collar almost as wide as the lower section of the lapel. The lapels roll to a low two-button stance. A lavender paisley silk pocket square dresses the welted breast pocket of the jacket, which also boasts straight flapped hip pockets, spaced two-button cuffs, and a single vent.

His white cotton shirt has a semi-spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs that he fastens with a set of flat gold rectangular links.

Danny and Jimmy spot something awry after a nearly perfect caper.

Lawford wears a sleek slate gray satin silk “skinny” tie, arranged with a half-Windsor knot filling the tie space.

The medium rise of Lawford’s trousers is complimented by the lower button stance of his jacket, lengthening the actor’s torso to create more of a laidback “lounge lizard” effect. The double forward-pleated trousers are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms. As we see during Jimmy’s massage during the opening scene, the trousers have buckle-tab side adjusters on the waistband and side pockets, though no back pockets.

When we meet Jimmy lounging under a masseuse’s hardworking hands in a Phoenix hotel suite, he appears to be wearing the same trousers that are part of this stylish suit.

While Jimmy wears a pair of comfortable tan ribbed socks when relaxing in his hotel suite for his massage, he appears to wear black socks when out in Vegas for New Year’s Eve, more tonally appropriate with the full suit and his well-shined black leather oxfords.

Classic Vegas cool.

Jimmy’s jewelry includes a gold necklace worn on a thin gold chain and a gold ring on his left pinkie, an affectation shared by fellow Rat Packers Frank and Dean. Peter Lawford wears two different wristwatches in Ocean’s Eleven, the first being a slim all-gold wristwatch with a round case, champagne gold dial, and a black leather strap.

Later, Jimmy spends his nights in Las Vegas wearing a gold tank watch with a white square dial, also worn on his left wrist via black leather strap.

Jimmy Foster’s tank watch is best seen as he’s emptying the safe at the Flamingo on New Year’s Eve.

The maker of this latter watch isn’t easily discerned by what’s seen on screen, though Lawford’s third wife Deborah Gould recalled that, upon first meeting their actor three weeks before their July 1976 wedding, he commented to her that “You can’t be all that bad. You’re dressed in black, you have a gold Quaalude, and you have a Cartier tank watch.”

What to Imbibe

While the interesting-sounding drink unfortunately never featured on screen in Ocean’s Eleven, some Googling informs us that Peter Lawford supposedly enjoyed the Preview cocktail in real life, talking several Vegas bartenders through the process of making them.

According to Cocktailians and Chuck Taggart at Gumbo Pages, begin by swirling a quarter teaspoon of pastis—preferably Ricard though Pernod and Herbsaint are also acceptable—around the inside of a chilled cocktail glass to coat it, then pouring out the excess. Next, shake 1.5 ounces of gin and an ounce of Cointreau with cracked ice in a cocktail shaker and, once chilled, strain it into the pastis-coated and still-chilled cocktail glass with “a long, curly twist of orange peel” to garnish.

A serious-looking Jimmy Foster appears to be drinking a highball. One can only imagine the fun he’d be having if there was a Preview cocktail before him instead!

How to Get the Look

Peter Lawford as Jimmy Foster in Ocean’s Eleven (1960)

Peter Lawford’s dark blue lounge suit, just a shade lighter than midnight blue, is a tasteful alternative to a dinner suit, particularly when appointed for evening wear with a white shirt and a solid yet subdued tie. In an era where even the most well-made tuxedo often looks out of place, an evening-friendly suit like this can’t fail for a New Year’s Eve celebration.

• Midnight blue tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold flat rectangular cuff links
• Dark slate gray satin silk tie
• Black leather cap-toe oxfords
• Black dress socks
• Thin gold necklace
• Gold pinky ring
• Gold wristwatch on black leather strap
• Lavender paisley silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and also look into picking up Lawford’s personal copy of the script!

Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter in The Apartment (1960)

Vitals

Jack Lemmon as C.C. “Bud” Baxter, mild-mannered insurance accountant

New York City, Christmas Eve through New Year’s Eve 1959

Film: The Apartment
Release Date: June 30, 1960
Director: Billy Wilder
Men’s Wardrobe: Forrest T. Butler (uncredited)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Apartment stars one of my favorite actors, Jack Lemmon, as bored, lonely office drone Calvin Clifford Baxter who, after nearly four years at the toxic Manhattan insurance company where he works (“one of the top five in the country!” he boasts), manages to climb the corporate ladder by lending out his West 67th Street apartment to his superiors for their extramarital affairs… though many of them don’t regard him any higher than “some schnook who works in the office.”

Still, Baxter’s behavior gains him the attention of personnel director Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), whom Jeremy Arnold suggests in TCM’s Christmas in the Movies could have been a 20-year flash forward of who Walter Neff would have turned out to be, had he survived the events of Double Indemnity. The smooth Sheldrake promotes Baxter into an executive position in exchange for exclusive use of the timid young accountant’s apartment for trysts with his own secret mistress.

Embracing his position as “second youngest executive in this company,” Baxter continues his charmingly nervous pursuit of the quick-witted elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), only to learn during the company’s Christmas Eve party that the object of his affection is one of the many women in the office who have been duped into affairs with the married Sheldrake.

You can almost hear Dean Martin’s “The Christmas Blues” as Baxter takes his heartbreaking revelation—courtesy of Fran’s telltale shattered mirror—and heads to a cheap Columbus Avenue watering hole, where he attempts to drown his sorrows in more than a half-dozen martinis. The joint is filled with holiday revelers, including a thirsty Santa Claus (Hal Smith, best known as Otis from The Andy Griffith Show) who demands a quick shot of bourbon as “my sleigh is double-parked!”, though Bud Baxter’s contagious sadness instantly rubs off on our bearded merry-maker, and he departs without his desired whiskey.

C.C. Baxter’s depression is even enough to deflate Santa Claus’ holiday spirit.

Luckily, Baxter finds his partner in misery for the evening in the form of Margie MacDougall (Hope Holiday), the rum-guzzling wife of a jailed jockey who engages our hero in small talk about “Castro… that big shot down in Cuba with the crazy beard,” as “O Come All Ye Faithful” serenades them from the jukebox.

Margie: Where do we go, my place or yours?
Baxter (checks his watch): Might as well go to mine. Everybody else does.

Billy Wilder’s direction, the screenplay he co-wrote with I.A.L. Diamond, and the bravura Academy Award-nominated performances of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine perfectly balance the lines of dark comedy and romantic melodrama to deliver a thoughtful and witty character study of two broken people, both tortured to the point of self-loathing and invisible in the booming postwar society except for the ways in which they can advance the wishes of “takers” with more power than them… and both finally able to break free from their self-destructive impulses by supporting the other with one of my favorite movie endings of all time.

“Shut up and deal.”

What’d He Wear?

The Apartment begins on November 1, 1959, when—as we learn via narration—there were 8,042,783 people living in New York City. One of these millions is Calvin Clifford “Bud” Baxter, who spends his nine-to-five (and often longer) trudging through life “on the 19th floor, ordinary policy department, premium accounting division, section W, desk number 861” for Consolidated Life, the national insurance corporation where he’s worked for the last three years and ten months… but who’s counting?

According to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond’s screenplay, our quintessential office drone is “thirty, serious, hardworking, unobtrusive. He wears a Brooks Brothers-type suit, which he bought somewhere on Seventh Avenue, upstairs.” Baxter makes good use of this suit, as going home to change would often mean interrupting one of the illicit assignations his sleazy co-workers have arranged in Baxter’s apartment. Eventually, this inconvenient business arrangement pays out for Baxter, who accepts Sheldrake’s promotion to the position of “second administrative assistant” and its associated perk of an actual office.

Naturally, the promotion also means an increase in pay from Baxter’s previous $94.70 per week and his style evolves with his success. Wilder and Diamond also took care to describe Baxter’s updated look for Consolidated Life’s office party on Christmas Eve:

Bud comes shouldering his way out of the crowded cubicle, holding aloft two paper cups filled with booze. Since his promotion he has bought himself a new suit, dark flannel, and with it he wears a white shirt with a pinned round collar, and a foulard tie. He also has quite a glow on. Detouring past necking couples, he heads in the direction of the elevators.

The dark flannel suit in question has a barely discernible hairline stripe. The long single-breasted jacket is rigged with notch lapels that fold over the top button for a 3/2-roll. The sleeveheads are roped, and each sleeve is finished with two non-functioning buttons spaced apart on each cuff, a trend that was particularly fashionable in American tailoring of the early 1960s.

In addition to a single vent in the back and straight flapped hip pockets, the jacket has a welted breast pocket where Baxter either clips a pen or tucks away a few well-sharpened pencils in lieu of the traditional pocket square.

C.C. Baxter models his latest fineries for an unenthused Miss Kubelik.

The flat front suit trousers have a lower rise than the natural waist-high trousers that had been de rigueur for decades prior, though they fall lower on Baxter’s waist over the course of his consecutive holiday bacchanals and his subsequent all-nighter keeping an eye on a convalescing Fran. His trousers are worn with a dark leather belt with a single-prong buckle.

One prominent part of Baxter’s “Brooks Brothers-type” wardrobe that he left behind after his promotion was his rotation of button-down collar shirts. As stipulated by Wilder’s screenplay, Baxter spends much of the 1959 holiday season in a white cotton shirt with both rounded leaves of the club collar pinned together with a “safety pin”-style collar bar.

These natty pins, available on Amazon if you’d like to give them a shot, can technically be worn with any shirt though it’s recommended to wear a shirt where the collar has been manufactured with an eyelet already cut into each leaf. Pinned collars are also an “all or nothing” type look; if you’re going to wear a shirt and tie with a pinned collar, you’d best keep the shirt buttoned to the top and the tie tightened or risk the incomplete look of a haphazardly hanging collar bar.

After the day that C.C. Baxter’s had, I wouldn’t be too concerned about how my shirt collar was looking either.

At the height of his stardom, Frank Sinatra was rarely seen in anything less than a pinned collar and tie, and the style icon earned his status by keeping both perfectly in place while in the public eye. Baxter, on the other hand, has less experience or interest in the sartorial arts and treats his pinned collar like his usual button-down collars, unfastening the top button and loosening his tie (and thus, his collar bar) at the end of his decidedly rough day.

In addition to the pinned club collar, Baxter’s shirt has a front placket, single-button rounded cuffs, and a breast pocket detailed with a pointed yoke, a pocket that comes in handy when he decides to hide the razor in his bathroom cabinet from a suicidal Fran.

A frazzled Baxter fields one of many calls to and from his apartment, this one to Sheldrake as the executive plays family man on Christmas.

Baxter’s dark foulard-patterned tie epitomizes the “skinny tie” fad associated with the early 1960s that enjoyed a revival a decade ago as the early seasons of Mad Men aired. Not only does Baxter wear the tie without a pin, tack, bar, or clip to keep it in place, but there appears to be no keeper loop to hold the tail in place. As Baxter loosens up, his free-flailing tie flips around in one shot to reveal a glimpse of the manufacturer’s white label, vertically positioned along the inside of the blade.

As Baxter enjoys one final moment of drunken bliss before it turns to drunken misery, also note his Chesterfield hanging on the coat rack between him and Fran.

“Miss Kubelik, I would like your honest opinion,” Baxter nervously chatters, having escorted the young elevator operator back to his office only to find yet another couple using it for a makeout session… even at work, Baxter isn’t free from strangers taking amorous advantage of his personal space.

Oblivious to Fran’s melancholia, he pulls out a hatbox, continuing, “I’ve had this under my desk for a week. Cost me fifteen dollars! I haven’t been able to get up enough nerve to wear it.” He turns to face her, bug-eyed and topped with a black bowler hat. “It’s what they call the junior executive model… what do you think?” Unable to read her blank stare, he internalizes that “I guess I made a boo-boo, huh?”

Finally, she musters, “I like it,” and he explodes with excitement: “Really? You wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen with somebody wearing a hat like this?” He continues on, still completely ignorant to her emotions, suggesting that “the three of us [are] goin’ out tonight: you, me and, the bowler! We’ll stroll down Fifth Avenue, sorta break it in.”

Baxter proudly shows off his “junior executive” bowler.

Baxter’s shoes are presumably the same wingtip derby brogues he had worn throughout the movie, best seen when he is knocked down by Fran’s brother-in-law in front of his Christmas tree after an aborted yuletide dinner with Fran. While dark brown leather is a possibility, I would expect Baxter’s shoes—and belt, for that matter—to be black.

Despite how high his corporate position has risen, Baxter finally takes stock of how low his moral position has fallen… and recognizes the obvious correlation.

Given the chilly December air of a New York Christmas, Baxter layers a classic Chesterfield coat over his suit. “One of the most basic of twentieth century overcoat styles,” wrote Hardy Amies of the venerable Chesterfield in ABC of Men’s Fashion, published four years after The Apartment was released. “It was originated by the Earl of Chesterfield in the middle of the nineteenth century. Then, it was single-breasted, close-fitting and shaped at the waist, velvet-collared and very long, often down to the ankles.” Sir Hardy goes on to explain the Chesterfield’s natural evolution into single- and double-breasted styles with the one hard rule for a genuine Chesterfield to be “the conventional type of semi-fitted town coat with set-in sleeves,” as opposed to the looser raglan coat.

Baxter’s dark overcoat indeed fits the criteria for a traditional Chesterfield, right down to the velvet collar on the notch lapels. “A contrasting fabric collar—most often velvet…is a hallmark of the dressier Chesterfield coat that’s best for formal occasions and evening wear,” described Esquire‘s The Handbook of Style, providing a more contemporary context. While Chesterfields have long been appropriate outerwear for evening attire, they would have still been acceptable in mid-century America over a tasteful lounge suit worn for business or an evening out.

Baxter’s knee-length coat has three buttons on the single-breasted, covered-fly front and two vestigal buttons spaced apart at the end of each set in sleeve. The back is split with a single vent, and the two large hip pockets are each covered with a straight flap. A brief shot of Baxter removing the coat in his office flashes the manufacturer’s label stitched below the inner right pocket.

Baxter shows off for Margie.

Baxter protects his martini-drinking hands on Christmas Eve with a pair of light-colored leather three-point gloves that he smoothly removes upon escorting Margie back up to his apartment.

Nearly a week later, two days before New Year’s Eve, an indignant Baxter storms into the Consolidated Life offices in his new suit and its usual accompaniments in addition to a pair of dark-framed sunglasses, tactfully oversized to conceal his freshly obtained black eye, courtesy of Fran’s brother-in-law Karl. The shape of his eyewear is a mix between the traditional wayfarer and the more feminine “cat eye” frame that was popular during the era, flaring out at the temples for greater ocular coverage.

Getting ready to read Sheldrake the riot act, Baxter is stunned to learn that he’s actually being promoted to assistant director… landing him a position on the coveted 27th floor.

Baxter wears a simple wristwatch throughout the movie, a classic metal dress watch with a large light-colored round dial on a dark leather strap.

The telltale compact… Fran is oblivious to the implications when Bud recognizes the cracked compact she handed him to admire his “junior executive” bowler.

once again, he wears the exact same suit on new year’s eve (when sheldrake tells him he’s working too hard and needs to relax!) … when sheldrake demands his apartment key again, baxter quits his job on the spot, quitting the ‘junior executive’ bowler that went with it by plopping it on the head of a janitor as he boards the elevator to leave the building one last time

What to Imbibe

At Consolidated Life’s “swingin’ party on the 19th floor” to celebrate the holidays, C.C. Baxter works up enough liquid courage to approach Fran for the first time in six weeks, taking her by the arm to escort her into the party that he describes as the scene of “human sacrifices… white-collar workers tossed into the computing machines and punched full of those little square holes.”

“How many drinks did you have?” an amused Fran inquires. “Three,” he responds, holding up four fingers. “I thought so…” she laughs.

But if Baxter thought he was drinking before, he has a whole lot of drinking ahead of him, drowning the sorrows of his latest revelation about Fran’s secret love life. At a nearby watering hole, he keeps track of his seven (and counting!) martinis by placing each olive-impaled toothpick in a circle like spokes on a wheel.

When we the audience find Baxter at the bar, there are already six toothpicks in front of him, but the martini in his hand puts him one ahead of the amount that William Powell’s Nick Charles had prescribed for Christmas Eve in The Thin Man and one ahead of the six that an insomniac James Bond (Daniel Craig) would imbibe when trying to forget a betrayal in Quantum of Solace.

Baxter’s sadness may have scared off Santa, but he attracts a kindred soul in Margie MacDougall. “You buy me a drink, I’ll buy you some music,” she offers, setting her glass down. “Rum collins.”

After considering the offer, Baxter agrees and gets the bartender’s attention: “Uh, rum collins, and another of these mothers,” bringing his grand total for the evening up to eight martinis… not to mention the multiple times he refilled his Dixie cup of booze at the office party.

We’ve all been there, Baxter.

We don’t know if Baxter prefers gin or vodka for his martinis at the bar, though he does cycle through bottles of Smirnoff “Red Label” vodka at his apartment, which guys like Al Kirkeby request for their own extra dry martinis. Baxter also keeps a bottle of champagne for his solitary New Year’s Eve observance, though the sound of the cork popping off camera fools both the audience and a nearby Miss Kubelik into thinking our lonely protagonist was acting on his more tragic self-destructive impulses. Which brings us to…

The Gun

While the spies and detectives littering the posts of BAMF Style are expected to carry and use at least one firearm in their cinematic adventures, it may be a surprise for some to see this category in play for the timid accountant played by Jack Lemmon.

C.C. Baxter first mentions his gun when discussing his attempted suicide years earlier when he felt hopeless after falling madly in love with his friend’s wife:

I went to a pawnshop and I bought a .45 automatic and I drove up to Eden Park… hey, you know Cincinnati?

Unable to go through with shooting himself in the head, mouth, or heart, he settled for his left thigh… firing the pistol by accident when trying to hide the piece from a police car pulling up beside him.

With minutes to spare in the movie itself, we find a melancholy Baxter packing up his apartment on New Year’s Eve. He pulls open a drawer above the mantle, pulling out a large semi-automatic that is undoubtedly the .45 from his story. In the short screen time we get with the gun, it appears to be a standard Colt Government Model, likely an early Colt M1911 before the M1911A1 was developed in the 1920s, evident by the pre-A1 extended trigger.

How to Get the Look

As he works his way up the corporate ladder, C.C. Baxter affects the look of a traditional London gentleman with his bowler, Chesterfield, and fussy shirt collar, evolving his style beyond the rumpled all-American look of a well-traveled raincoat, button-down collar, and striped repp tie that he barely had to loosen before settling down on his couch with a TV dinner.

Jack Lemmon as C.C. Baxter in The Apartment (1960)

• Dark flannel hairline-striped suit, likely in a traditional business color like charcoal gray or navy blue:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, spaced 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, two back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton shirt with pinned club collar, front placket, breast pocket, and single-button rounded cuffs
  • Safety pin-style collar bar
• Dark foulard slim tie
• Black leather belt with single-prong buckle
• Black leather wingtip derby brogues
• Black dress socks
• Black felt bowler hat with black grosgrain silk band
• Dark wool single-breasted Chesterfield overcoat with notch lapels and velvet collar, covered-fly 3-button front, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Light-colored leather three-point gloves
• Oversized dark plastic-framed sunglasses
• Plain wristwatch with white round dial on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. Joseph LaShelle was deservedly Oscar-nominated for Best Cinematography (Black-and-White) in an era that was increasingly converting to color photography, working in tandem with the jazzy score to heighten the noir-like aspects of the film that served to enhance the dark comedy of The Apartment.

Also nominated for Academy Awards were Jack Lemmon (Best Actor), Shirley MacLaine (Best Actress), and Best Sound (Gordon E. Sawyer), with the film ultimately winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing (Original Screenplay), Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction/Set Direction (Black-and-White).

The Quote

Well… that’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.

Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter in The Band Wagon (1953)

Vitals

Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter, musical comedy star

New York, Spring 1953

Film: The Band Wagon
Release Date: August 7, 1953
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Costume Designer: Mary Ann Nyberg

Background

Happy 2020!

Let’s dance into the new year with a dapper Fred Astaire in the dazzling opening sequence of Vincent Minnelli’s 1953 musical The Band Wagon, more than a decade after Astaire had danced across the screen with Bing Crosby, Virginia Dale, and Marjorie Reynolds for two on-screen New Year celebrations in Holiday Inn.

Bing Crosby, Marjorie Reynolds, Fred Astaire, and Virginia Dale ring in the new year in Holiday Inn (1942).

The Band Wagon introduces us to Astaire as Tony Hunter, a “singin’, dancin’ fella” as he overhears two fellow passengers describing him on the train to New York,  puncturing his pride when one of the men suggests that Tony is “washed up” as he hasn’t starred in a movie in three years. Though keenly aware that the general public assumes he is “through” like the two men on the train, Tony is encouraged by reporters rolling out the proverbial red carpet when the train arrives in New York… only to discover that the press is there to receive Ava Gardner, who was on the same train.

Tony expresses his sorrows in a solo performance of “By Myself” until he’s interrupted by the small but mighty “Tony Hunter Fan Club”, consisting of fellow actors Lester and Lily Marton (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray), who eagerly explain the musical comedy they’ve penned that would serve as the perfect vehicle for Tony’s stage comeback. The trio makes their way up 42nd Street to Sarti’s, though Tony sends the Martons on their way in a taxi as he jaunts through an arcade to the tune of “Shine on Your Shoes”, a song brought to life as he employs the expert services of a shoeshiner (Leroy Daniels) whose tropical red aloha shirt is reminiscent of Magnum, P.I.

While I aspire to dress like Fred, my more frequent attire is likely more in line with the shoeshiner’s ensemble.

What’d He Wear?

Fred Astaire is dressed to his usual high standards, working with Academy Award-nominated costume designer Mary Ann Nyberg to appoint Tony Hunter with the same tastefully rakish sartorial approach as the dancer himself favored both on- and off-screen, showcased by Harry Jackson’s impressive color cinematography.

Tony’s introductory suit exemplifies how muted, conservative colors can be anything but bland when worn with style. As far as colors go, a gray suit with a blue shirt and tie is hardly revolutionary and rarely exciting, but Astaire brings the outfit to life through flattering double-breasted tailoring and interesting textures and accompanying pieces.

While the double-breasted jacket of his light gray flannel suit has a classic 6×2 button formation, Astaire typically wears only the lowest button fastened (though there are a few shots where he wears both buttons done; unlike a single-breasted coat, double-breasted jackets can and typically should be worn with both buttons fastened for a cleaner look.) Astaire can get away with wearing only the bottom button fastened due how cleanly the peak lapels roll over the center row of buttons.

Flanked by his “fan club”, Tony Hunter takes in the familiar sights and sounds of The Great White Way.

Tony’s ventless jacket has padded shoulders with roped sleeveheads, and the sleeves are finished with four-button cuffs. In addition to straight flapped hip pockets, the jacket has a welted breast pocket where Astaire wears an eye-catching burgundy silk hank, arranged in Astaire’s typical jaunty fashion. This small detail proves the effective power of the pocket square, adding a high-contrasting dark touch that ties his outfit together by echoing a color seen only in the stripe of his hat and resisting the common urge to coordinate with his shirt or tie.

The shirt and tie in question are both light blue, though the slate shade of his silk tie—kept in place by the shirt’s elegant button-down collar and a bright silver tie clip—adds just enough of a tonal contrast.

Trouser pleats have often been collateral damage against the cyclical nature of men’s fashion across the last century. While some contemporary sartorial advisers suggest pleated trousers only for larger men seeking a more flattering fit, look no further than the elegant example the lean Fred Astaire sets when striding and stepping in his pleated trousers. At the time that The Band Wagon was produced, trouser pleats had been back en vogue for the better part of a decade, emblematic of the American postwar trends that celebrated excessive fabrics in the wake of a booming nation free of wartime restrictions or a national economic depression.

These light gray flannel suit trousers have double reverse-facing pleats flanking the center fly, with the rear pleat on each side considerably shorter than the forward pleat. Behind each set of pleats is a pocket opening that gently slants from the belt line around each hip with no pockets in the back. The bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Astaire’s trousers are rigged with the dropped “Hollywood”-style belt loops that were popular during this age of high-rise trousers and the increased popularity of belts as opposed to suspenders or side adjusters. While Astaire was famous for his frequent practice of using old neckties or handkerchiefs as a sash, he wears a walnut brown leather belt here with the gold-toned single-prong buckle dashed off to the left. The dancer explained in a 1957 interview with GQ that this was his usual practice when wearing belts, “simply to get [the buckle] out of the way.”

Tony wears the suit trousers orphaned in a few scenes later in the movie during rehearsals, once with a gray cardigan and on their own in another scene with Gaby Gerard (Cyd Charisse): “Did you ever try spreading ideals on a cracker?” He appears to be wearing the same light blue shirt with the button-down collar, but he wears higher-contrasting neckwear, a navy silk tie patterned with neat rows of white polka dots, worn with a gold tie chain.

Throughout the opening sequence, Tony wears dark brown leather shoes with a pair of eye-popping royal blue socks that echo the blue of his shirt and tie, though it appears that different shoes were used between the train and the arcade dance number scenes. At the train station, Tony’s oxfords appear to have a cap toe but, by the time he’s dancing through the arcade, the toecap appears to be a distinctive wingtip shape.

Tony gets a snapshot of his kicks for posterity.

By the early 1950s, the straw boater was already considered old-fashioned, thus it’s perhaps appropriate to see the “washed-up” Tony Hunter sporting one for his arrival in New York City. That said, the jauntily askew skimmer looks perfect atop Astaire’s frame as he dances his way through the Big Apple. The boater is banded with a strip of grosgrain silk, detailed with two bold red stripes against a navy ground.

Astaire wears what was likely his own jewelry of a gold signet ring on his right pinky and a gold curb-chain bracelet on his left wrist.

Though the trousers make a few orphaned appearances as detailed above, the full suit appears only once more in a brief vignette as he and Gaby have reluctantly signed on to perform in the Martons’ new show with grandiose actor Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan). Tony sits comfortably crouched in his front-row seat wearing this light gray flannel double-breasted suit and his usual light blue button-down shirt, but he has substituted the blue tie and straw boater for a brown striped bow tie and a dark taupe fedora with a narrow band.

Cordova sits among his new co-stars Gaby and Tony as he eagerly shows off the stage to the production’s core team.

How to Get the Look

Fred Astaire as Tony Hunter in The Band Wagon (1953)

In The Band Wagon, Fred Astaire injects his own colorful style into Tony Hunter’s wardrobe which pleasantly flirts with anachronism as he brings a colorfully old-fashioned flair to 1950s New York in his double-breasted suit and skimmer.

• Light gray flannel tailored suit:
  • Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with dropped “Hollywood” belt loops, side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Light blue oxford-cloth cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and button cuffs
• Slate blue silk tie
• Bright silver tie clip
• Royal blue socks
• Straw boater with navy-and-burgundy striped grosgrain silk band
• Gold signet pinky ring
• Gold curb-chain bracelet
• Burgundy silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

The funny thing about what you’re saying, boys, is that it’s absolutely true. Here, have an exploding cigar.

Frank Sinatra, flanked by the stewardesses of his Trans-Canada Air Lines flight, circa 1950. The dawn of the “jet age”—and the best years of Frank’s career—were yet to come.

Vitals

Frank Sinatra, multi-talented entertainer and Rat Pack crooner

Background

Sixty two years ago this week, on January 6, 1958, Frank Sinatra released his ninth concept album for Capitol Records, Come Fly With Me. Anchored by the title track specifically penned for Frank by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, the album celebrated the contemporary Jet Age, specifically the chic “jet setters” who were able to afford the luxurious amenities offered by BOAC and Pan Am flights that would spirit them between London and New York, Paris and Rome, and Hong Kong and Tokyo.

The album, which was Sinatra’s first collaboration with arranger and conductor Billy May, ascended like a state-of-the-art Boeing to #1 on the Billboard album charts in only its second week and would be nominated for Album of the Year at the first annual Grammy Awards, held May 4, 1959, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

In the spirit of Frank’s musical trip around the world on this #SinatraSaturday, let’s take a look at how the Rat Pack leader himself dressed “where the air is rarified…”

In these studies of Sinatra’s style explored below, you’ll notice some overlapping themes: sharp suits with unique lining, light shirts and slim ties, printed silk pocket squares, and a travel-friendly trilby.

1961: London

Frank Sinatra leads fellow Rat Packer Dean Martin across the tarmac as they greet fans at Heathrow Airport, August 1961.

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were extensively photographed when they arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport on August 4, 1961. Although it was the middle of summer, Frank was dressed for the mild English summer climate in a dark flannel three-piece suit though he topped his look with a seasonal dark straw short-brimmed trilby with a wide white puggaree ribbon.

The much-photographed arrival left no detail of Frank’s suit unseen. The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that roll to a two-button front, three-button cuffs, the usual straight flapped hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket where Frank wears a dark patterned silk pocket square. His five-button waistcoat has a considerably low fastening point and a notched bottom, and it appears to have been designed to be worn with all five buttons fastened.

Frank’s double reverse-pleated trousers are worn sans belt as most sartorialists would advise with a three-piece suit, though the rigors of travel and no doubt a few drinks to steady the singer’s nerves during the international flight took their toll on Frank’s waistline and the trousers are sagging a bit by the time he hits the tarmac, revealing a little more of the trouser waistband—as well as the bottom of his white shirt—than should usually be seen with a waistcoat. The double-cuffed shirt has a pinned collar with plenty of tie space to accommodate a neatly patterned tie with a repeating series of light circles against a dark ground, knotted in a Windsor or half-Windsor knot.

The trousers are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms, breaking high over his low-contrast socks and a surprising pair of patent leather opera pumps. “Shine your mary janes on the underside of a couch cushion,” Frank advised via Bill Zehme’s seminal tome The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’. Also known as court shoes in the UK, these are almost always constructed with black patent leather uppers with a ribbed grosgrain silk bow on the vamp. These classic men’s evening shoes are most associated with white tie or more formal black tie dress codes (and are increasingly rarely seen with those), and it’s a surprise to see Sinatra wearing them in this less-than-formal daytime context.

“The gleam of his patent leather mary janes, with grosgrain bows—his ‘party heels’—was essential to his well-being,” wrote Zehme. “‘You like my mary janes?’ he asked a Paris audience in 1962. ‘You like the little black bows on ’em, nice and shiny?'”

While security measures have changed drastically in the nearly 60 years since Ol’ Blue Eyes alighted at Heathrow, the ease with which Frank’s opera pumps would slip off and on at a TSA checkpoint would indeed make them a more convenient—if excessively stately—footwear option for the modern traveler.

As usual, Dean Martin is looking rather stylish with a dash of his typical insouciance. Dino may be dressed in the same gray wool suit he wore the previous year opposite Frank in Ocean’s Eleven (1960).

1962: Cal-Neva

An introspective-looking Sinatra thumbs open a deck of Camels while flying to the Cal-Neva Lodge, 1962. Photo by Ted Allan.

In 1960, nine years after Frank Sinatra’s first near-fatal visit to Cal Neva Lodge & Casino, the singer bought the Lake Tahoe resort with partners that included Dean Martin, Frank’s manager Hank Sanicola, “Mr. Atlantic City” Paul “Skinny” D’Amato, and—allegedly—Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana. Within two years, Frank had expanded his ownership from 25 to 50%, splitting the remaining half between Sanicola and pugnacious casino executive Sanford Waterman.

Under Frank’s leadership, Cal-Neva hosted lavish parties where Hollywood celebrities including his Rat Pack pals, Lucy and Desi, Judy Garland, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis, and—of course—Marilyn Monroe reportedly rubbed elbows with mobsters like Giancana who took advantage of the privacy of the Prohibition-era tunnels installed on the property. Sinatra welcoming Giancana to the Cal-Neva led to the dissolution of his business relationship with Sanicola, who was reasonably concerned with hosting a gangster who was otherwise banned from entering any casino in the state of Nevada. But I digress.

In the spring of 1962, Frank Sinatra embarked on an ambitious world tour to benefit children’s charities around the globe. That April, Sinatra started in Mexico City before his chartered Boeing 707 whisked him around the globe to perform in prime “jet set” destinations such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Israel, Greece, Italy, France, and London, before he was back in the U.S. for a few summer gigs at the Cal-Neva, the Sands, and D’Amato’s 500 Club in Atlantic City. Along for the tour was photographer Ted Allan, who captured every moment of the entertainer whether he was live on stage or at leisure.

Aboard Sinatra’s personal Martin 404 plane en route the Cal-Neva Lodge, Allan took several shots of a stylish and serious-looking Sinatra, dressed in one of a gray sharkskin wool suit with a blue duo-tone block-striped tie, red-and-blue-on-beige paisley silk pocket square, and a light blue Oxford cloth cotton shirt with button-down collar and button cuffs, far less fussy than the pinned collars and French cuffs of his usual shirts.

1964: One for the Road

Frank Sinatra, photographed by Yul Brynner, 1964.

One of the most enduring images in Ol’ Blue Eyes lore has been the famous photograph snapped by his pal Yul Brynner in 1964 as Sinatra was descending from a helicopter in his standard attire of a dark suit—undoubtedly tailored by the venerable Sy Devore—with a colorful silk pocket square and one of the many Cavanagh hats he never left home without.

In his hand, the item that makes the photo complete: a rocks glass likely full of Frank’s preferred elixir, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey.

“Together they traveled the world, a man and his sour mash whiskey, ten cases in every cargo hold beneath him, lest any foreign destination be without supply,” wrote Zehme. “How he liked it: Always three or four ice cubes, two fingers of Jack Daniel’s, the rest water, in a traditional rocks glass.”

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out Frank Sinatra’s classic 1958 album Come Fly With Me (which sounds great on vinyl!)

I also highly recommend reading The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin’ by Bill Zehme. My good friend Teeritz, the writer of a fantastic blog in its own right, sent me a copy several years ago that I find myself reading quite frequently.

The cover of Frank Sinatra’s 1958 album Come Fly with Me.

William Stadiem’s book Jet Set also shines an extensive look at this glamorous era, with a chapter dedicated to Sinatra excerpted at The Daily Beast that touches on the singer’s somewhat ironic fear of flying, his “altruistic” 1962 world tour, and the ultimate irony when his beloved mother Dolly died in a plane crash on January 6, 1977, 19 years to the day after her successful son had released the album Come Fly With Me.

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (1964)

Vitals

Sean Connery as James Bond, British government agent

en route Washington, D.C., Fall 1964

Film: Goldfinger
Release Date: September 18, 1964
Director: Guy Hamilton
Tailor: Anthony Sinclair
Wardrobe Supervisor: Elsa Fennell

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following up on Saturday’s post about Frank Sinatra’s jet-setting style in the early ’60s, let’s see how a contemporary style icon dressed for a private flight of his own. As it’s the first 00-7th of the month in 2020, it seems only appropriate to check in with the first James Bond—Sean Connery! (Barry Nelson notwithstanding.)

After saving the world—or at least the United States’ gold repository—yet again, 007 is invited to meet the President for lunch at the White House. The stylish secret agent seems to be getting used to the private flight until he turns and sees archcriminal Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), clad in the uniform of a U.S. Army Colonel and pointing his gold-plated Colt revolver directly at Bond. Despite Goldfinger’s furious threat that “you have interfered with my plans for the last time, Mr. Bond!”, 007 remains cheekily poised as usual, quipping:

Congratulations on your promotion, Goldfinger. Are you having lunch at the White House too?

The subsequent fisticuffs lead to Goldfinger finally “playing his golden harp”, though even the storied aviation skills of Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) aren’t enough to save the Douglas C-47 Skytrain chartered for Bond’s executive summit, and Bond and Galore are forced to bail out… leaving LBJ hanging as they enjoy one more outdoorsy romp under cover of a parachute.

What’d He Wear?

Context clues suggest that the action in Goldfinger is set during the fall, making James Bond’s charcoal flannel three-piece suit as he heads to the capital a seasonally appropriate choice. You can read an excellent analysis of this Anthony Sinclair-tailored suit at The Suits of James Bond.

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (Source: Thunderballs)

Bond’s single-breasted suit jacket is cut and detailed like typical business suit of the era, with moderately narrow notch lapels that roll to the two-button front, a welted breast pocket where 007 folds a white linen pocket square, and straight hip pockets sans flaps. The back is ventless, and there are four buttons at the end of each sleeve.

Interestingly, Connery would sport another dark gray flannel three-piece suit at the outset of his following 007 adventure, Thunderball, though that suit is somewhat lighter in both color and weight and the waistcoat is cut straight across the bottom rather than the more traditional notched bottom of the Goldfinger suit’s waistcoat. The six-button waistcoat (or vest, as we Americans have colloquialized) has four welt pockets.

While some of the details of Bond’s jackets and waistcoats vary across his suits in Goldfinger, the trousers remain generally styled the same, all with double forward pleats, side pockets and button-through back pockets, plain-hemmed bottoms, and the signature button-tab “DAKS top” side adjusters that were originally developed by Alexander Simpson in 1934. Originally developed to address the needs of golfers, the self-supporting trousers became in demand from everything from sports to formal wear as Simpson expanded to open the iconic Simpsons of Piccadilly store two years later. (You can read more about the DAKS “trouser revolution” at the company’s official site.)

The depressurization of the plane sends 007 scrambling into uncomfortable positions that showcase the suit’s bold blue-and-white candy stripe lining that resembles the lining of his iconic glen plaid suit worn earlier in the film.

Frank Foster made Sean Connery’s shirts in Goldfinger, which diverted from the character’s established style of light blue Sea Island cotton shirts with two-button “cocktail cuffs” as made by Turnbull & Asser. Instead, Foster’s shirts for Bond in Goldfinger were shades of white and off-white, detailed with a tonal stripe that was oft so subtle that it was hardly discernible in any but the highest quality prints of the movie.

James Bond and Pussy Galore team up to try to save the plane before making their own escape from the falling aircraft.

This particular shirt has a spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs fastened with the same flat gold cuff links with rounded edges that Connery wore throughout Goldfinger. However, the left cuff link seems to have been misplaced in some shots, thankfully reappearing to give Bond greater dexterity and less “flapping” sleeves during his tussle with Goldfinger.

Check out Bond’s left cuff… the link seems to have gone missing!

Goldfinger not only departed from the shirts established as Bond’s favorites in the last two movies but also his grenadine ties, reverting exclusively to knitted ties as Ian Fleming had stipulated for the character. With his lounge suits and sport jackets, Bond wears olive brown, navy, medium brown, and navy (again) ties before tying on this black knitted silk tie for the Fort Knox climax and this aerial denouement.

Bond regards the unexpected arrival of his co-passenger.

Bond doesn’t need to pass through a TSA checkpoint, but—if he did—his side-gusset loafers would be an admirable choice to keep him moving efficiently through the security line. Beginning with Goldfinger, these black calf slip-on shoes were a favorite of Sean Connery’s 007, reflecting the tradition of the literary Bond’s eschewance of shoelaces while also keeping up with the trends as mods were opting for Chelsea boots or their shorter cousin, the side-gusset loafer. He wears them with black socks, an unexciting but reasonable choice.

Though Goldfinger prominently featured Bond’s iconic “Big Crown” Rolex Submariner 6538 on a striped nylon RAF strap, dressier occasions like this often called for a more subtle timepiece like the gold dress watch that Dell Deaton identified as a Gruen Precision 510 on James Bond Watches Blog.

Production photo of Sean Connery and Honor Blackman, with Bond’s plain Gruen dress watch visible on Connery’s left wrist. (Source: Thunderballs)

The Gruen goes all but unseen in the finished movie (though still visible in a few production photos of Connery rolling on the ground with Blackman), and the far more interesting and visible watch in this sequence is the Rolex GMT Master that Pussy wears in mid-flight.

Rolex had developed the GMT Master a decade earlier in collaboration with Pan Am, who issued them to flight crews. Given that the watch was designed with pilots and navigators in mind, it’s particularly apropos that an aviator like Pussy Galore would be rocking one, a stainless model with a black bezel and the blue-and-red “Pepsi” bezel.

No time to be rescued.

The Gun

It’s, uh, very dangerous to fire guns in planes. I even had to tell Pussy about that.

A decade before we meet Francisco Scaramanga, the titular “man with the golden gun”, the gilt-obsessed villain Auric Goldfinger drew his own gold-plated piece on James Bond, though not a custom-built pistol in a proprietary caliber but rather a standard Colt Official Police revolver with a 5″ barrel, all plated in yellow gold and rigged with ivory grips.

Security must have been pretty lax in 1964…

I’m sure it goes without saying that a gold revolver was never an authorized sidearm of the U.S. Army, so Goldfinger’s weapon of choice would have nullified any remaining effectiveness of his service uniform disguise (though some parkerized Colt Official Police revolvers were indeed issued to American military intelligence overseas during World War II.)

Colt introduced the six-shot Official Police in 1927 alongside the snub-nosed Detective Special as the latest in law enforcement armament, quickly rising to become one of the best-selling police firearms of all time with more than 400,000 manufactured by the time production ceased in 1969. Given its intended target market, the Official Police was typically chambered in .38 Special and was available in barrel lengths of four, five, and six inches. The Official Police was almost always finished in a highly polished royal blue with a significant number nickel-plated, though gold-plated examples as fielded by Goldfinger would be extremely rare…if indeed they were made at all. One of the closest I’ve seen was a blued Official Police with ivory grips and a gold inlay, trigger, and hammer… auctioned for nearly $52,000 in 2009.

A MythBusters episode explored Bond’s theory of explosive decompression—seemingly validated by Goldfinger’s demise—that even a tiny hole in a plane’s fuselage would suck out the occupants. Jamie and Adam seemingly debunked the theory that a bullet hole would be enough to not only eject full-sized humans but down an entire plane, though the tragic events of Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 in April 2018 would confirm that there is still considerable danger to passengers when a plane’s interior is exposed to the outside air mid-flight.

Production photo of Gert Fröbe and Sean Connery (Source: Thunderballs)

What to Imbibe

Felix Leiter: I told the stewardess liquor for three.
James Bond: Who are the other two?
Felix Leiter: Oh, there are no other two!

Bond’s flight is barely out of the air before his fight with Goldfinger brings it back down to the ground, but—should he have made it to the White House—he would have no doubt been invited to join Lyndon Baines Johnson for some of the then-President’s preferred tipple, Cutty Sark Scotch whisky, as reported by Mark Will-Weber in Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking.

LBJ enjoys what’s likely one of his usual Scotch highballs with JFK.

LBJ would famously scourge his Secret Service detail by forcing them to refill his glass while he sped around his Texas ranch in his customized Lincoln Continental… coincidentally, the same model car that Felix Leiter and his CIA crony drove to escort Bond to the airfield. As Will-Weber writes:

LBJ would cut off the agents by stopping his Lincoln, putting his arm out the window, and rattling the diminishing ice cubes in his plastic foam cup. An agent would then scurry up from the trail car, trot back to the car, make the president another scotch, soda, and ice, then hasten it back to the thirsty commander in chief.

“Their job was to open and close gates and keep the drinks refilled,” Russ Whitlock, superintendent of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Park recalled. “They had to learn to get the combination right.” The drives were hardly the last of the President’s drinking, as Brian Abrams describes in Party Like a President: True Tales of Inebriation, Lechery, and Mischief from the Oval Office: “LBJ would be back at the ranch house in time for the 6 o’clock news and accompanied by his amour, scotch and soda in a Styrofoam cup.”

One wonders if Bond was a bit relieved to have potentially missed a drunken trek in the President’s Lincoln. LBJ’s jaunts had already been well-publicized thanks to an April 1964 Time article entitled “The Presidency: Mr. President, You’re Fun!” based on a remark from reporter Marinna Means after Lyndon grabbed her Pearl beer after finishing his own.

Bond may be reckless, but even Daniel Craig’s brash younger interpretation wouldn’t be drinking Texan beer while behind the wheel. Appropriate Bond-esque choices for an in-flight libation would be a vodka martini, as he orders during his earlier trip on Goldfinger’s private plane, or a double brandy and ginger ale as the literary 007 orders pre-flight from the London Airport VIP lounge in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

How to Get the Look

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (1964)

James Bond’s charcoal flannel three-piece suit, white double-cuff shirt, and black knit tie at the end of Goldfinger is a sober but still interesting choice for traveling to an important meeting. The details—particularly the comfortable layers, lack of a belt, and slip-on shoes—make the outfit a particularly smart approach for modern business travel… and assuring popularity among fellow passengers in the security line.

• Charcoal woolen flannel “Conduit cut” tailored three-piece suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with notched bottom, four welted pockets, and adjustable back strap
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with “DAKS top” 3-button side adjuster tabs, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White tonal-striped dress shirt with spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
  • Gold rounded-edge square cuff links
• Black slim knitted silk necktie with square bottom
• Black calf leather side-gusset loafers
• Black socks
• Gruen Precision 510 gold dress watch on black leather strap
• White linen folded pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Oh, no, you don’t… this is no time to be rescued.

William Holden as LT Harry Brubaker in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

Vitals

William Holden as LT Harry Brubaker, bitter U.S. Navy Reserve aviator

Off the Korean coast, November 1952

Film: The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Release Date: December 1954
Director: Mark Robson
Costume Designer: Edith Head

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Mid-century flight must be my subconscious theme heading into the new year given my last few posts about Frank Sinatra’s jet-setting style and then Sean Connery’s charcoal traveling suit in Goldfinger. Let’s at least move forward from the fuselage to the cockpit where William Holden sits at the controls of his Grumman F9F-2 Panther in The Bridges at Toko-Ri as military aviator LT Harry Brubaker, flying for the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.

January 1911 was a landmark month for the U.S. Navy’s fledgling aviation program. On January 27, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss flew the first seaplane from the water at San Diego Bay and, the next day, Curtiss’ student LT Theodore G. Ellyson became “Naval Aviator No. 1” when he took off in a Curtiss “grass cutter” plane.

More than 40 years after these pioneering flights, this heritage of naval aviation was featured front and center in The Bridges at Toko-Ri, produced in close cooperation with the U.S. Navy. Well-received by critics and audiences alike, the film was awarded the Academy Award for Best Special Effects given its impressive aerial sequences and battle scenes, some effectively intercut with actual combat footage. The experience must have been particularly personal for William Holden, not only due to his own wartime service for the U.S. Army Air Forces but also because his younger brother, Robert W. “Bobbie” Beedle, was a U.S. Navy fighter pilot who was killed in action in January 1944. It may have been this personal connection to naval aviation that led to Holden’s insistence that, were he to appear in the film, it would retain the downbeat ending of James Michener’s source novel without adding a “Hollywood” happy ending.

Holden stars as LT Harry Brubaker, a civilian attorney and Naval Reserve aviator called to return to active duty during the Korean War, flying the Grumman F9F-2 Panther (replacing the McConnell F2H Banshee fighter-bombers flown by Brubaker’s squadron in Michener’s novel.) The Panther was one of the Navy’s first successful carrier-based jet fighters with nearly 1,400 produced between the aircraft’s first flight in November 1947 and their withdrawal from front-line service in 1956. In a display of his dedication to portraying the role realistically, Holden reportedly learned how to taxi a fighter on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The Grumman F9F Panther received plenty of screen time in The Bridges at Toko-Ri.

We catch up with the reservist during the opening scene at sea when LT Brubaker is forced to ditch his battle-damaged Panther in the water and escape to be recovered by Chief Petty Officer Mike Forney (Mickey Rooney) and Airman Nestor Gamidge (Earl Holliman) of Task Force 77, the main battle group of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet. The incident has Brubaker questioning his life, wondering why he allowed himself to be pulled back into service once he had settled down after World War II, establishing a law practice and beginning a family with his wife, Nancy (Grace Kelly). Despite Rear Admiral Tarrant (Frederic March) offering Brubaker the avuncular admonishment that “war is no place for women,” Brubaker arranges for his wife and children to meet him in Japan, where his ship delivers him three days later for a week of liberty with his family.

When Brubaker’s ship departs, he leaves his family behind and is forced to face the reality of the dangerous mission ahead of him: bombing the heavily defended bridges at Toko-Ri in North Korea.

What’d He Wear?

The Bridges at Toko-Ri is a visual treat for fans of classic naval aircraft and the iconic leather flight jackets that have dressed American pilots for nearly a century.

William Holden as LT Harry Brubaker in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

Leather flight jackets trace their origins back to the early days of American aviation during World War I when military pilots began wearing heavy-duty leather jackets with high necks, wind flaps, and fur trim to keep them warm while seated in the often unenclosed cockpits of early aircraft. The practice was standardized with the formation of the Aviation Clothing Board in 1917, shortly after the U.S. entered the war, kickstarting an era of flight jacket optimization that led to the development of some of the most iconic and enduring men’s outerwear. American stuntman and parachute pioneer Leslie Irvin introduced the sheepskin “Irvin flying jacket” that would dress the Royal Air Force for decades to follow, while the U.S. Army Air Forces introduced its own A-1 flight jacket with a knit collar and cuffs, button-flapped pockets, and a button-up front. In 1931, it was succeeded by the famous A-2 jacket with its shirt-style collar, zip front, epaulets, and snap-flapped pockets.

Throughout the 1930s, naval aviators had increasingly worn fur-collared leather jackets that the U.S. Navy would designate as the M-422 in 1940 (re-designated the M-422A the following year with the addition of a pencil slot to the left pocket), essentially a precursor to the cowhide G-1 that would be introduced in 1947 and immortalized four decades later by Tom Cruise in Top Gun. General Henry “Hap” Arnold was so impressed with the Navy’s jacket that he ordered production of the A-2 discontinued in 1943 and issued a slightly trimmer version of the M-422A to U.S. Army Air Forces officers, redesignated the AN-J-3 (Army Navy Jacket 3).

You can read more about the differences between the M422-A, G-1, and AN-J-3 in this forum at Vintage Leather Jackets.

Although the G-1 was a newer jacket at the time of the Korean War, the more expert eyes in another forum at Vintage Leather Jackets have identified LT Brubaker’s blouson as the older M-422A, possibly retained from his previous wartime service and pressed back into action when he returned to active duty.

Constructed from tough pebbled goatskin in dark brown, the M-422A is detailed with a dark mouton fur collar with a throat closure latch, “action back” shoulder pleats and a half-belted back, and knitted cuffs and hem. Button-up flight jackets were already antiquated by the time that the M-422A was developed and standardized, so the jacket closes with a brass Talon zipper reinforced with a half tab behind it. The jacket retains the patch hip pockets found on other flight jackets, mitred in the lower corners and closed with scalloped single-button flaps. Aero Leathers currently makes M422-A jackets based on the original specifications.

LT Brubaker gathers his thoughts on the bow of USS Oriskany, the carrier depicted on his right sleeve patch.

LT Brubaker is attached to the real-life Fighter Squadron 192 “Golden Dragons” (now VFA-192) aboard USS Oriskany, both represented by patches on his M422-A flight jacket. Activated in March 1945, VF-192 was indeed deployed in Korea from March to November 1952 (though aboard USS Princeton rather than Oriskany), flying Vought F4U Corsair fighters though some F9F-2 Panthers had filtered through the squadron the previous year.

The USS Oriskany patch, a large yellow-bordered circle that depicts the Essex-class carrier at sea, is worn on his upper right arm. On the right side of his chest, Brubaker wears the distinctive “Golden Dragons” patch. Reproductions of both the Oriskany and the “Golden Dragons” patches are available from Gibson & Barnes.

Each aviator’s issued flight jacket has a russet leather name tag on the left breast, bordered in gold with the gold aviator wings printed above each officer’s name, rank, and branch. In LT Brubaker’s case, his name tag reads:

HARRY BRUBAKER
LT                 USNR

On his upper left arm, LT Brubaker wears the shield-shaped patch of Carrier Air Group 19, originally commissioned in August 1943 during World War II. As with his other patches, a reproduction of this too is available from Gibson & Barnes.

CDR Wayne Lee (Charles McGraw) joins LT Brubaker in his own flight jacket with a mouton fur collar, though Lee only wears the Carrier Air Group 19 patch (as seen here on Brubaker’s left sleeve).

The rest of LT Brubaker’s uniform that he wears with his flight jacket adheres to the Aviation Winter Working Uniform regulations, casually known as “Aviation Greens”. (You can read more about the history of this U.S. Navy dress code at United States Military Uniforms of World War II, Naval History and Heritage Command, and the U.S. Naval Institute’s Naval History Blog.)

During the early days of naval aviation before World War I, American fliers borrowed items from Marine Corps uniforms and adapted them for more sky-friendly apparel than the blues and whites their Navy brethren wore at sea. Starting in the fall of 1917 with the expansions of the Navy’s air arm, the Marines’ forestry green tunic and trousers were briefly authorized as a winter uniform until 1922 when it was discontinued in favor of all U.S. Navy service members dressed in the same manner, regardless of their roles. The decision was reversed only three years later when the aviation greens were again authorized, this time as a winter working uniform based on the existing khaki summer uniform, remaining in service for nearly a century until the unpopular decision to discontinue aviation greens in the late 2000s.

Brubaker wears the khaki-colored wool shirt authorized as part of the winter service working uniform, detailed with a large point collar, front placket, button cuffs, and two patch pockets on the chest that each close with a single-button flap. Above the left pocket, he wears the gold winged foul anchor badge of a U.S. Naval Aviator.

In the years leading up to World War II, naval aviators increasingly favored their leather flight jackets over the official forestry green uniform coat. However, the officers’ rank insignia were only presented on the coat sleeves and shirt shoulder boards, which would remain covered by flight jackets. So that a wearer’s rank could be easily discerned, the Navy did away with the stiff shirt shoulder boards and authorized shirt collar devices. Brubaker’s rank of lieutenant carries the U.S. pay grade of O-3, consistent with the captain rank in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps; thus, LT Brubaker’s collar insignia is the same twin silver bars worn to signify those ranks.

LT Brubaker occasionally wears his regulation black necktie, likely made of wool or a synthetic blend, though the fact that he wears his flight jacket rather than the green uniform tunic matching his trousers makes the tie less necessary to complete his working uniform. It may be the same black necktie that Harry also wears with his blue service dress uniform.

LT Brubaker adds a dash of formality by wearing his black tie for the pre-raid briefing.

LT Brubaker wears a pair of flat front trousers that appear on screen to be a taupe brown but are likely the “forestry green” wool elastique fabric used to construct the popular Aviation Winter Working Uniform described throughout this post. Correctly worn with a khaki web belt, these trousers have belt loops around the waist with double sets of loops in the front. The side pockets are gently slanted, and the left of the two jetted back pockets buttons through a loop tab. The bottoms are plain-hemmed.

While U.S. Navy surface officers had long been wearing black leather shoes, in part to hide the soot that accumulates aboard ship, naval aviators have a long tradition of differentiating themselves with brown shoes. This practice originated during the pre-World War I era as fliers sought footwear less prone to revealing dust picked up from the airfields and was made official on November 13, 1913, when the Navy Bureau officially approved brown shoes with brown high-top leggings as part of the aviation officer’s uniform for the next six decades. As with other popular parts of naval dress over the 20th century, the brown shoes were briefly discontinued only to be revived with considerable fanfare. (You can read more about the naval air arm’s brown shoes at The Brown Shoes Project, an initiative dedicated to telling the stories of American naval aviators across the mid-century era from the Korean War and Vietnam through the latter years of the Cold War.)

LT Brubaker thus wears russet brown leather derbies which appear to have five lace eyelets and a plain toe. He wears tan cotton lisle socks, one of the two prescribed colors with this uniform code alongside a darker brown.

Two different caps were prescribed with the Aviation Winter Working Uniform, a peaked officer’s cap with a forestry green cloth cover and the optional soft garrison cap prescribed for overseas assignments that was authorized for private purchase. Also known as a side cap, flight cap (appropriately enough), or field service cap (in the UK, the folding garrison cap first dressed the heads of American service members when it was issued to Army “doughboys” and Marines fighting in France during World War I. It wasn’t until a quarter-century later, during World War II, that the Navy followed suit, first authorizing the garrison cap for aviators before expanding to all officers and chief petty officers. You can read much more about WWII garrison caps worn by U.S. Navy service members here.

Apropos the rest of his uniform, LT Brubaker wears a garrison cap in forestry green wool elastique. His O-3 silver bars are pinned to the right side of the front, overlapping the “envelope” flap. Officers and chiefs were prescribed to wear service insignia on the left side; for officers, a miniature version of the shield insignia found on the front of the peaked caps and, for chiefs, a smaller version of the gold fouled anchor with “U.S.N.” in silver. Aviators wore a smaller version of the gold wings badge, though Brubaker seems to be wearing the standard officers’ shield insignia despite wearing an “aviation green” cap.

LT Brubaker keeps his jewelry minimal and essential, wearing only a square-cased gold watch on a gold bracelet on his left wrist as well as his gold wedding band.

For his aerial missions, LT Brubaker wears a green nylon flight suit with a yellow Mark 2 survival vest, brown roughout combat boots, black gloves, and brown leather shoulder holster like those issued to Navy flight crews at the time.

The Mark 2 pneumatic life vest is made of rubberized fabric with rubber air bladders and plenty of pouches and pockets. Strapped to the right side of his chest is a CO2 gas canister while the left side is populated with his brown leather knife scabbard, black rubber inflation tube, and black whistle. You can view a yellow Mark 2 life vest similar to Holden’s screen-worn garment at the Air & Space Museum site.

To read more about flight equipment worn by U.S. Naval Aviators during this era, click here.

Also of note…

While not worn by William Holden as LT Brubaker, a natty pair of chocolate brown suede two-eyelet chukka boots appear in The Bridges at Toko-Ri, worn by one of the unnamed seamen who helps secure Brubaker into the cockpit of his Panther before he takes off on his final mission.

The Gun

“Gun?” asks Commander Wayne Lee, upon realizing that Harry will need to ditch his plane. “I’ve got one…not that I’ve ever used it,” admits Harry. As the Grumman F9F-2 Panther grinds to a crash landing in the Korean countryside, Harry leaps from the smoldering plane with his revolver in hand, evidently pulled from the brown leather shoulder holster issued to U.S. Navy and Marine Corps aviation personnel for just this purpose.

The revolver appears to be a Smith & Wesson “Military & Police”, the .38 Special revolver that would soon be designated the Model 10 when Smith & Wesson began numbering its revolvers later in the 1950s.

In a patriotic show of support, Smith & Wesson redesignated these .38 Hand Ejectors during World War II as the “Victory Model”, and Military & Police revolvers manufactured from 1942 through 1944 had serial numbers that began with a “V” prefix. Aside from a few early examples, the Victory Model was finished in a “sandblasted” matte blue steel with smooth walnut stocks. The Victory Model was otherwise similar to the Military & Police/Model 10 with its traditional double/single action mechanism and six-shot cylinder.

More than half a million Smith & Wesson Victory Models chambered in the British .38/200 caliber were shipped to allies like the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa via the Lend-Lease program, though the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps issued more than 350,000 .38 Special Victory Models to its own air crews as their standard issue sidearms.

At the time, the John Browning-designed M1911 and M1911A1 semi-automatic pistols had been serving as the official service sidearm across all U.S. military branches for decades, and the increasingly antiquated revolvers were gradually phased out. By the time the Beretta M9 pistol was fully integrated during the 1990s, only a few Victory Models remained in service, fielded by the occasional USN security personnel.

Though Brubaker’s revolver is almost definitely a Smith & Wesson .38 Hand Ejector, it’s likely the civilian and law enforcement “Military & Police” (Model 10) rather than the “Victory Model” produced during WWII for the U.S. Navy among other military forces.

After CPO Mike Forney (Mickey Rooney) has his helicopter shot down during an attempt to rescue the trapped Brubaker, he joins Harry in the ditch and arms them each with an M1 Carbine he grabbed from the downed Sikorsky.

“You know how to fire a carbine, sir?” Forney asks. “Just release the safety there and squeeze the trigger, it fires automatically.” Brubaker responds: “I’m a lawyer from Denver, Colorado, Mike. I probably can’t hit a thing.”

Brubaker and Forney take cover, M1 carbines in hand.

Despite Brubaker’s hesitations, Forney is correct that the lightweight M1 carbine would have been relatively simple to use. Following the adoption of the full-length M1 Garand as the U.S. military’s standard service rifle in the 1930s, the need for a lighter carbine arose to equip support troops, sending American arms manufacturers scrambling to compete to develop a weapon before the inevitable war to follow. Winchester emerged as leader of the pack, seeking to integrate the innovative short-stroke gas piston system developed by their latest hire, David Marshall Williams.

A North Carolina bootlegger and convicted killer, Williams had recently completed a prison sentence for the murder of Alfred Jackson Pike, a 63-year-old deputy sheriff who had been part of a raid on one of Williams’ stills. Williams’ mechanical abilities hadn’t gone unnoticed while in stir and, shockingly, the man who would be known as “Carbine” Williams (thanks to a 1952 film of the same name starring Jimmy Stewart) began wiling away his remaining sentence by designing semi-automatic firearms, including four different rifles that he built… while in prison!

Having already impressed Colt Manufacturing Company, Remington Arms, and the U.S. War Department in the decade since his release, Williams was swiftly hired by Winchester on the advice of Major General Julian Hatcher of the U.S. Ordnance Department. The mercurial ex-convict was dismayed at the quick pace at which Winchester worked, but the rifle that would be eventually be designated United States Carbine, Caliber .30, M1 was ready for submission and quickly adopted into service by the fall of 1941, just months before the United States officially entered World War II after the bombing at Pearl Harbor.

The proprietary .30 Carbine round, essentially a rimless .32 Winchester Self-Loading cartridge, was developed specifically for the M1 carbine and was loaded from 15-round box magazines. Less powerful than the M1 Garand’s .30-06 Springfield round but more powerful than the Thompson’s .45 ACP round, the .30 Carbine proved to be an effective intermediate weapon, practical for combat within 100 to 200 yards, though troops specifically engaged in the Pacific theater complained of the weapon’s relatively decreased stopping power.

With more than six million manufactured, the cost-effective M1 carbine was the most produced small arm for the U.S. military during World War II, surpassing the 5.4 million M1 rifles and 1.3 million “Tommy guns” produced. In addition to Winchester, manufacturers ranged from General Motors’ Inland division and IBM to the Underwood typewriter company.

Though the M2 carbine was more commonly fielded during the Korean War, Brubaker and Forney use M1 carbines during their last stand.

In response to the automatic weapons fielded by enemy troops, particularly the German Sturmgewehr 44 rifle, the U.S. Ordnance Department returned to their original vision for a selective-fire carbine and introduced the new M2 carbine as well as 30-round magazines. The M2 carbine was late to World War II, first issued to American troops in April 1945, but it had generally replaced the submachine gun in U.S. service by the time of the Korean War.

In Korea, the M2 carbine received a lesser reception than its predecessor, with troops reporting that the carbine was prone to jamming in cold weather, hardly accurate at greater than 50 yards, and that the automatic fire was difficult to control. Still, the lightweight weapon with its high-capacity magazine was satisfactory for night patrols, and the M1 and M2 carbines remained in increasingly limited service throughout the Vietnam War.

William Holden as LT Harry Brubaker in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)

LT Brubaker’s Flight Jacket Working Uniform

Before there was Maverick, there was Brubaker… though William Holden’s ace Navy pilot in The Bridges at Toko-Ri is a little more by-the-book, sporting the iconic flight jacket per regulations over his khaki shirt, black tie, and “aviation green” trousers.

• Dark brown pebbled goatskin leather M-422A flight jacket with mouton fur collar, zip front, patch hip pockets with scalloped single-button flaps, knit cuffs and hem, and bi-swing “action back” with half-belted back
• Khaki wool service uniform shirt with point collar, front placket, two chest pockets (with single-button flaps), and button cuffs
  • O-3 (LT) double silver bar collar devices
• Black wool necktie
• Forestry green winter service working uniform flat front wool elastique trousers with straight/on-seam side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Khaki cotton web belt with brass knurled-bar box buckle
• Russet brown leather plain-toe 5-eyelet “low quarter” derby shoes
• Tan cotton lisle socks
• Forestry green wool elastique garrison cap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

Wrong war in the wrong place, and that’s the one you’re stuck with.

Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019)

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Robert De Niro as Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, tough Mafia enforcer

Philadelphia to Chicago, Spring 1960

Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson

Background

I heard you paint houses.

After years of proving himself as an enforcer to Mafia families around Philadelphia and northeast Pennsylvania, former truck driver Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) gets the phone call of his life when controversial labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) gets in touch with him for a “situation… that needs to be attended to.”

The exchange from Martin Scorsese’s latest organized crime epic, The Irishman, was lifted verbatim from the real Sheeran’s recollection included in Charles Brandt’s bestselling 2004 book of the same name, I Heard You Paint Houses:

“I heard you paint houses,” Jimmy said.
“Y-Y-Yeah, and I d-do my own carpentry work, too.” I was embarrassed because I was stammering.
“That’s what I wanted to hear. I understand you’re a brother of mine.”
“That’s right.” I was keeping my sentences short and my words few. “Local 107. Since 1947.”
“Our friend speaks very highly of you.”
“Thank you.”
“He’s not an easy man to please.”
“I do my best,” I said.

Since its premiere at the 2019 New York Film Festival, The Irishman has been suggested to be a top contender for the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Scorsese and De Niro rounding out the fields for Best Director and Best Actor, respectively.

What’d He Wear?

By 1960, Frank Sheeran has risen from a poor Teamster with a broken-down truck to a trusted mob enforcer about to be promoted into the big league through his association with Jimmy Hoffa. To reflect this boosted status, Sheeran dresses in a brown two-piece suit patterned in a trendy “atomic fleck” design. While flecked suiting had been present in menswear since at least the early 20th century, it enjoyed its peak of fashionability during the Jet Age with the imperfect flecks and slubs reflecting a starry sky, appealing to this cosmic-obsessed era.

Frank’s single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels of moderate width that reflect the narrowing of lapels and ties that would continue through the early 1960s. It has a welted breast pocket and low hip pockets with the flaps tucked in to just show the jetting. The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with three buttons on each cuff.

Atomic fleck was a popular pattern for both sport jackets and matching suits, with Frank Sheeran wearing the latter. The suit’s double reverse-pleated trousers have straight side pockets, two button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

Frank wears a slim leather belt with a small squared steel single-prong buckle that appears to be a dark brown leather to coordinate with his brown leather split-toe derby shoes worn with black socks.

Shirt and Tie #1: The Phone Call

Many of the shirts worn by De Niro, Pacino, Joe Pesci, and other cast members of The Irishman were made by Geneva Custom Shirts, an experienced New York shirtmaker that has made outstanding shirts for many productions, including several helmed by Martin Scorsese. Unlike the flashier gangsters of Goodfellas and Casino, costume designers Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson determined that the low-key organized crime figures in the world of The Irishman would take a more subtle approach to dressing, eschewing the distinctive spearpoint collar that has become a Scorsese film signature in favor of a more tasteful and universal style.

Unique textured shirtings add subtle touches of character to Frank Sheeran’s wardrobe without the excess of the fang-like collars or pastel silks of the shirts seen in Scorsese’s earlier canon. The white diamond-textured shirt that Sheeran wears when he receives the fateful “I heard you paint houses” phone call from Jimmy Hoffa has a semi-spread collar and button cuffs. His tie is likely vintage, split into two parts with a “downhill” diagonal split separating the solid brick red bottom from the gold nailhead-overlaid top, decorated with three ornate gold squares just below the split. (Unseen under the table, the tie blade is dipped in a solid old gold.)

“I also do my own carpentry.”

Shirt and Tie #2: Chicago

When he arrives in Chicago and meets with Joey Glimcoe and Jimmy Hoffa, Sheeran wears another subtly textured white shirt, detailed with neat and tight rows of raised white slubs. Like his earlier shirt, this has a point collar, button cuffs, front placket, and breast pocket.

During this Chicago sequence, he wears a brown tie with a subtle two-toned checker board. Due to the low contrast of the shades of brown, it looks like a solid brown tie from a distance but a closer look via Netflix’s high-resolution streaming reveals that it is indeed a checker board pattern in such a large scale that the tie is only two “squares” wide.

A taciturn Frank regards Joey Glimcoe’s rum-termelon. More on that later.

Shirt and Tie #3: Career Day

Frank’s onboarding experience with Hoffa converts he and his family to full-time Hoffa fandom, and even his daughter advocates for the union leader during her “Career Day 1960” presentation at her school. A beaming Frank watches from the side of the room, wearing this suit and a micro-patterned white shirt with a different tie than the previously seen neckwear. This dark indigo tie is patterned with an askew foulard pattern of red-filled squares with gold edges organized in rows four squares wide.

Shirt and Tie #4: Swirls

Finally, the last prominently seen tie with this suit again calls on the brick-and-gold tones of the first “phone call” tie, patterned in gold swirls against a rusty brown ground. Like the other ties, he secures it with a thin gold-toned tie clip detailed with four diagonal ridges.

Frank oversees the Teamsters’ involvement with the expansion of The Dunes in Las Vegas.

Everything Else

Frank combats the infamous gusts of the Windy City by wearing a taupe gabardine topcoat. The knee-length coat has a single-breasted, four-button fly front with edge swelling on the wide notch lapels. The padded shoulders are fashionably wide for a full, boxy fit through the body of the coat, which has hip pockets, cuffed sleeves, and a long single vent.

This pre-JFK era was the twilight of men’s hats (as well as Jimmy Hoffa’s power), and Frank wears a light olive-tinted felt fedora with a narrow grosgrain and grosgrain edges.

Joey and Frank pick out the perfect watermelon to absorb a bottle full of Bacardi.

Having graduated from his utilitarian military-style field watch, Frank the successful gangster dresses his wrist with a gold tank watch. The watch has a rose gold rectangular dial with plain gold hour markers, a small 6:00 sub-dial, and a textured black leather strap.

Frank keeps his weapon and watch handy as he sleeps.

You can read more about The Irishman‘s costume design in these contemporary features and interviews with Sandy Powell and Christopher Peterson:

• BFI
• Esquire UK
• GQ
• The Hollywood Reporter
• IndieWire
• MR PORTER
• Variety

The costume designers also cited the invaluable help of assistant costume designer Brittany Griffin who also happened to be Frank Sheeran’s granddaughter and was able to share archival photographs and even items that belonged to her grandfather.

The Gun

Frank Sheeran packs a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 36 revolver for his trip to Chicago, beginning a long tradition of keeping his “friend” handy to protect Hoffa. Alternatively known as the “Chiefs Special”  following a vote when it was introduced at the 1950 International Association of Chiefs of Police convention, the five-shot Model 36 in .38 Special has been favored by cops and crooks alike for its balance of power and concealability. Frank carries a few Model 36 revolvers throughout The Irishman, using them for hits and keeping them handy for his bodyguard detail.

Frank never travels without his “friend”, in this case a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver.

What to Imbibe

Anisette, Sambuca, Scotch, Chianti… it’s always safe to assume you’re going to be seeing these in a Martin Scorsese movie, specifically one set in the mid-century mob community. The Irishman is no exception and for good reason as Frank Sheeran admitted to Charles Brandt in I Heard You Paint Houses that Chianti was his booze of choice after acquiring a taste for the dry red wine while serving in Italy during World War II.

Brandt’s book also includes an entertaining anecdote during Sheeran’s early days of working for Jimmy Hoffa, famously a teetotaler who reportedly disdained drinking among his ranks. Sheeran had been paired up with Bill Isabel and Sam Portwine, two union guys working in a public relations capacity for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters… though Bill’s noted proficiency in bombing suggests a more sinister set of skills than the usual publicist’s duties of drafting press releases and fielding media interviews.

I spent nights at the Edgewater, mostly rooming with Jimmy Hoffa when he came in from his home in Detroit. Sam and Bill and I would cut a hole in a watermelon and fill it with rum so Jimmy didn’t know we were drinking. “Boy, you men sure like your watermelon,” Jimmy would say.

The Irishman depicts Frank learning the watermelon trick from gregarious Chicago labor racketeer Joey Glimco (Bo Dietl), who jams a bottle of Bacardi into a fresh watermelon. In the subsequent scene, Frank and Joey blissfully enjoy their watermelon slices while the teetotaling Hoffa sticks to his Canada Dry ginger ale.

“Another thing about him, Jimmy hates fucking watermelon. But we’re gonna like watermelon.”

If you’re interested in enjoying rum and watermelon but you don’t have to hide your imbibing from anyone, check out this recipe for a Watermelon Rum Cocktail, courtesy of the Food Network:

Puree 1⅓ cups diced seedless watermelon in a blender until very smooth. Pour into a cocktail shaker filled with ice and add the ½ cup rum (white or dark), 2 tablespoons orange-flavored liqueur (such as triple sec), and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Shake vigorously and strain into 2 ice-filled cocktail glasses. Garnish each with a lime round.

How to Get the Look

Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019)

Vintage touches like flecked suiting, retro-patterned ties, and tastefully textured shirts go a long way in establishing Robert De Niro’s Frank Sheeran as an increasingly fashionable mid-century mobster.

• Brown “atomic fleck” wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, straight/on-seam side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White textured shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, breast pocket, and rounded button cuffs
• Brick red-and-gold vintage-patterned tie
• Silver ridged tie clip
• Slim dark brown leather belt with small squared steel single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather split-toe derby shoe
• Black dress socks
• Taupe gabardine single-breasted topcoat with notch lapels, 3-button covered-fly front, and straight hip pockets
• Light olive felt fedora with narrow grosgrain band
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold tank watch with rose gold dial on black textured leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Netflix. I also recommend reading I Heard You Paint Houses, the 2004 memoir by Charles Brandt that inspired The Irishman. (If you read the book, you’ll see that The Irishman somewhat condenses the narrative of Frank Sheeran’s first association with Jimmy Hoffa, moving the time and place from Detroit around 1958 to Chicago, circa early 1960.)

The Quote

Nowadays, young people, they don’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was. They don’t have a clue. I mean, maybe they know that he disappeared or something, but that’s about it. But back then, there wasn’t nobody in this country who didn’t know who Jimmy Hoffa was.

Jason Statham as Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

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Jason Statham as Nick Wild, bodyguard-for-hire

Las Vegas, Christmas 2013

Film: Wild Card
Release Date: January 14, 2015
Director: Simon West
Costume Designer: Lizz Wolf

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following a request I received via my Instagram account last November, today’s post explores the Jason Statham action thriller Wild Card, coincidentally released five years ago today. The movie was a remake of the 1986 movie Heat starring Burt Reynolds and adapted by William Goldman from his own novel, not to be confused with Michael Mann’s heist epic released nine years later.

Despite Wild Card‘s less than stellar reviews and box office returns, it was an interesting experience, watching a familiar and eclectic cast through a movie that took a surprisingly understated approach for an era where action movies tend to rely on excessive CGI and explosive value, weaving through various genres and plot directions with our taciturn protagonist. Wild Card also inverts the expectations of its Sin City setting, eschewing the flashy and famous Strip in favor of the seedier downtown Las Vegas where our nearly over-the-hill tough guy would no doubt feel more at home. A movie set in Mafia-controlled Las Vegas is hardly a new concept, but Wild Card offers a new, subdued twist on this familiar trope, more in the spirit of Wayne Kramer’s The Cooler than Scorsese’s Casino. (Okay, so there’s not much subdued about Statham jamming a diner knife through a thug’s open mouth, but… bear with me.)

Statham stars as Nick Wild, the film’s reinvention of Reynolds’ Nick Escalante from Heat (though Statham is still billed as Nick Escalante in certain places), who makes ends meet by “chaperoning” gamblers like the self-admitted wimp Cyrus Kinnick (Michael Angarano) to support his own gambling addiction. After picking up Cyrus from Caesars Palace, Nick drives his new client around town in his gold ’69 Ford Torino GT to the tune of “Please Come Home for Christmas”. Sensing that the inexperienced Cyrus is intimidated by casinos on the Strip, Nick takes them downtown to the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, where he sarcastically jokes to his blackjack-dealing friend Cassandra (Hope Davis) that:

This is the highlight of my career. I’m protecting a Fiji drinker who bets $10 on a single roll of the dice.

In the back of Nick’s mind is the argument he had with his friend, an escort named Holly (Dominik García-Lorido) who had been brutally raped the previous night and had asked Nick for his help in tracking down her attacker. After wrestling with his conscience, Nick dons a Santa hat and heads up Fremont Street to confront the man, psychotic gangster Danny DeMarco (Milo Ventimiglia, pre-This is Us) in his suite at the Golden Nugget. Nick subdues Danny and his two goons, calling Holly to come visit her attacker with a pair of garden shears. She gets not only her vengeance but $50,000 that she splits with Nick to the extremely on-the-nose music queue of Barrett Strong’s Motown classic “Money (That’s What I Want)”.

The next day, his share of the fifty grand burning a hole in his pocket, Nick returns to the Golden Gate and plants himself at Cassandra’s blackjack table, where he eventually racks up the $500,000—$506,000, he clarifies—that he needed to leave Las Vegas… a wish that became imperative after his role in Danny’s humiliation and emasculation the previous night. The half-million will buy him five years of freedom, sailing through Corsica, but the gambling addict in Nick can’t resist the chance to turn his guaranteed five years of freedom into enough “fuck-you money” that he’ll never need to return to Vegas. “You’re not supposed to like Vegas,” he advises Cyrus. “It’s just this creeping virus people get sometimes.”

As you may have expected, the “one last score” tactic fails miserably, leaving Nick completely broke… until deus ex machina sweeps in via a grateful Cyrus offering him millions of dollars in exchange for lessons in bravery. Nick scoffs at the offer and returns to the bar, where two of Danny’s thugs are on hand and ready to test Nick’s own bravery. Fed up, Nick not only wallops the two henchmen but the scores to follow, juxtaposed by The Drifters’ doo-wop rendition of “White Christmas” on the soundtrack.

What’d He Wear?

Aware that he needs to provide an intimidating presence for his nighttime role as a bodyguard to Las Vegas’ most vulnerable gamblers, Nick Wild hangs up the earthy corduroy car coat he wears during the day in favor of a black leather blazer, the very type of jacket celebrated by GQ‘s Megan Gustashaw in February 2018 for making its “slow, impossible comeback” thanks to HBO’s The Deuce and stars like Daniel Craig, Jeff Goldblum, and Zayn Malik. Gustashaw hypothesizes that the swagger required to wear a leather blazer with the expected panache makes it difficult to pull off and thus not as timeless as staples like Harrington jackets or pea coats. Leather blazers can also suggest a connection to organized crime, as exemplified by Ray Liotta’s brown jacket in Goodfellas and the black leather blazer sported by James Gandolfini across four seasons of The Sopranos.

Though it may be more accurate to describe these as sport jackets than blazers, leather outerwear with lapels and lounge jacket-inspired styling have been colloquialized and marketed as “leather blazers”, for better or worse, over the last few decades. Indeed, Statham’s screen-worn jacket shares the general characteristics and cut of an unstructured blazer or sports coat… it just happens to be made from black pebbled leather.

The jacket’s notch lapels roll to a two-button front. The back is detailed with a gently pointed yoke, similar to a classic Western ranch jacket, with a seam splitting the center of the back down to the half-belt around the waist.

Catty-corner from Binion’s, Holly splits her share of Danny’s 50 grand with Nick. The Western-like yoke and details of Nick’s leather jacket are fitting with the old-school country vibe promoted by Binion’s.

The jacket has three patch pockets on the outside: one breast pocket with a rounded bottom and two larger pockets on the hips. Aside from the leather material, the sleeves are the most notable deviation from traditional lounge jacket styling, finished not with buttons but with zippers on the inside of each cuff that extend about six inches up the forearm.

Nick tries his luck at blackjack.

Due to its cyclical popularity, leather blazers and sport jackets aren’t as ubiquitous as the flight jacket or moto jacket, but establishes leather retailers like Overland and Wilsons Leather each offering notch-lapel jackets as of January 2020. For the more frugal shopper, there are wider selections on Amazon—from lesser-known brands like BGSD, Decrum, Leather Hubb, or REED—all in the sub-$200 range.

If you’re truly looking for a Wild Card-inspired look, you’ll need to continue your search to find a jacket detailed with the prominent broken stitch along the edges and seams of Statham’s screen-worn jacket, from the lapels and pockets to the sleeves and back. Replicas of Nick Wild’s jacket are a mainstay on sites like FilmsJackets.com, J4Jacket.com, and Sky-Seller.com, though I can’t speak toward the quality of these outlets.

For his first night “chaperoning” Cyrus and confronting Danny DeMarco, Nick wears a faded black geometric-printed shirt, patterned in a complex but neat taupe lattice that creates a series of alternating octagons and squares, the latter filled in cream with a black center square. The shirt has a point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs.

Nick returns to the Golden Gate casino the following night wearing what appears to be a normal gray button-up shirt… until he removes his jacket and reveals unique suede detailing to resemble the effect of a shoulder holster. The “holster” is an elephant gray suede patch of fabric that curves around the left shoulder and extends across the top of the back to the right shoulder, where it hooks under the arm with a slim gray strap, complete with an adjustable sliding buckle. The rest of the shirt is considerably more ordinary with a point collar, a front placket with smoke gray plastic buttons, and two-button squared cuffs.

Nick’s “shoulder holster shirt” is a questionable item to be wearing in a security-heavy place like a Las Vegas casino, though it perhaps symbolizes that Nick enters the Golden Gate that night armed with both $25,000 and enough luck to turn it into $500,000.

Nick wears a pair of dark blue denim jeans with belt loops, the traditional five-pocket layout, and a slim leg that bunches at the shin around the top of each boot, an unsightly occurrence that could have been avoided by opting for a fuller fit or a boot cut, though this was less fashionable in the mid-2010s than the slimmer fit. He wears a dark brown leather belt with a large single-prong buckle and dark brown alligator boots with buckled side straps like the classic engineer boots worn by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause.

On a thin silver necklace around his neck, Nick wears a large silver pendant that often falls out over the unbuttoned top of his shirt, particularly during the scene in Danny DeMarco’s suite. The pendant appears to be adorned with a cross overlaying an upward-facing arrow, flanked on each side by an angel’s wing.

So what if the holidays are over? Nick brings the yuletide festivities to Danny DeMarco’s suite by donning a non-threatening Santa hat.

Nick wears a chunky two-toned ring on the middle finger of his right hand. The etched gold band is supported by large silver-toned shoulders that add girth to the ring, flaring out under the setting of the large dark stone.

What to Imbibe

Nick Wild has no patience for Cyrus’ standing orders of Fiji water (or Cyrus’ logic that the square bottles keep them from falling off the table), instead fueling his nights in the casino with double vodka on the rocks, presented with a lemon twist and poured from a square-shaped bottle with a red Russian label.

I’m unfamiliar with the bottle, and I’m unsure if it’s a real brand or a fictional stand-in provided by the props team… but I do know that Cyrus would at least likely approve of the bottle’s roll-free square base.

Jason Statham as Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

How to Get the Look

Nick Wild patrols Las Vegas in an indubitably distinctive outfit from his uniquely detailed leather jacket and shirts to his ornate jewelry and eye-catching boots, perhaps a surprisingly fussy (or at least affected) look for a mob-connected tough guy.

• Black leather sport jacket with broken edge stitching, notch lapels, single-breasted 2-button front, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, zip-up cuffs, and half-belted ventless back
• Black geometric-patterned long-sleeved shirt with point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Dark blue denim slim-leg jeans
• Dark brown leather belt with large rectangular steel single-prong buckle
• Dark brown alligator engineer boots with buckle straps
• Silver-toned “angel wings” pendant on thin silver necklace
• Etched gold and silver ring with dark stone

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

God, what a thing when luck comes callin’.

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)

Vitals

James Cagney as Tom Powers, dangerous gangster and bootlegger

Chicago, Spring 1922

Film: The Public Enemy
Release Date: April 23, 1931
Director: William A. Wellman
Costume Designer: Edward Stevenson
Wardrobe Credit: Earl Luick

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One hundred years ago at midnight tonight, on January 17, 1920, the Volstead Act went into effect, beginning a 13-year prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States… and kicking off what Herbert Asbury referred to in his informal history of the Chicago underworld as “the saturnalia of crime and corruption which has been called ‘a noble experiment’,” due to the resulting surge in organized crime that effectively gave rise to the modern gangster.

As moving pictures evolved as a popular medium in the waning years of Prohibition, so too did the gangster movie. Warner Brothers took the lead, exposing audiences to snarling violent hoodlums based on the real-life criminals who bloodied the streets of New York and Chicago. It was in the 1931 hit The Public Enemy that James Cagney made his star-making turn as the psychopathic gangster Tom Powers.

“Our character was a swashbuckling, hard-fisted guy,” said [co-writer John] Bright, “a hoodlum who had come up from the Irish ghetto to the top. He had an income of ten thousand dollars a week or more. Notches on his gun. Been shot at many times.” [Darryl F.] Zanuck pitched the script to Jason Joy with this pitch: “In The Public Enemy, we also have a very strong moral theme, to-wit: If there is pleasure and profit in crime, or the violation of the Eighteenth Amendment, then that pleasure and that profit can only be momentary, and it ultimately ends in disaster to the participants.”

— Mark A. Vieira, Forbidden Hollywood: The Pre-Code Era (1930-1934)

Like its pre-Code contemporaries Little Caesar and Scarface, The Public Enemy took its violent narrative cues straight from newspaper headlines at the time, basing much of its plot on the “beer wars” that bloodied the Windy City during the roaring twenties. Crime historians will recognize Chicago North Side crime figures like “Schemer” Drucci and “Nails” Morton represented on screen by the thinly veiled characters “Schemer” Burns and “Nails” Nathan (Leslie Fenton), respectively, even co-opting the unusual circumstances of Morton’s death when the World War I veteran suffered the unlikely gangland death of being accidentally thrown from his horse and trampled to death in May 1923. In both the film and real life, Nails’ confederates took their revenge by shooting the horse to death.

Nails Nathan’s death ignites a gang war between the unseen Schemer Burns’ faction and Tom’s chief, the avuncular “Paddy” Ryan (Robert Emmett O’Connor), that results in Paddy insisting his boys go into hiding at the apartment of his sultry squeeze, Jane (Mia Marvin), and taking away their guns and money to remove any temptation to leave. “Even you wouldn’t be sap enough to go for a stroll without your gat,” Paddy explains. “This won’t be for long, boys. I’ll have the mob lined up again in a couple of days… Jane, you’ll see that they’re comfortable, eh?”

Jane takes a liking to Tom, taking advantage of the captive young gangster’s drunkenness that evening to take extra measures to ensure his comfort with what begins as “a good night kiss for a fine boy.” The next morning, Tom is disgusted with himself upon learning of the seduction and—despite the fact that Paddy had taken his guns away—leaves the apartment. Tom’s loyal pal Matt Doyle (Edward Woods) comes running after him, upset that his friend seemingly abandoned him.

Matt: Hey, Tom, wait a minute! What happened?
Tom: Nothing. l just got burned up, that’s all.
Matt: What do you wanna run out on me for? We’re together, ain’t we?

On the set of The Public Enemy, a gunman aims a Thompson submachine gun loaded with live ammunition at the wall next to James Cagney.

Having made quick amends, Tom and Matt barely have time to reconcile before machine gun fire erupts from a Vickers mounted in the window of a corner apartment across the street. Tom jumps for cover, but Matt lays dead on the pavement, mirroring the ambush that ended the life of North Side boss Hymie Weiss outside Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral on October 11, 1926. The scene marks one of the dangerous occasions in early American gangster films where real weapons proved to be the only option for the intended cinematic effect; an expert marksman aimed a machine gun at a wall less than 20 feet away, and—as soon as James Cagney ducked behind the corner—the marksman opened fire to create a tight, and very real, circle of bullets.

As director William A. Wellman, himself a veteran of the Great War, told Warner Brothers studio head Darryl F. Zanuck: “I’ll bring you the toughest, most violent picture you ever did see.”

What’d He Wear?

Back in December, on the 86th anniversary of the 21st Amendment that effectively repealed Prohibition, BAMF Style explored the new polo coat, suit, and car that symbolized Tom Powers’ newfound success as a gangster at the dawn of the roaring ’20s. Now, on the 100th anniversary that the far less popular 18th Amendment had gone into effect, let’s look at the dark chalk-striped flannel suit Tom wears at the peak of his gangland success before it all comes crumbling down.

Criminal confederates Matt and Tom, sporting their respective double-breasted suits and coordinating fedoras. While the optimistic and generally good-natured Matt is dressed in light and medium tones, Tom projects dark villainy.

His hat pulled down and collar turned up against his neck, Tom gets his suit drenched as he waits in the rain to carry out his revenge against the Schemer Burns gang. When the time is right, he strides into the headquarters (fronted as the “Western Chemical Company”) with his hands jammed into his jacket pockets, ready to the draw the two Colt revolvers with which he trades about two dozen shots with the gang in four seconds.

After his determined stride into the joint, Tom would emerge from the gunfight with his suit, body, and pride torn apart as the wounded gangster wildly flails in the rain like a twisted take on Gene Kelly’s ebullient dance in Singin’ in the Rain before landing in the gutter.

At 5’5″, James Cagney is among the shorter leading men in American cinema, though the dapper actor made the most of flattering tailoring that—along with his explosive, dynamic performances—added a “larger than life” quality to his screen presence. This suit is an example of this flattering tailoring with a 4×2-button front that removes the top row of vestigal buttons from the traditional 6×2-button double-breasted jacket, providing the fashionably full wrap seen on double-breasted jackets of the era without overpopulating the limited space of the shorter actor’s jacket with unnecessary buttons.

The ventless jacket has wide peak lapels with low, long gorges. The hip pockets where he stuffs his hands when approaching the Western Chemical Company are jetted without flaps that would add more unnecessary layers to the jacket and de-emphasize Cagney’s height. The wide shoulders are padded and roped at the sleeveheads, and each sleeve ends with a three-button cuff.

A volley of live machine gun fire narrowly misses killing Tom… and killing James Cagney.

The Public Enemy tested the limits of pre-Code cinematic enforcement, with this sequence in particular earning the ire of censors with its depictions of drunkenness and seduction. Over the course of both, Cagney’s Tom Powers removes his jacket and tie, revealing that he wears no waistcoat with his double-breasted suit. Though two-piece suits were not unheard of in the early 1920s (particularly in warm climates or seasons), the practice of wearing a suit without a waistcoat would be considerably more common by the early ’30s due to the both the loosened decorum over the roaring ’20s as well as the scarcity of materials during the Great Depression.

In addition to a fawning tailor and a face-smashing grapefruit, one of the more scandalous scenes in The Public Enemy found Jane assisting a drunken, reluctant Tom into her bed before turning off the lights and presumably joining him over his fading protestations. Jane undresses her “Tommy boy”, helping unbutton his white (or off-white) shirt down to Cagney’s waist, revealing a white sleeveless undershirt beneath it. Like the rest of his clothes, Tom’s shirt better resembles the trends of the early 1930s than the early ’20s, particularly the fashionably long point collar attached to his shirt. The shirt also has a plain front and double (French) cuffs, fastened with simple metal cuff-button links.

“You don’t think I’m old, do you, Tommy?” coos Jane during her seduction of the drunken Tom Powers. Interestingly, actress Mia Marvin—who counts The Public Enemy among her three movies she appeared in, all uncredited—was born November 1, 1904, making her a full five years younger than James Cagney and only 26 years old when The Public Enemy was made. Granted, Cagney’s character is likely supposed to be about ten years younger than the actor himself, but anyone who does think she’s “old” would surely need to have their eyes checked.

The striped tie that Jane so eagerly pulls from around Tom’s neck has “downhill”-direction pencil stripes in a light shade, balanced against a medium-colored ground.

Between the full wrap of Tom’s double-breasted suit jacket, the long collar points, and the tie filling the rest, there’s little need for the intermediate layer of a waistcoat… though this was a better reflection of the latter Prohibition era rather than the early 1920s.

Though belts were increasingly accepted as a simpler, if more informal, alternative throughout the 1920s, suspenders (braces) were still the most traditional option for holding up one’s trousers. Tom’s high-rise trousers curve up even higher in the back, where two buttons in the center are specifically placed to connect to suspender hooks. Tom’s light striped suspenders have dark leather hooks that connect to these double buttons in the back and to two double sets of buttons along the inside of the front of his waistband.

The trousers themselves have single forward-facing pleats flanking the fly, pockets along the side seams, and turn-ups (cuffs) at the bottoms.

His suspenders down by his sides, Tom gets ready to stumble into bed.

“Be a good boy and sit down,” Jane instructively coos, pushing Tom onto her bed and offering: “I’ll take your shoes off, too.” She slips off Tom’s dark leather oxfords as he slumps dumbly on her bed, his feet stockinged in medium-colored socks.

Calling it a night.

Tom wears a dark felt short-brimmed fedora with a tall crown all but devoid of any pinching. The wide ribbed grosgrain silk ribbon, tied with a bow in the back rather than the side, likely matches the shade of the felt construction, suggesting black or brown; an all-black hat would befit his dark, violent nature.

World War I and the years immediately ensuing establishes the wristwatch as an increasingly popular timepiece for men, supplanting the more old-fashioned pocket watch that had reigned supreme for centuries. The iconic Cartier Tank led the way into the roaring ’20s with considerable luxury, rounding out the horological field with wristwatches developed by timekeeping stalwarts including Elgin, Hamilton, and Waltham.

The dress watch worn by James Cagney is, like the rest of his wardrobe in The Public Enemy, perhaps more consistent with early 1930s fashions. Likely gold, the round watch case is secured to Cagney’s left wrist via a slim metal bracelet.

A coquettish Jane pours “Tommy boy” his coffee the morning after their illicit, Code-defying romp.

The Gun

Despite its enduring status as a pre-Code classic that helped firmly establish realism in the American gangster film, The Public Enemy contains more than a few “quirky” scenes that seem to have been added either for comic value or to make its content more accessible to non-criminal audiences in the film’s concise 83-minute running time.

Consider when Tom Powers is on the run, having handed over his firearms before abandoning the gang and watching his pal Matt Doyle die in a hail of gunfire, only narrowly escaping himself. Clearly, Tom needs to arm himself, but to whom does he turn? Not some underworld contact… instead, Tom finds a pawn shop off the streets of downtown Chicago and talks the sweet-as-pie proprietor (who really should not be in the firearm business in the first place) into handing him a revolver then, astonishingly, watching with a smile as Tom loads it with bullets from his own pocket and uses it to hold up the store.

Tom: l was looking at some of the pistols in the window.
Pawnbroker: Shall l show you some?
Tom: Yeah. l kind of like that big one.
Pawnbroker: That one?
Tom: All right… What do you call that?
Pawnbroker: That’s a .38 caliber. lt’s a fine-
Tom: You got any more like it?
Pawnbroker: l’ve got some smaller ones.
Tom: No, same size.
Pawnbroker: Sure.
Tom: How do you load that?
Pawnbroker: First you break it. Then you stick the cartridges in the holes.
Tom: Could l see?
Pawnbroker: Sure.

The pawnbroker probably should have been suspicious that the man who at first seemed initially uninformed about firearms was pulling .38-caliber rounds from the pocket of his pinstriped suit. Why did Tom already have bullets? Why was he carrying them loosely? How did they happen to perfectly fit the revolver he requested? Of course, we know he’s a gangster and that he knows exactly the kind of gun he needs, but the pawnbroker not only encourages this young man to load up a revolver in his shop but beams like a proud father as he watches Tom load the cylinder.

Pawnbroker: That’s right.
Tom: Like that?
Pawnbroker: lt’ll hold six.
Tom: This will be enough. Stick ’em up!

I’m not one for victim-blaming, but this pawnshop owner really did deserve to get robbed.

Of possible interest to some, the original screenplay called for the weapon to be “a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson” which would have surely intimidated the shopkeeper, but a smaller-framed Colt Police Positive revolver in .38 Special was swapped in for the actual production. It’s possible that a smaller weapon was chosen when the 5’5″ James Cagney was cast as Tom Powers, though some publicity stills (such as this) exist of Cagney in character holding the larger-framed .45-caliber Colt New Service.

Despite its name, the Police Positive found favor with many American gangsters during the early years of the 20th century, including the notorious Al Capone, no doubt favoring the weapon for packing six rounds of the powerful .38 Special cartridge into a small, easily concealed frame. Colt introduced the Police Positive in 1907 to replace the already aging Colt New Police, producing the weapon for the next 40 years until it was superseded by Colt’s more modern revolvers like the Detective Special and Official Police, which had both been introduced in the late 1920s.

The sight of “two-gun Tommy” makes me think of Francis Crowley, the psychotic and diminutive New York gunman who shared both physical and physiological similarities with the fictional Tom Powers. In what may or may not be coincidence, Crowley committed his first murder on April 27, 1931, just four days after The Public Enemy was released. The following day, he would trade hundreds of rounds in a standoff with police before being wounded and captured… with two pistols strapped to his legs. Had the 5’6″ Crowley’s criminal spree been turned into a movie, Cagney would have been the perfect choice to play him.

And the question of where Tom got the bullets? The answer also tells us the fate of Gwen (Jean Harlow), Tom’s platinum blonde moll who seemingly disappears from the film. The original screenplay includes a brief scene after Matt’s death where Tom rushes into Gwen’s apartment, where he finds a note that she has gone back home but will always love him “with all the love at her command”. A depressed Tom gulps down some whiskey that he finds in her cabinet before desperately rummaging for a gun. Unable to find one, he does find some loose bullets, which he pockets and runs out the door.

The scene in Gwen’s apartment was evidently left on the cutting room floor as some prints exist of Tom entering the room, but it would have answered some questions left unexplained by the final cut.

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)

How to Get the Look

While the color is likely lost to history, charcoal or dark navy are safe bets for this businesslike double-breasted suit that James Cagney wears as the dapper and dangerous Tom Powers for the climactic sequence in The Public Enemy.

• Dark chalkstripe flannel suit:
  • Double-breasted 4×2-button jacket with wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, roped sleeveheads, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • High-rise trousers with single reverse pleats, straight/on-seam side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with long point collar, plain front, and double/French cuffs
  • Plain metal cuff-button links
• Medium-colored tie with closely spaced white “downhill” pencil stripes
• Light striped suspenders with dark leather hooks
• Dark leather oxford shoes
• Medium-colored socks
• Black felt short-brimmed fedora with wide black ribbed grosgrain silk band
• Gold round-cased dress watch on thin metal bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. If you’re interesting in reading the original screenplay, you may be able to read it here.

The Quote

I ain’t so tough!

Cary Grant and Doris Day in That Touch of Mink (1962)

Vitals

Cary Grant as Philip Shayne, smooth, sophisticated, and suave investment executive and “perfect gentleman”

Bermuda, Spring 1962

Film: That Touch of Mink
Release Date: June 14, 1962
Director: Delbert Mann
Tailor: Cardinal Clothes (credited “for Cary Grant’s suits”)

Background

To commemorate the birthday of Cary Grant, born on this day in 1904, let’s celebrate the debonair actor who was seemingly born to wear a tuxedo. After three decades of a well-tailored career, the erstwhile Archie Leach sported his final on-screen dinner suit in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink released in 1962, the same year as the first James Bond movie was released, thus heralding the transfer of the definitive screen dinner suit-wearer to 007. (Of Grant’s three final films, he sported nothing more formal than businesslike lounge suits in Charade and Walk Don’t Run and he spent his penultimate film—Father Goose—dressed in the comfortably threadbare beach wear that Variety described at the time as “tattered attire.”)

That Touch of Mink stars Grant opposite Doris Day as Cathy Timberlake, a Sandusky-born shopgirl who finds herself swept off her feet by Philip Shayne, a charming and successful businessman in the tradition of Grant’s customary screen persona. He plans a romantic escape for them in Bermuda, but she succumbs to the internalized pressure of his possible expectations and breaks out into hives just before bed. With little to do when Cathy quarantines herself int heir suite, Roger makes the rounds of the resort grounds, splitting his time between a poolside chat with a nervous newlywed played by Dick Sargent (aka Bewitched‘s controversial second Darren) and cheating at cards. As he later describes to his neurotic assistant Roger (Gig Young):

Roger, I flew 800 miles to a tropical paradise to drink hot milk and butter. I spent half the night playing gin rummy with a bookie from Detroit. It was not a memorable evening. Now if you’re not out of here in five seconds, I’ll raise your salary.

What’d He Wear?

As Cary Grant evolved his personal brand of on-screen elegance, he established the link-button dinner jacket as his preferred style, favored in films like To Catch a Thief and An Affair to Remember. Grant’s tuxedos were almost always midnight blue wool, the tasteful alternative to plain black, though his style reverted from the shawl collar of John Robie’s dinner jacket to the more traditional and formal peaked lapels that he would wear exclusively on his on-screen black tie kits, excepting the natty velvet dinner jacket rigged with a shawl collar that he wears in The Grass is Greener.

In That Touch of Mink, Grant’s final screen-worn tuxedo is a culmination of his debonair career. His midnight blue wool dinner jacket is tailored with a comfortably full and flattering cut that gave the 58-year-old actor room to move without even approaching looking baggy or oversized. The wide shoulders, roped at each sleevehead, balance the actor’s larger head for which he was famously (if unfairly) self-conscious. Per the fashions of the early ’60s, his peak lapels are narrower than those on the previous decade’s dinner jackets, though still of a moderate width that transcends timely trends. The lapels have a straight gorge with no space notched between the upper collar and the satin-faced lower portion of each lapel.

Cathy and Philip ascend to their room on the “scandalous” elevator.

The peak lapels on Grant’s ventless dinner jacket roll to the single link-closure buttoning point at his natural waist, perfectly positioned over where his cummerbund covers the waist line of his trousers. The dinner jacket has a welted breast pocket, though he wears no white or colorful pocket hank to dress it, in addition to straight jetted hip pockets.

Each sleeve ends with a narrow silk gauntlet “turnback” cuff, a neo-Edwardian detail that was also occasionally favored by black tie icons Sean Connery (as James Bond) and Frank Sinatra. There is also a single silk-covered button adorning each cuff.

Philip treats himself to a nightcap from the greatest hotel room bar this side of Scent of a Woman.

Grant wears a white formal shirt with a point collar, his usual shirt collar chosen to counter his head size, though this effect is somewhat negated as he naturally wears a bow tie rather than a straight necktie.

The shirt has a narrowly pleated front, though the pleats occasionally group together to create the look of wider pleats that are difficult to differentiate depending on the lighting, camera distance, and screen resolution. Rather than attached buttons, the shirt placket fastens with two visible onyx studs, and the double (French) cuffs are linked by recessed gold cuff links, detailed with a small onyx filling in the center of each link.

Philip meets a newlywed (Dick Sargent) in Bermuda. In 1962, Bewitched was still two years away, and Dick Sargent would actually be offered the role of Darren Stephens before it was filled by Dick York. When York left the show in 1969, Sargent stepped in to play Darren.

Grant wears a bow tie of midnight blue silk to coordinate with his dinner suit and match the silk facings. While the straight batwing and diamond-pointed styles were very common in mid-century menswear, Grant opts for a classic wide thistle (or “butterfly”) shape, tied in a thick knot.

Some gents prefer larger bow tie knots to properly fill the tie space between shirt collar leaves, but this wouldn’t be necessary with the limited tie space of Grant’s point collar.

The matching midnight blue wool formal trousers have forward-facing pleats that add to an elegantly full fit through the hips down to the plain-hemmed bottoms, accented by the requisite silk piping along each side seam.

Though he never removes or even unbuttons his jacket to confirm this, Grant appears to be wearing a midnight silk cummerbund, a wise and cooler-wearing alternative to a waistcoat in Bermuda’s warm tropical climate.

Grant suitably ends his black tie tenure by sporting a pair of black patent leather opera pumps, decorated with a black grosgrain silk bow on each vamp and worn with black socks. Also known as the court shoe, the formal men’s pump shoe dates back more than 200 years to the Regency era and, at the start of the 20th century, it was still de rigeuer for men’s formal white tie and semi-formal black tie dress codes. Particularly with the latter, pump shoes were phased out by the popularity and practicality of lace-up oxfords though they remained in use by arbiters of good taste with a sense of tradition.

Not only are Philip’s pump shoes the traditional choice, they would also likely be more comfortable and practical in the warm and relaxed Bermuda resort.

How to Get the Look

Cary Grant as Philip Shayne in That Touch of Mink (1962)
Photo by Milton Greene.

That Touch of Mink offered Cary Grant a fitting farewell to the elegant black tie dress code associated with the debonair actor and the sophisticated characters he played throughout the decades, sending him off in a neatly tailored and uniquely detailed dinner jacket.

• Midnight blue wool dinner suit:
  • Single-breasted link-button dinner jacket with straight-gorge silk-faced peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, single-button gauntlet cuffs, and ventless back
  • Forward-pleated formal trousers with silk seam piping, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• White cotton pleated-front formal shirt with point collar and double/French cuffs
  • Onyx shirt studs
  • Gold recessed circular cuff links with onyx-filled centers
• Midnight blue silk butterfly-shaped bow tie
• Black patent leather opera pumps
• Black thin silk socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I’m kissing you, do you mind?

John Dall as Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (1950)

Vitals

John Dall as Bart Tare, armed robber on the run

San Lorenzo Valley, California, Fall 1949, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Spring 1950

Film: Gun Crazy
(also released as Deadly is the Female)
Release Date: January 20, 1950
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Costume Designer: Norma Koch (credited with Peggy Cummins’ costumes only)

Background

Fifteen years after armed robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were ambushed and killed on a rural Louisiana road, one of the first attempts to adapt their story for the silver screen arrived in theaters. Sure, there had been Fritz Lang’s sympathetic melodrama You Only Live Once (1937) and the FBI-endorsed propaganda Persons in Hiding (1939), but Gun Crazy—released exactly 70 years ago today—most effectively latched onto the intrigue of a gun-toting couple on the run, and, “more than any other, emphasizes the powerful attraction of weaponry in the growing legend of Bonnie and Clyde,” according to John Treherne, author of The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde.

Gun Crazy‘s telling original title of Deadly is the Female reflects the narrative leaning into the noir-esque premise of a dominating femme fatale, an expert in firearms who seduces her lovestruck fella into a life of crime… an inverse of the generally accepted reality of the relationship between violent manipulator Clyde Barrow and the vulnerable and troubled Bonnie Parker.

A year after his chilling turn as the calculating, Loeb-like murderer in Hitchcock’s Rope, John Dall stars as the malleable Bart Tare, who finds himself fatefully—and fatally—drawn to the voluptuous carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), “the darling of London, England,” though it’s a toss-up whether it’s her tight pants, knowing wink, or dueling pistols that sink the hook into the already doomed Bart.

Laurie models the diamond ring she offers as collateral to hold up her end of the bargain with Bart while the villainous “Packy”—dressed like a classic movie gangster in his boldly striped suit, dark shirt, and light tie—looks on with concern.

Early Warner Brothers criminal fare like The Public Enemy and Angels with Dirty Faces often kicked off their stories with vignettes from the characters’ childhoods to explain their motivations. In this case, we start with a teenage Bart Tare (Russ Tamblyn), who embraces his talent for shooting sling-shots and BB guns by graduating to the unfortunate choice of stealing a stag-gripped revolver from a storefront window. The clumsy young criminal doesn’t have the purloined pistol in his hands for seconds before it clatters to the ground and lands at the feet of the local sheriff. The judge isn’t sold by Bart’s family and friends testifying that he is repulsed by the thought of taking a life, illustrated by his remorse after shooting a young bird with a BB gun, and the young Bart gets the proverbial book thrown at him.

After four years in reform school and a stint teaching marksmanship in the Army, Bart finds himself back in his hometown, blissfully at ease firing the Remington .22 pump rifle that had been a boyhood favorite for Bart and his pals Dave Allister (Nedrick Young) and Clyde Boston (Harry Lewis), now a newspaper reporter and the sheriff, respectively. Dave and Clyde welcome Bart back home by taking him to a carnival where he encounters Annie for the first time, accepting her crooked boss Packett’s challenge to try to outshoot her, a contest that would either yield him $500 or require him to pay $50. To Packett’s dismay and Laurie’s intrigued disappointment, Bart equals her at the initial challenge before besting her at “the crown”, where each fire at six matches placed atop the other’s head.

“What else do you do besides shoot?” asks Laurie. “Well, it’s been enough so far,” responds Bart, who finds himself offered a job on the spot by Laurie and the shady Packy in “the crookedest little carnival layout west of the Mississippi.”

It isn’t long before Bart gets both of them fired from the show for confronting their opportunistic manager, so Bart and Laurie get married and spend an idyllic honeymoon traveling through the southwest, eating through their dwindling funds as more and more weeks pass since their last paid work. Their poverty reaches a point that, one night in a cheap greasy spoon, Bart has to turn down onions on his hamburger to avoid paying the extra nickel.

One of the many fantastic classic movie gifs created by The Nitrate Diva.

The humbling experience convinces at least Laurie that it’s time to think of more ‘creative’ ways to earn money… to “start kicking back” rather than continue to be kicked around all her life. Laurie tells him that if he won’t comply, he should just kiss her good bye… and the kiss is enough to convince him to begin right away, robbing the very hotel where they’re currently staying. After the bungled “one last job” to steal the payroll from an Armour factory in Albuquerque where Laurie committed the duo’s first murders, they’re back on the run with their dream of getting rich and growing old together all but impossible. The two try to stick to their plan on driving away in separate cars, meeting again in two months, but even two minutes separated is unbearable for the doomed couple and they speed back to meet and agree on the unspoken pact to meet their fate together, whatever it may be.

Good luck, you two.

Based on a script co-written by MacKinlay Kantor and a then-blacklisted Dalton Trumbo (who was fronted by his friend Millard Kaufman), Gun Crazy was filmed in just 30 days for less than a half million dollars. B-movie specialist Joseph H. Lewis saved time and money with his direction, often exploring guerrilla film-making techniques including a real-time robbery sequence filmed from the back seat of Laurie and Bart’s “getaway car” as the actors improvised dialogue with few extras or surrounding drivers aware of what was actually happening. You can check out the actual locations where this sequence as well as the rest of the movie was filmed here.

What’d He Wear?

Aside from his disguises, Western-themed carnival costume, and the occasional two-piece suit, Bart Tare generally spends his civilian days and brief criminal career dressed in the trusty combination of a tweed jacket, button-down shirt, knit tie, and flannel trousers.

Gun Crazy was produced during the brief heyday of what Esquire promoted in April 1948 as the “Bold Look” in American menswear, embracing the post-WWII boom and the full-cut clothing produced as a reaction to lifting the wartime restrictions on clothing production. Jackets and trousers were both cut fuller and longer as clothing manufacturers took advantage of the bounteous material available to them. According to Francesca Sterlacci and Joanne Arbuckle in The A to Z of the Fashion Industry, the Bold Look was specifically characterized by “a loose-fitting jacket with pronounced shoulders.”

A lean 6’1″, John Dall occasionally looks dwarfed by his long, enveloping herringbone tweed sport jacket, cut with the requisite wide shoulders of the era, ventless back, and the boxy, shapeless “sack coat” styling associated with American menswear. Constructed of a durable woolen tweed, the single-breasted jacket looks well lived-in and would serve Bart well through his months on the road with an array of patch pockets to be filled with extra cartridges or cash yielded through the fruits of his new vocation.

The broad notch lapels, which roll to a three-button front balanced by Dall’s height, are also indicative of some of the trendy postwar excesses, though the widths of jacket lapels, shirt collars, and tie blades during the late 1940s would still be widely outdone during the height of the disco era three decades later.

Bart allows himself to be totally charmed by Laurie.

There are plenty of lobby cards from the time of the film’s release with contemporary suggestions of the colors of Bart’s clothing, though the jacket only briefly appears in the bottom of one lobby card, where it is colored in an earthy tan, a popular shade for tweed jackets like this. Bart’s shirt and tie on the other hand, are widely featured in this contemporary artwork, typically colored with a pale-to-light blue shirt and a dark maroon tie.

Contemporary lobby art from both the original release (Deadly is the Female) and the re-release (Gun Crazy) are relatively consistent in the color of Bart’s shirt and tie and Laurie’s dress, but even the furniture and carpeting in the room are inconsistently colored.

Likely a light blue as the lobby cards suggest, Bart’s oxford cloth cotton shirt has a button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket with a pointed bottom, and rounded barrel cuffs that each close with a button. His dark knitted tie with its flat bottom provides harmonious textural coordination with his rugged tweed jacket and considerably dressed-down shirt.

Bart and Laurie have one of those newlywed spats that results in a multi-state crime spree.

Pleated trousers were arguably the prevailing style in American menswear during what some call its “golden age” from the 1930s into the 1950s, particularly during the Bold Look years as tailors and clothiers celebrated the ample cloth at their disposal. Bart’s flannel trousers are rigged with double reverse pleats, though the second pleats are particularly shallow as the lean John Dall would not have needed the fullness that a deeper second pleat would have added.

(Though the aforementioned lobby cards help to suggest colors of Bart’s clothing, the coloration artists seem to have disagreed on the trousers with colors ranging from tan to gray, even sourcing images from the same scene!)

The trousers have a high rise to Dall’s natural waist, where they’re held in place by a slim, double-ridged belt in dark leather with a small single-prong buckle that he wears both centered and slightly hitched off to the right side, particularly seen as Bart and Laurie make their getaway from the Armour meat packing plant robbery. Finished on the bottoms with then-fashionable turn-ups (cuffs), Bart’s trousers have semi-dropped “Hollywood”-style belt loops, side pockets with a straight vertical opening just forward of each side seam, and jetted back pockets, the left one closing through a single button.

Bart and Laurie’s honeymooning weeks were full of dancing, laughter, and adventure… but not prosperity. After failing to “buck Las Vegas” as Laurie had hoped, the honeymooning couple slouches at the end table in a train car-styled diner, pinching their nickels by keeping onions off their hamburgers and fueling their scheming with free coffee refills.

He’s tellingly dressed in the same duds he wore when he met her, supplanted with a medium-dark V-neck sweater to protect against the chilly desert night… as well as the chill in Laurie’s attitude as she focuses on finding a new way to transform their passion for firearms into a lucrative career. And not one working at a carnival.

The vibe is reminiscent of the “dead shark” relationship talk in Annie Hall decades later, but instead of breaking up, Laurie and Bart decide to revive their floundering association by becoming armed robbers. I wonder how that would have worked for Alvy and Annie…

Bart appears to wear one pair of shoes throughout his adventures with Laurie, a set of plain dark leather two-eyelet derby shoes with squared moc-toe fronts, worn with dark socks.

As Bart shines his shoes, the cynical clown Bluey-Bluey (Stanley Prager) advises him to be cautious of Laurie’s true nature.

After Bart and Laurie determine to follow a criminal path, he begins wearing a shoulder holster, though it isn’t the commonly seen rig hidden completely by his jacket. At first, I thought Bart was wearing a military holster, similar to the modern 1942 “Tanker” Holster manufactured by El Paso Saddlery Co., though his differs as the holster is on the same side as the main strap.

Best seen during the final sequence as the couple makes their getaway from Santa Monica, Bart’s holster is constructed with a thick strap over the left shoulder that connects to a holster under the left armpit. A thinner strap hooks just above the holster and stretches down around his torso, ostensibly connecting to a similar strip in the back

Bart’s shoulder holster is less than ideal for concealment, as wearing his jacket open (as he often does) reveals a telltale strap across his torso.

For one robbery where Bart hesitates to kill a pursuing policeman much to Laurie’s chagrin, he adds a camel coat and sunglasses to his usual tweed jacket and tie. The knee-length overcoat has notch lapels that roll to a single-breasted, covered-fly front. The shoulders are padded, and the large side pockets have vertical welted openings for Bart to slip his revolver into rather than fussing with his shoulder holster under the additional layers. The set-in sleeves are turned-up at the ends with a small button in the uppermost corner of each cuff.

This production photo of John Dall and Peggy Cummins has become one of the most enduring images from Gun Crazy, often featured in commentary about noir style.

Bart’s tortoise-framed sunglasses with their rounded lens were typical of the era. Similar retro-minded styles are still available today, from eyewear stalwarts like PECK and Ray-Ban or budget brands on such as A.J. Morgan, Carfia, or ZENOTTIC.

Bart checks out the cop on their tail.

Occasionally seen on Bart’s left wrist is a metal watch with a round, light-colored dial on a dark leather strap. This may be John Dall’s own timepiece and not meant to be part of the character’s wardrobe as several scenes of Bart with his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow reveal bare wrists.

The Gun

A movie called Gun Crazy isn’t gonna be about sling shots, though it’s primarily six-shooters and rarely anything heavier that our duo on the run uses throughout, aside from the .22-caliber pump rifle that Bart fires with his pals in the early scenes.

For the most part, the guns that both Bart and Laurie find themselves so crazy about are Colt products, right down to the massive M1917 revolver that the teenage Bart hoped to purloin in the opening sequence. Years later, he attends Laurie’s shooting demonstration at the carnival where she packs a pair of nickel Colt Police Positive revolvers.

Although the Police Positive is a double-action revolver, both Bart and Laurie “fan the hammer” like a single-action revolver (think Butch and Sundance) when proving their respective talents to the audience… and each other.

Colt introduced the Police Positive in 1907, initially for smaller calibers before developing the Police Positive Special the following year to carry the more powerful .38 Special round. Apropos its designation, the lightweight steel Police Positive became a fast favorite among American law enforcement agencies.

During their crime spree, Bart carries a blued steel Colt, likely the Colt Official Police that was introduced in 1927 as a larger-framed alternative to the Police Positive. The Official Police actually evolved from an earlier Colt revolver designated the “Army Special” but, with the advent of semi-automatic service pistols like the venerable M1911, Colt rebranded this revolver to appeal to the American police market. The weapon’s name and reputation made an impression and, within half a decade, major police departments from New York to Los Angeles were arming its officers with .38 Special Official Police revolvers… though more than a few crooks on the other side of the law favored the reliable revolver as well.

Laurie drives, charging Bart with shooting the police chasing them. It’s fortunate for the cops that the roles weren’t reversed, as Bart hesitates to kill while Laurie seems to revel in it.

Never fired on screen but prominently featured are the “handmade… English dueling pistols” that Bart proudly carries in a display case, taking the time to keep them clean even when he and Laurie barely have a dollar between them.

Admittedly, I have little experience with identifying dueling pistols like this, so all I can offer is what is shared on screen… though I do wonder if there’s some significance in the frequently referenced fact that Bart’s pistols are English-made, not unlike the woman that leads him astray.

Depleted of funds, Bart still takes the time to clean his English dueling pistols before offering to sell them to keep he and Laurie afloat. He would soon have no need for the ornate single-shot weapons once they graduate to full-time criminal careers.

John Dall as Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (1950)

How to Get the Look

Though Gun Crazy is 70 years old, John Dall’s tweed jacket, button-down shirt, knit tie, and flannel trousers could very effectively be worn today, albeit with some adjustments for a more contemporary fit.

• Herringbone tweed single-breasted 3-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Light blue oxford cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, breast pocket, and rounded button cuffs
• Dark knitted tie with flat bottom
• sweater
• Medium-colored flannel double reverse-pleated high-rise trousers with semi-dropped “Hollywood” belt loops, straight side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Slim double-ridged dark leather belt with small single-prong buckle
• Dark leather squared moc-toe 2-eyelet derby shoes
• Dark socks
• Dark leather shoulder holster with cross-torso strap
• Camel single-breasted overcoat with fly front, set-in sleeves with cuffs, and vertical welted pockets
• Tortoise round-framed sunglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

We go together, Laurie. I don’t know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together.

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt in Django (2017)

Vitals

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt, gypsy jazz guitar virtuoso

Paris, Summer 1943

Film: Django
Release Date: April 26, 2017
Director: Étienne Comar
Costume Designer: Pascaline Chavanne

Background

My interest in Django Reinhardt’s music began in the spring of 2004, when 14-year-old me eagerly purchased Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, a computer game that was essentially the Grand Theft Auto series with a Prohibition-era twist and a dash of Scorsese-ese inspiration. Set in 1930s New Jersey, the game was scored by period music including familiar favorites by Duke Ellington and a style that was all new to me, the rhythmic, guitar-driven gypsy jazz pioneered by Django Reinhardt.

The real Django Reinhardt, circa 1940s.

Born in Belgium 110 years ago today on January 23, 1910, Django Reinhardt had an early start to music, particularly after receiving a banjo-guitar when he was 12 years old. The young Romani musician gained a reputation for his talent, resulting in the opportunity to play for British bandleader Jack Hylton’s famous band when he was only 18 years old. Reinhardt never had a chance to join the orchestra, however, as he was badly burned when a fire quickly spread through the wagon he shared with his wife in November 1928, resulting in nearly a year and a half of hospitalization.

Most significantly for his new vocation, Reinhardt was told that the burns meant he could never play guitar again, as the ring finger and pinky on his left hand were too badly burned. Undeterred, Reinhardt developed a new method that relied heavily on the index and middle fingers of his left hand. He spent the early years of the 1930s busking his way through France as he and his new pal, violinist Stéphane Grappelli, bonded over a mutual interest in American jazz. In 1934, Reinhardt and Grappelli founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Reinhardt’s brother Joseph, guitarist Roger Chaput, and bassist Louis Vola rounding out the quintet.

The quintet’s innovative sound made a worldwide star out of Reinhardt, and his 1940 hit “Nuages” became considered an unofficial anthem of hope in occupied Paris. As a Romani jazz musician, Reinhardt was in considerable danger living in occupied France and twice tried to escape the country.

It was during these wartime years that Reinhardt recorded some of his most evocative gypsy jazz, including tracks like “Belleville”, “Cavalerie”, and “Lentement Mademoiselle” that had scored my character’s violent exploits to the top of New Jersey’s world of Depression-era organized crime in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.

Fortunately, Reinhardt survived the war and his career blossomed with his first tour of the United States and scores of classic recordings made in Rome and Paris. In May 1953, the 43-year-old Reinhardt collapsed outside his Fontainebleau home of a brain hemorrhage and died in the hours that passed before a doctor arrived.

Django Reinhardt remains a cultural icons decades after his brief but brilliant recording career, inspiring future musicians like Woody Nelson, Jerry Garcia, and Jeff Beck, the latter of whom described Reinhardt as “by far the most astonishing guitar player ever”. A 2017 biopic entitled Django, directed by Étienne Comar (who celebrates his 55th birthday in two days), opened the 67th Berlin International FIlm Festival. Focused on Reinhardt’s attempted escapes from occupied France, Django starred Reda Kateb as the guitarist and featuring the sounds of the Rosenberg Trio, a Dutch gypsy jazz band that released its first album in 1989.

What’d He Wear?

For Reda Kateb’s on-screen introduction as Django Reinhardt, the actor is dressed in a cream double-breasted suit not unlike the off-white suits that the real Reinhardt was frequently photographed wearing during this period in his life. In fact, this style of suit was so associated with Reinhardt that Sean Penn wore one in Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Woody Allen’s paean to gypsy jazz.

Kateb takes the stage as Django in a cream-colored suit, made from a soft napped cloth with a “fuzzy” finish suggestive of cashmere blended with silk or woolen flannel.

Production photo of Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt.

The double-breasted suit jacket has wide peak lapels that roll to a 4×2-button layout of cream sew-through buttons. The ventless jacket has straight, wide shoulders with roped sleeveheads and each sleeve is finished with non-functioning 3-button cuffs.

In addition to the straight jetted hip pockets, Reinhardt has a welted breast pocket where he wears a dark burgundy silk pocket square that coordinates with the color scheme of his shirt, tie, and even shoes.

The suit has double forward-pleated trousers with an era-correct medium-to-high rise. The waistband has a pointed tab on the front that closes through a hidden hook closure, and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs). There are gently slanted pockets on the sides and jetted pockets on the back.

Kateb’s Reinhardt leaves the belt loops unused, choosing instead to sport a natty set of striped suspenders (braces) to hold up his trousers. These narrow beige suspenders are patterned with thin brick red stripes, adjusted with slim silver-toned hardware and hooking to the trousers with long dark brown leather hooks that extend down from mid-torso.

The decision to dress Reinhardt in such a dark contrasting shirt under his off-white suit was likely inspired by contemporary photographs of the musician in one of his light double-breasted suits with a dark shirt and lighter tie. Kateb wears a silky burgundy shirt with a point collar, plain front, and rounded cuffs with a single button to close and gauntlet cuffs farther up the wrist that remain unbuttoned. His silk tie echoes the other colors his outfit with colorful swirls against a burgundy ground.

Kateb’s Reinhardt goes the extra step of matching his footwear to his shirt and tie, sporting a sharp pair of dark red leather wingtip oxford brogues with burgundy ribbed socks just a shade darker than his shoes.

Django’s loud footwear screams from the stage.

What to Listen to

This should be obvious enough! While one of the most celebrated elements of the 2017 biopic is the music by the Rosenberg Trio, there’s no reason not to listen to the actual recordings made by the real Django Reinhardt and the various outfits that he played with over his quarter-century career.

If you’re looking for a place to start, “Minor Swing” is often considered not only Reinhardt’s signature song but also a quintessential composition in the history of gypsy jazz. Composed by Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli, “Minor Swing” was first recorded by Quintette du Hot Club de France in November 1937 with Reinhardt and Grappelli on guitar and violin, respectively, joined by Joseph Reinhardt and Eugène Vées playing rhythm guitars, and quintet regular Louis Vola on double bass.

A decade after QHCF’s original recording, Reinhardt would record “Minor Swing” at least four more times, including once more with Grappelli during a Rome session in early 1949.

In addition to original compositions, Reinhardt also became famous putting his own unique spin on existing standards or contemporary hits. One such example is “Limehouse Blues”, the standard that had premiered in the early 1920s and was an early hit for Reinhardt when he recorded the first of five versions in October 1935. Reinhardt also recognized the then-common trend of major artists “jazzing up” classical pieces, and his 1937 recording of “Liebestraum No. 3″—also featured in Sweet and Lowdown—remains one of the most creative interpretations of Franz Liszt’s powerful number.

Other personal favorites include the jaunty and intriguing tracks I was introduced to by Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, including “Belleville”, “Cavalerie”, “Lentement mademoiselle”, “Manoir des mes reves”, “Vendredi”, and “Coucou” featuring Josette Dayde, in addition to the retrospective recordings he made in Rome in 1950 toward the end of his all-too-brief life such as “I Surrender Dear”, “Sophisticated Lady”, and “September Song”. Should anyone be interested in a primer of my favorite Reinhardt hits, I invite you to listen to a curated playlist and submit some of your own favorites in the comments below!

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt in Django (2017)

How to Get the Look

Reda Kateb’s attire as Django Reinhardt may be an accurate reflection of what the actual guitarist would wear on stage during the 1940s, though the sum of the look would likely be too flashy for anyone who isn’t performing for an audience. That said, off-white double-breasted suits evoke a classic era in warm-weather menswear (think Cary Grant) and Kateb adds some interest pizzaz to the look with his burgundy shirt, tie, shoes, and socks.

• Cream-colored cashmere-blend suit:
  • Double-breasted suit jacket with 4×2-button stance, wide peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, slightly slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Burgundy silky shirt with point collar, plain front, and 1-button rounded cuffs
• Burgundy swirl-patterned silk tie
• Brick-and-beige striped suspenders with silver hardware and long dark brown leather hooks
• Dark red leather wingtip oxford brogues
• Burgundy ribbed socks
• Dark burgundy silk pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson in The Color of Money (1986)

Vitals

Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson, liquor salesman and former pool hustler

Chicago, Spring 1986

Film: The Color of Money
Release Date: October 17, 1986
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

Background

Today would have been the 95th birthday of Paul Newman, the acclaimed actor, philanthropist, entrepreneur and motorsports enthusiast. Over his legendary career that spanned more than half a century, Newman’s sole Academy Award for acting recognized his performance in The Color of Money (1986), in which he reprised the role of “Fast Eddie” Felson that he had originated on screen in The Hustler (1961). Now, a generation later, Newman’s pool-playing Eddie has matured from a swaggering novice into a somewhat wiser but still snarky bourbon peddler, staking young pool hustlers on the side like cokehead Julian (John Turturro). It takes another hotshot virtuoso who actually reminds him of his younger self, the “incredible flake” Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise), for Eddie to assume the role of full-time mentor as he takes the immature Vincent under his wing… while also teaching Vincent’s more streetwise girlfriend Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) a thing or two about managing pool hustlers:

See, if you know that, you know when to say “yes”, you know when to say “no”… everybody goes home in a limousine.

Though some of his most iconic work was still ahead of him, The Color of Money is decidedly a change of pace in director Martin Scorsese’s canon. Scorsese himself said that the movie was less of a personal experience than most of his other work, though he was proud of his ability to direct a mainstream studio picture that was finished under budget and not only on time but ahead of schedule. Scorsese was brought on to direct at Newman’s insistence after the actor had been impressed by how Scorsese directed Raging Bull. (Perhaps giving some credos to the “butterfly effect” is the fact that, while shooting on location in Chicago, Scorsese read a review of Nicholas Pileggi’s book Wiseguy, the source material for what would be Scorsese’s arguably best-known film, Goodfellas.)

Under Scorsese’s direction—including his memorable note for Newman to “try not to be funny”—Newman received his seventh Academy Award nomination for acting, and it was The Color of Money that finally yielded the actor his elusive win. He would go on to be nominated twice more for acting Oscars, making him tied with Al Pacino and Spencer Tracy for the third most nominated male actor, behind only Jack Nicholson and Laurence Olivier.

What’d He Wear?

Paul Newman’s glen plaid suit for his introduction at the start of The Color of Money has become a favorite among fans of the actor and has been the subject of frequent requests from BAMF Style readers like Ryan and Chris (this one’s for you guys!) It’s been oft reported that Newman was a proud customer of H. Huntsman & Sons, the venerated Savile Row tailor who also dressed stars like Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, Rex Harrison, Laurence Olivier, and Gregory Peck, though I haven’t found any confirmation that Huntsman was responsible for any of Newman’s wardrobe in The Color of Money.

Less questioned is the costume designer responsible for so effectively crafting the looks of everyone in Eddie Felson’s orbit in The Color of Money. After graduating from the cheap bikini beach movies of the ’60s to contributing to ’70s classics like Chinatown, Heaven Can Wait, and Two-Lane Blacktop, and The Way We Were, Richard Bruno began a long-lasting association with Martin Scorsese that culminated with his BAFTA-winning work as costume designer on Goodfellas. The Color of Money reunited Bruno with Paul Newman, with whom he’d previously worked as the wardrobe supervisor in The Drowning Pool, also a rare sequel in Newman’s filmography.

A quarter century after we last saw Eddie Felson, the one-time pool shark seems to be doing well for himself in the liquor market. Defying Bert Gordon’s command from the end of The Hustler, he’s still hanging out in pool halls, staking small-time players while pushing his product on bartenders and blondes alike. He’s dressed for casual comfort in a tasteful two-piece suit with a black knit long-sleeve shirt, the worsted wool suit finely woven in a black and white glen plaid, patterned with a subtle light blue windowpane overcheck that—per Alan Flusser’s definition—elevates the suit into glenurquhart plaid territory.

Eddie works his charm on Carmen.

Fast Eddie rotates through several suits during The Color of Money, including a medium gray birdseye suit, a navy pinstripe suit, another dark blue striped suit, and a dark charcoal suit. All are similarly tailored and styled like this glen plaid suit.

The single-breasted suit jacket has wide, padded shoulders and notch lapels that cleanly roll to the top of two buttons that meet the top of Newman’s trousers. The ventless jacket has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and four-button cuffs.

Eddie attempts to buy his way out of his loose partnership with Carmen and Vincent.

Production photo of Paul Newman in The Color of Money. Note that his pleated trousers are indisputably part of his glenurquhart plaid suit from the opening scnee.

The suit’s matching trousers have a lower rise, consistent with both the fashions of the mid-1980s and Eddie’s casual demeanor. They have double sets of reverse-facing pleats, jetted side pockets with a gentle slant forward, and jetted back pockets with a button to close through the left. The trouser bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Trouser pleats are among the more cyclical elements of men’s style, weaving in and out of vogue over the last century. Pleats were first popular during the so-called “golden age of menswear” from the 1930s through the 1950s, though some material shortages during the Depression and World War II found tailors outfitting their customers in flat front styles. While Sean Connery’s James Bond still wore pleated trousers through the ’60s, the style was increasingly losing favor until pleats were decidedly passé by the 1970s. The following decade saw the rise of the “power suit” and looser fits to counter the skin-tight trousers from the preceding disco era, which brings us to the mid-’80s and the flatteringly full fit of Newman’s pleated trousers in The Color of Money.

Best seen when he wears the suit trousers orphaned with a loosened tie, Eddie wears a black leather belt through the trouser loops that fastens in the front via a dulled silver-toned rectangular box-frame buckle. In this instance, he’s working with Carmen to manipulate Vincent into agreeing to join them for a road tour before the 9-Ball Classic that spring in Atlantic City.

We’re not sure of the occasion, but he’s wearing a light blue cotton shirt with a point collar, unbuttoned at the neck, with a front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs that he wears unfastened and rolled up his forearms. The French blue silk tie, knotted in a loosened Windsor, is patterned with a field of burgundy drops, each accented with a white dot in the center.

Eddie takes a seat behind Carmen, ignoring his usual player Julian in favor of the newly arrived Vincent Lauria.

Eddie does himself a favor by sticking to a relatively tonal wardrobe of blue and gray suits, thus requiring no more than a single pair of shoes while on the road. He sports a pair of black calf wingtip oxford brogues, almost always worn with plain black socks.

The black knit long-sleeved polo shirt he wears during the introductory scene in Chicago makes a brief re-appearance after his split from Vincent and Carmen. Eddie wears the shirt with his new tinted glasses and the suit trousers while honing his pool skills at Chalky’s on the way to A.C. The shirt has three black buttons at the top and ribbed cuffs and hem.

The morning after Vincent disregards Eddie’s advice against the boastful champ Grady, Eddie comes to Vincent’s hotel room and calmly reclaims the Balabushka (in fact, a rebranded Joss N7 cue) then heads out to a pool hall to play against locals like Dud (Grady Matthews) and the seemingly affable young Amos (Forest Whitaker).

Dud: That’s all she wrote.
Eddie: (taking Dud’s money) Nice book, though.

Eddie wears the same glen plaid suit from the opening sequence, but with his go-to layered knitwear look of an open-necked shirt under a v-neck sweater. In this case, it’s a cream shirt with a point collar, front placket, and button cuffs worn with a maroon knit sweater vest that has a long-ribbed waist hem and shorter ribbing along the arm holes and the V-shaped neckline.

Production photo of Paul Newman in The Color of Money, as Eddie finds a surprising challenge in the friendly hustler Amos.

Eddie’s embarrassing losses to Amos send him into a frustrating spiral, though he sets out to improve himself with plenty of practice and a natty new pair of tinted glasses.

During the montage of Eddie finding his groove again, one vignette at Chalky’s features him in his shirt sleeves and dark burgundy suspenders as he defeats the legendary local pro Moselle. Eddie’s sky blue shirt with its point collar, front placket, breast pocket, and rolled-up button cuffs may be the same as he wore earlier with his tie.

Eddie opts for suspenders when playing against Moselle.

But… getting back to those tinted glasses. After undergoing an eye test, Eddie begins wearing a pair of oversized gold frames with amber-gradient prescription lenses. “I like the glasses,” compliments his pal Orvis (Bill Cobbs), owner of Chalky’s, before he queues Eddie up to play Moselle. Vincent, too, can’t help but to comment “You got new glasses, they look good,” upon his reunion with Eddie in Atlantic City.

Then again, everyone better like them, they’re Cartier… specifically, the Cartier Vendome Santos frame, made of 18-karat gold with a platinum-plated finish according to Dylan Littlefield for Stylish Carry. Cartier introduced this distinctive frame in 1983, and they quickly shot to stardom as a status symbol for anyone with “fuck you money” in the ’80s, particularly materialistic movie villains like Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko in Wall Street and Christopher Walken’s Bond villain in A View to a Kill. (Though he may have a selfish streak, Eddie is hardly as greedy or evil as these Cartier-wearing contemporaries.)

Paul Newman was famously a Rolex wearer in real life, with one of his Daytona chronographs—which had originally been a gift from his famous wife, Joanne Woodward—recently fetching a record-breaking $17.8 million in an October 2017 auction.

In The Color of Money, it isn’t a Daytona that Newman wears as Fast Eddie but rather a stainless steel Rolex Datejust. When the famous Swiss watchmaker introduced the new Oyster Perpetual Datejust model in 1945 to celebrate Rolex’s 40th anniversary, it was the first self-winding chronometer to boast a date window on the dial. The watch was launched with the also-new “Jubilee”-style five-piece link bracelet, so named to commemorate the celebratory occasion. In the decades since, the Rolex Datejust has been associated with leaders like Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ronald Reagan, and U.S. Air Force combat pilots like Chuck Yeager, who was reportedly wearing one when he broke the sound barrier in 1947.

As identified by Rolex Magazine, Eddie’s Datejust has a 36mm case, silver dial, and stainless Jubilee bracelet.

Cartier and Rolex… liquor peddling seems to reward Eddie more than pool has.

While the Rolex on Eddie’s left wrist may be one of comparatively understated luxury, he flashes his wealth from the ring finger of his right hand where he rocks a large silver or white gold ring with a pavé-set diamond on an engraved band.

Evidently, Eddie’s chunky shiner doesn’t hamper his pool game.

Only briefly glimpsed is Eddie’s additional jewelry, a gold necklace he wears under his shirts.

What to Imbibe

Color. Check the color. Dead giveaway, you know? It’s thick, you can almost feel it. Lay down, and just let it roll over you. That’s single malt. On the other hand, you got something like Old McDonnell. More like Young McDonnell, actually. Tastes like 6-year-old bonded.

Now a liquor peddler, Fast Eddie concludes these opening lines by offering a glass of Old McDonnell to Janelle (Helen Shaver), first instructing her to “smell this” before she takes a sip. “That’s good stuff,” she reports. “Yeah… very good stuff,” he confirms.

Eddie introduces Janelle to the virtues of the fictional Old McDonnell bourbon.

Unfortunately, it’s also fictional stuff, so don’t try looking for the vaulted Old McDonnell at your nearest liquor store. Luckily for any aspiring Fast Eddies, we also see him enjoying several real world bourbons, including J.T.S. Brown and Wild Turkey, almost always on the rocks… though I believe the latter bottle is confirmed by the bartender to be full of Old McDonnell.

“Bill, I’ll have another Drambuie and potato salad,” orders Dud (Grady Matthews), a friendly hillbilly pool player that Fast Eddie beats. “And, while you’re at it, give my friend Eddie here another J.T.S. Brown.”

The “J.T.S.” stands for John Thompson Street Brown, Jr., who evolved the wholesale liquor business he founded with half-brother George Garvin Brown into the J.T.S. Brown and Sons brand in 1855. After Prohibition ended, the J.T.S. Brown brand fell under the umbrella of the newly founded Heaven Hill. It arguably received its most prominent screen time as the whiskey of choice for Newman’s “Fast Eddie” Felson, both in The Hustler, where it’s served to him by Jake Lamotta, and again in The Color of Money.

While J.T.S. Brown appears to still be in limited production of both its 80 proof and 100 proof bottlings, it seems primarily relegated to the set dressing of period productions such as Magic City, where it is ordered by sleazy Florida senator Ned Sloat (Brett Rice) during the show’s first season.

Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson in The Color of Money (1986)

How to Get the Look

The Color of Money introduces Paul Newman’s matured “Fast Eddie” Felson as a master of the elusive “classy casual” dress code, dressing down while dressing up in sharply tailored suits that he effectively pairs with knitwear, open-neck shirts, and only occasionally a necktie.

• Black-and-white (with light blue overcheck) fine glenurquhart plaid worsted wool tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, gently slanted jetted side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-through left), and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black knit long-sleeve polo shirt with 3-button top, ribbed cuffs, and ribbed hem
• Black leather belt with dulled silver-toned rectangular box-frame buckle
• Black calf leather wingtip oxford brogues
• Black socks
• White cotton V-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Silver or white gold engraved ring with pavé-set diamond
• Rolex Datejust stainless steel watch with 36mm case, silver dial, and stainless Jubilee-style link bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. I also recommend reading Mike D’Angelo’s piece for The A.V. Club about the masterful opening scene and what it outlines about the movie to follow.

The Quote

I never kid about money.

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum in a promotional shot for Magnum, P.I.

Vitals

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, private investigator and former Navy SEAL

Hawaii, Spring 1980 to Summer 1981

Series: Magnum, P.I.
Episodes:
– “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1″ (Episode 1.01, dir. Roger Young, aired 12/11/1980)
– “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 1/29/1981)
– “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 2/26/1981)
– “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01, dir. Ray Austin, aired 10/8/1981)
– “The Taking of Dick McWilliams” (Episode 2.10, dir. Winrich Kolbe, aired 12/1/1981
– “The Arrow That Is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14, dir. James Frawley, aired 1/27/1983)
Creator: Donald P. Bellisario & Glen Larson
Costume Designer: Charles Waldo (credited with first season only)
Costume Supervisor: James Gilmore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 75th birthday of Tom Selleck, who starred for eight seasons as the titular private eye, er, “investigator” on Magnum, P.I. Even those unlucky few who haven’t seen an episode of the series are undoubtedly familiar with Selleck’s Emmy-winning portrayal of the character, a famously mustached Navy veteran outfitted in Aloha shirts, boat shoes, and often a Detroit Tigers cap (representative of Selleck’s own hometown) as he solved cases from his home base at Robin Masters’ luxurious Hawaiian estate with a sharp red Ferrari at his disposal… assuming he has the approval of the estate’s militant major-domo, Jonathan Quayle Higgins III (John Hillerman), a proven BAMF in his own right.

Selleck deserves much of the credit for molding Thomas Magnum into such an interesting, nuanced character that stood out against a backdrop of relatively one-note action heroes played by the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Frustrated with the original concept of Magnum as a smooth, James Bond-like detective, Selleck took inspiration from his mentor James Garner’s tongue-in-cheek portrayal of fellow private eye Jim Rockford, added a dash of the Indiana Jones characterization (a role that Selleck had to pass out due to his commitment to Magnum), and developed the character into a tough but sensitive veteran who valued his friendships and took on serious work without taking himself too seriously.

From the beginning, Magnum would call on the respective services of his pals and fellow vets T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) and Rick (Larry Manetti), whose respective charter helicopter and barroom connections were invariably valuable for Magnum’s P.I. work. The very first episode also established Magnum’s fondness for wearing Aloha shirts, appropriate for the Hawaiian setting though his practice of tucking in these famously casual shirts could be considered a faux pas.

• Magnum’s first on-screen Aloha shirt was this green “Star Orchid”-patterned shirt, making its inaugural appearance in the show’s premiere episode, “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1” (Episode 1.01), as Magnum picks up the sister of a recently deceased friend from the airport, learns a tip about the friend’s death from a talkative Navy ensign, and eventually finds himself in a car chase with Cook’s two killers, who pursue Magnum’s Ferrari in a rusty green Dodge Challenger that meets a fiery end in a sequence reminiscent of the famous Bullitt car chase, right down to the “dirty horns” on the soundtrack.
• The green Star Orchid shirt hung in the back of Magnum’s closet until rotating back to the top spot in his wardrobe in “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08), which aired on Selleck’s birthday 39 years ago, January 29, 1981. Magnum wears the shirt for the episode’s climax, calling in favors from Rick—who had been noticeably absent for the rest of the episode—as well as T.C.—despite Magnum’s growing expenses of $1,013.59 “…and that ain’t includin’ tax!” Even Higgins helps, not surprisingly enlisting the assistance of “the lads” given the title of the hour.
• “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12) marks the final first season appearance of the green Star Orchid shirt, worn over Magnum’s signature olive tank top when he goes undercover among the longshoremen at the Oahu docks to investigate the freighter Evelyn H. of Panama that he suspects was involved in T.C.’s recent legal issues.

• As with the first season, the green Star Orchid also kicks off Magnum’s aloha shirts for the second season in “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01). We find Magnum arguing helicopter charges over breakfast with T.C. at the King Kamehameha Club when the titular cowboy (James Whitmore, Jr.) blusters in, seeking to retain Magnum’s services in finding his little sister. Billy Joe’s fist-friendly techniques haven’t exactly ingratiated him to the proprietors of many Hawaiian businesses—including Rick—and even Magnum takes a deserved swing at the man.
• The green Star Orchid shirt makes its penultimate appearance in “The Taking of Dick McWilliams” (Episode 2.10) when Magnum’s chaotic tax preparations are interrupted by Mitsu McWilliams (Irene Yah-Ling Sun), who reports that her husband Dick (Guy Stockwell)—a “hellraiser” that Magnum knew in the Navy—has been kidnapped!
• Magnum is last seen wearing the shirt in “The Arrow That is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14) when Magnum actually takes on a job for Higgins… or rather to keep Higgins quiet about his use of dog repellent against the lads. Tasked with tracking down an ancient Japanese plate on behalf of Robin Masters, Magnum’s first stop is to visit a samurai warrior named Tozan (Mako)… who attacks him then spares his life to prove his innocence! Despite this confrontational start, Magnum comes to enjoy spending time with Tozan, who assures Magnum that he’s even more of a samurai than he realizes and takes him out for an evening of traditional entertainment.

Forty years after Magnum first made his small screen debut, the style most associated with him has come full circle for relevancy in 2020, as illustrated by Jake Woolf’s article that published just yesterday for GQ: “Magnum P.I. is the Style Icon You Never Knew You Needed”.

Well… some of us knew!

What’d He Wear?

Magnum is best remembered for his colorful Aloha shirts, though he typically wore only one or two per episode, frequently cycling through a robust wardrobe that included branded polo shirts, contrast-collared short- and long-sleeved rugby shirts, khaki or drab military-styled bush shirts, and—perhaps the most dated of his collection—the button-up neckband shirts that started appearing midway through the second season. For more casual cases, he also cycled through tank tops, raglan T-shirts, and comfortable sweaters.

Forty years after the first episode aired, the Aloha shirt has been so deeply associated with Magnum, P.I. that one is rarely discussed without the other being mentioned. Selleck’s screen-worn red “jungle bird” shirt, arguably the most iconic and frequently seen of Magnum’s Hawaiian shirts, was even donated to the Smithsonian after the final season. (Don’t worry, that classic shirt will receive its own BAMF Style rundown soon! In the meantime, you can pick up your own authentic jungle bird shirt from the original manufacturer, available in both red and black tropical prints from Aloha FunWear.)

About 50 years after the generally accepted date of the Aloha shirt’s introduction, Magnum, P.I. brought them to a new level of exposure. The show’s costume department picked out a few off-the-rack Aloha shirts from local Hawaiian stores like Liberty House, refreshing the collection between the first and second seasons once the garb’s popularity was realized. Magnum’s most familiar shirts—including the “jungle bird”, “Star Orchid”, and “Cala Lilly” prints—are from the Paradise Found label, owned by Pacific Clothing Company. “Pacific Clothing was not aware that their shirts would be featured when the show debuted,” I was told by my friend Lincoln who runs the excellent Aloha Spotter blog and Instagram account, though the company has wisely embraced its association with the iconic character and his shirts by featuring Selleck—and others wearing and referencing the shirts—on the landing page of their website.

The first of Magnum’s Aloha shirts to appear on screen was a rich dark green shirt with a floral orchid print that Paradise Found marketed as the “Star Orchid” pattern, made from a soft, silky rayon. At the time that the first and second seasons of Magnum, P.I. aired, these shirts were made from 100% rayon only. Over the course of the ’80s, Paradise Found added a 100% cotton poplin option and then only made these shirts in cotton from 1992 until 2007, when it resumed offering only the the traditional rayon Aloha shirts. (Thank you, Lincoln from Aloha Spotter, for the information!)

Magnum’s green Star Orchid shirt debuted in “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1” (Episode 1.01).

I’m grateful to Scott Murakami, president of Aloha FunWear, who checked in with Tim from Paradise Found about this shirt and learned that the Star Orchid print had originally been produced in 13 different colorways including beige and dark green (as seen in these classic episodes), though only the black is still produced today.”Initially, the flowers were a little closer together but Paradise Found tweaked the layout to make the flowers a little bit further apart,” Scott explained to me. “Those two versions co-existed in the market for a while, but the more spaced-apart version sold much better so Paradise Found discontinued to the old one and has kept the current one ever since.”

Magnum’s short-sleeved shirt, patterned with the original, denser orchid design, has the classic relaxed camp collar (or “revere collar”) traditionally associated with Aloha shirts. There are six natural wood two-hole buttons down the plain front that Magnum typically wears buttoned to mid-chest. Two side pleats on the back under the horizontal yoke contribute to the generous, free-flowing fit. Unlike the current Star Orchid shirts that Paradise Found offers, Magnum’s shirt has a non-matching breast pocket with the differing pattern positions on the pocket seemingly indicating that a different shirt was worn in the second and third seasons from the first season shirt.

Compare the upper left corner of Magnum’s shirt pocket in this screenshot from “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01) to this shot of Magnum wearing the same print when talking to ENS Healy in “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii” (Episode 1.01). The first season shirt has a star orchid positioned just under the corner with two leaves draping over the top of the pocket, while the second season shirt is barer in that corner with a star orchid cut off by the pocket opening with just the bottom of the flower showing. There are other places where the subtle differences between the shirts can be observed, but the non-matching pocket is the most obvious.

“In the ’80s, Star Orchid was offered in a variety of colorways, but today only black is still in production,” observed Lincoln from Aloha Spotter, and indeed the black Star Orchid print from Paradise Found is still available at Aloha FunWear as well as Amazon. The black Star Orchid shirt was even one of several original Paradise Found prints to be worn by Jay Hernandez on the second season of the Magnum, P.I. reboot that debuted in 2018.

Selleck’s Magnum wore his green Star Orchid shirt with considerably more frequency, though the black Star Orchid shirt was also worn on screen, specifically in “No Need to Know” (Episode 1.05), “All Roads Lead to Floyd” (Episode 1.13), and “J. ‘Digger’ Doyle” (Episode 1.17), though it was unfortunately not worn beyond the first season.

Clad in his black Star Orchid shirt, Magnum puts on an act for T.C.’s prospective passengers in “J. ‘Digger’ Doyle” (Episode 1.17).

Magnum almost always wears his Aloha shirts tucked in and sans undershirt, though an anomaly was his undercover work at the Oahu docks in “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12), where he layered his green Star Orchid shirt over one of his olive-colored cotton tank tops, allowing him to slip off the Aloha and blend in with the dockworkers. Even after his “mission” is complete, he wears the shirt untucked and completely unbuttoned over his tank top when he goes to confront T.C.

Having instigated a brawl to get the drug-dealing henchmen off his tail, Magnum un-disguises himself by re-donning his Aloha shirt and taking off the bandanna he had tied around his head.

Also part of Magnum’s dockworker disguise in “Thicker Than Blood” is a violet cotton bandanna patterned with rows of white “X” shapes and a paisley section where T.M. knots it against the back of his head.

“Stay relaxed. There’s plenty of time. Work the lock.”

Magnum almost exclusively wore khaki webbed belts throughout the duration of the series, a callback to the durable belts he would have worn with his khaki service and working uniforms in the Navy. During the first season, these belts had the standard brass-finished slider buckle that can be found on both government-issued and commercially available versions of these web belts from companies like Rothco.

Unlike Rick who wore more fashion-oriented denim, both Magnum and T.C. relied on classic American jeans like Levi’s. T.C. opted for dark denim, while Magnum preferred lighter washes that carried the classic 501® red tag as well as the orange tag that Levi Strauss & Co. used to denote non-basic items such as bellbottoms and boot-cuts from the 1960s through 1999.

Peep the orange tag on Peeping Tom’s Levi’s in this scene from the first episode, “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1.” Magnum also wouldn’t start wearing his personalized surface warfare belt buckle until the following season.

After the richer, medium blue wash denim of the first episode, Magnum would typically balance the high-contrast design of the green Star Orchid shirt with a lighter blue pair of Levi’s, as seen in all subsequent appearances during the first and second seasons.

The second season also marked the debut of Magnum’s signature personalized “Surface Warfare” belt buckle, a gold-toned slider buckle affixed to his khaki web belt with the U.S. Navy Surface Warfare emblem and “MAGNUM” embossed in gold just below it.

The first time we see Magnum’s Surface Warfare belt buckle is with this green Star Orchid shirt in the second season premiere, “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01). Note that Magnum is also back to wearing his team ring on his right hand, as he would through the duration of the series after the first season.

Magnum wore exclusively Levi’s jeans up through the sixteenth episode of the first season, when he debuted the dungarees that he would cycle in and out of his wardrobe over the rest of the series. These four-pocket jeans have two patch pockets on the front and two on the back, no doubt inspired by the iconic bell-bottomed denim dungarees that the U.S. Navy had authorized as an enlisted working uniform in 1913.

Though he had started wearing this style of jeans two years earlier, Magnum didn’t wear these four-pocket dungarees with his green Star Orchid shirt until the shirt’s final on-screen appearance in “The Arrow That is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14).

Magnum’s preference for boat shoes was appropriate for the P.I.’s laidback life by the water, with these iconic deck shoes appearing in shades of off-white and the occasional brown as briefly glimpsed with this shirt in “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08) and “The Taking of Dick McWilliams” (Episode 2.10), though he seems to be wearing the off-white leather Sperry Top-Siders for every other instance of wearing this shirt.

One interesting continuity error: during his fight with T.C. in “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12), Magnum’s beige boat shoes are swapped out with a pair of black sneakers.

The first modern boat shoes were introduced in 1935 by American yachtsman and outdoorsman Paul A. Sperry, who took inspiration from the cracks in his dog Prince’s paws that allowed the pup to run through ice without sliding to develop the “non-slip” sole of the now-iconic boat shoe that would be known as the Sperry Top-Sider. Per its “boat shoe” and “deck shoe” monikers, the Top-Sider was originally designed for better traction on the wet decks of seafaring vessels, eventually finding their way inland via New England.

Over the next half-century, boat shoes found their way around the world and became firmly established as the casual shoe of the ’80s, favored by some of the most popular characters of the decade including James Bond, Sam Malone, and Thomas Magnum.

These distinctive boat shoes are instantly recognizable for their moccasin-stitched construction and two- or three-eyelet derby-style open lacing. You can still buy a pair of Magnum-esque deck shoes:

• Sperry Authentic Original 2-Eye Boat Shoe in white leather (Amazon)
• Sperru Authentic Original PLUSHWAVE Washable 2-Eye Boat Shoe in “bone” nubuck (Sperry)
• Sperry Cloud Authentic Original 3-Eye Boat Shoe in white leather (Sperry)

The traditional non-skid soles that Sperry developed for the Top-Sider can be seen as Magnum kicks back in “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1” (Episode 1.01).

Much ado would be made about Magnum’s adoption of his aviator father’s prized (but ultimately anachronistic) Rolex GMT Master in the fourth season of Magnum, P.I., but in the three seasons preceding that, Magnum wore a stainless steel Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 dive watch that flashbacks reveal to be the same watch he wore during his Navy service in the Vietnam War. (According to a Redditor’s research, this has some historical integrity as some Navy SEAL teams evidently did wear Chronosports during their service in the early ’70s!)

Worn on a perforated black strap, Magnum’s Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 has a slim black tick-marked rotating bezel, a black dial with luminescent markers and numerals for 12, 6, and 9 o’clock with a black day-date window at 3:00. Episodes that show close-ups of the watch reveal it to be a pre-1982 model that just says “Quartz” on the dial before Chronosport added the full “Sea Quartz 30” designation on the dial.

The green Star Orchid shirt only appears across the show’s first three seasons, before Magnum (and Selleck himself) started wearing the POW/MIA bracelet recognizing Kenneth Ray Lancaster.

Also reflective of Magnum’s war service is the distinctive team ring that he, Rick, and T.C. wear, a gold ring with a French Croix de Lorraine (“Cross of Lorraine”) embossed on a large oval face, filled in with black enamel. Also known as a double cross or patriarchal cross, the Cross of Lorraine became a symbol of resistance during wartime France, and the experts at Magnum Mania! have suggested that this as a reasonable connection for why Magnum’s team chose this symbol for their own memento. Replicas abound, such as this relatively well-reviewed piece offered on Amazon.

The symbol has no association with the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps, the branches for which Magnum, Rick, and T.C. served, though it has been the insignia of the U.S. Army Reserve 79th Infantry Division since the division’s defense of France during World War I. Other than the majority of the first season when he wears the ring on his left hand à la wedding ring, Magnum wears his team ring proudly on the third finger of his right hand.

Magnum’s team ring and Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 dive watch are seen as he massages his head after a nearly concussive confrontation in “The Arrow That is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14).

Magnum wears several pairs of sunglasses throughout the series, including the iconic Ray-Ban Aviator, though the only pair that he prominently wears with the green Star Orchid shirt are the tortoise Vuarnet Skilynx Aciers.

The Vuarnet brand was introduced in 1961 to capitalize on French alpine ski racer Jean Vuarnet’s gold medal during the previous year’s Winter Olympics as Roger Pouilloux and Joseph Hatchiguian were seeking to market the Skilynx lens they had invented four years prior. The sporty Acier nylon frame as worn by Selleck was particularly popular during the 1970s and ’80s.

Magnum wears his Vuarnet sunglasses atop his head in “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01). The only time he would wear them with this shirt would be in “The Arrow That Is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14).

One of the most iconic elements of Thomas Magnum’s appearance is his Detroit Tigers baseball cap, a nod to Tom Selleck’s birthplace that was also written to become Magnum’s birthplace, though he would be raised in Virginia.

The cap logo is consistent with the same look that the Tigers have worn on their home caps since 1924 through the present day, with a white letter “D” in the Middle English blackletter typeface against a navy blue cotton twill ground. As with all MLB teams, the Tigers’ caps are widely available (including from Amazon) though they’re considerably more popular than many other teams due to their association with Magnum, P.I.

Magnum only wore his navy Detroit Tigers cap with the green Star Orchid shirt in “The Arrow That is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14).

After a two-season absence, the green Star Orchid shirt made what I believe to be its final appearance atop of clothing Magnum was seen pulling from his bedroom in “Kiss of the Sabre” (Episode 5.11) when Higgins was temporarily dislocating him so that Robin Masters’ writer friend, Betty Windom (Cassie Yates), could stay in the Robin’s Nest guest house.

Although he hadn’t worn it for nearly two years, the dark green “Star Orchid” shirt is one of a few aloha shirts to retain their place among Magnum’s clothing in “Kiss of the Sabre”, in addition to the classic red “jungle bird” shirt and some of the later additions to his wardrobe.

It wasn’t until the serious two-partner that opened the third season, “Did You See the Sunrise?”, that Magnum went a full episode—in fact, two!—without wearing a festive Aloha shirt. By the fifth season, Alohas were all but phased out as Magnum, P.I. took on grittier story lines as indicated by the dark ending to its season opener.

By the final seasons, only the red “jungle bird” Aloha shirt remained in semi-regular rotation of Magnum’s classic Alohas, seen sporadically in episodes like “Murder by Night” (Episode 7.14) and “The Love That Lies” (Episode 8.06), until making its final appearance at the end of the Indiana Jones-inspired episode “Legend of the Lost Art” (Episode 8.10). It seemed like Higgins’ influence was rubbing off on Magnum as we saw less and less of our favorite Aloha shirts in favor of not just casual staples like Harrington jackets but also sport jackets, blazers, and suits with increasing frequency.

The Car

There’s plenty to say about Magnum’s Ferrari… or, more accurately, the series of Ferraris that Magnum would “borrow” from his benefactor, Robin Masters, over the course of the show. I’ll save the bulk of commentary for when ROBIN 1 receives its due treatment during an upcoming #CarWeek installment, but it would be a grave oversight to not give some attention to the stylish bright red sports car that became as much associated with Magnum as his Tigers cap and mustache.

ROBIN 1 takes the rare third passenger in “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12) when both T.C. and Rick (perched between them) hitch a ride with Magnum in the 1979 Ferrari 308GTS featured during the series’ first season.

In the first season of Magnum, P.I., the ROBIN 1 license plates were affixed to a 1979 Ferrari 308GTS, to be supplanted by a 1981 Ferrari 308GTSi for the second through sixth seasons and, finally, a 1984 Ferrari 308GTSi quattrovavole for the final two seasons.

Boasting a sleek body design by Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina, the 308 was introduced by Ferrari in 1975 to replace the mid-engine Dino series that Ferrari had produced since 1967. Initially available only in the close-topped “Berlinetta” GTB model, the targa-topped GTS model was introduced at the 1977 Frankfurt Motor Show.

Magnum arrives at the McWilliams household in “The Taking of Dick McWilliams” (Episode 2.10). For the second season of the series, ROBIN 1 was replaced with a 1981 Ferrari 308GTSi.

All Ferrari 308 models were powered by a 2.9 L Tipo V8 engine that varied based on model or generation. You can read more about Magnum’s various Ferraris at this comprehensive page from Magnum Mania! (Expect to read more about the cars themselves beginning with BAMF Style’s #CarWeek post to be published in summer 2020!)

The Gun

As a Navy veteran, Magnum would be familiar with the classic M1911A1 service pistol that served all branches of the U.S. military from the 1920s through the 1980s. Thus, he often prepares for investigations that prove more dangerous than usual by bringing along a Colt 1911. Magnum’s pistol is ostensibly meant to be his service .45 from the Navy, but the production instead armed Tom Selleck with a Colt MK IV Series 70 Government Model, a commercial version of the venerated 1911.

Magnum’s tucked-in Aloha shirts don’t provide much for the private eye to easily carry or conceal the full-sized Colt pistol, but the armed danger he encounters in “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08) means Magnum isn’t taking any chances and he brings his Colt along for the final confrontation.

Not only is Magnum’s Colt not a military-issue sidearm, but it’s also chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum rather than the more powerful .45 ACP caliber. As the .45 ACP round was notably unreliable for blank-firing weapons, 9mm alternatives had long been used as stand-ins by productions like The Wild Bunch (1969), Dillinger (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and The Untouchables (1987), all of which featured the Spanish-made Star Model B in scenes where its 1911-toting characters were depicted firing their weapons.

In a few early episodes, notably “China Doll” (Episode 1.03), Magnum, P.I. makes the same Star Model B substitution but this practice grew far less common as the show continued until Magnum was exclusively using his genuine Colt Government Model… unless he was carrying one of his compact backup pistols like the Detonics Pocket 9 or Walther PPK. (You can read more about the firearms used on Magnum, P.I. at IMFDB. For more expert discussion about Magnum’s 1911, I recommend this forum at Magnum Mania.)

The lack of an external extractor on Magnum’s 1911 in “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08) proves that he is carrying his genuine Colt and not the Star Model B that was used as a stand-in during at least one first season episode.

A screen-used Colt from Magnum, P.I. was included as Lot 152 in a June 2007 auction from the Stembridge Armory Collection, where it was described in the catalog as:

Colt MK IV Series 70 Gov’t Model semi-auto pistol, 9mm Luger cal., 5” barrel, #70L33101. The barrel is adapted for firing blanks, approx. 95% blue finish remaining with slight holster wear, checkered brown plastic grips, correct Colt 9mm Luger marked magazine.

Interestingly, the auction also included a Walther PPK that was used both on Magnum, P.I. and carried by Timothy Dalton as James Bond in his second and last 007 film, Licence to Kill (1989).

A firearms enthusiast with military experience from his six-year service with the California Army National Guard, Tom Selleck has been a longtime proponent of the 1911 design, particularly the Smith & Wesson SW1911SC Gunsite Edition that he carried in all eight of the Jesse Stone film series as well as the NBC TV series Las Vegas. You can read more about Selleck’s extensive history with on-screen (and off-screen) firearms at IMFDB.

How to Get the Look

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum in a promotional shot for Magnum, P.I. Evidently, the showrunners had not yet determined what would be Magnum’s watch of choice.

Thomas Magnum may have had a more diverse wardrobe than people recall, but his fondness for Aloha shirts apropos the show’s Hawaiian setting remain a memorable hallmark of Magnum, P.I. as established from the first episode when Tom Selleck appeared on screen with this star orchid-patterned Aloha shirt tucked into his Levi’s and worn with webbed belt and boat shoes.

• Dark green “Star Orchid” floral-patterned rayon Aloha shirt by Paradise Found with camp collar, plain front (with 6 wood buttons), non-matching breast pocket, and short sleeves
  • Available in black via AlohaFunWear
• Light blue denim Levi’s vintage “orange tag” jeans
  • Alternative Levi’s 501 “red tag” in medium stonewash available via Amazon
• Khaki web belt with gold-tone USN “Surface Warfare” belt buckle
  • Available via Amazon
• Off-white leather Sperry Top-Sider boat shoes
  • Available via Amazon
• Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 stainless steel dive watch with black rotating bezel, black dial (with luminescent hour markers and 3:00 day-date window), on perforated black strap
• Gold Croix de Lorraine team ring
  • Replicas available via Amazon
• Detroit Tigers baseball cap in navy cotton twill with white-embroidered logo
  • Available via Amazon
• Vuarnet Skilynx Acier tortoise nylon sport sunglasses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series. And stay tuned… there’s a more in-depth project regarding Magnum’s style in the works.

I also highly suggest the extensively researched Magnum Mania! site for fans of the series. For obvious reasons, I suggest the site’s comprehensive Magnum Gear page that includes brief descriptions and links about the clothing and accessories worn by not just Magnum but also Rick, T.C., and Higgins.

The Quote

Sometimes I get so lucky even I don’t believe it.

Clark Gable as Mike Hamilton in It Started in Naples (1960)

Vitals

Clark Gable as Michael Hamilton, Philadelphia lawyer and World War II veteran

Naples to Capri, Italy, Late Summer 1959

Film: It Started in Naples 
Release Date: August 7, 1960
Director: Melville Shavelson
Costume Designer: Orietta Nasalli-Rocca

Background

Screen legend Clark Gable was born 119 years ago today on February 1, 1901, the start of a storied life that included an Academy Award for It Happened One Night (1934), acclaimed performances in iconic movies like Gone with the Wind (1939) and Mogambo (1953), and decorated service with the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. While The Misfits (1961) co-starring Marilyn Monroe was Gable’s final film to be theatrically released, It Started in Naples was his final performance released during his lifetime.

It Started in Naples was filmed on location in the beautiful Isle of Capri and paired Gable with the equally beautiful Sophia Loren. Gable and Loren reportedly did not get along during the filming, a conflict exacerbated by Loren’s suspicion that Shavelson was filming her “bad side” in order to favor Gable’s good side, to which the actor retorted: “What the hell is she talking about? Both sides of my face are lousy and my backside isn’t much better.” Though this didn’t endear either star to the other, Gable was reportedly helpful in smuggling her husband Carlo Ponti onto the Isle of Capri to help Loren celebrate her 25th birthday in September 1959, and the actress herself praised Gable’s professionalism in her memoir Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.

On screen, however, Gable and Loren are charming as the mismatched American lawyer and free-spirited Italian cabaret singer who has been taking care of the nephew he never knew he had.

The happy family to-be.

“For a while in this town, Spam took the place of spaghetti,” recalls Michael Hamilton (Gable) of his return to Naples to settle his brother’s estate. Hamilton’s last visit to the town had been 15 years prior when he was serving with the United States Fifth Army during World War II. His ostensible overnight trip grows increasingly complicated when he learns that not only was his fireworks-enterprising brother in a bigamous marriage to a now-deceased Italian woman but that the departed Hamilton had left behind an eight-year-old son, the cigarette-smoking Fernando—”Nando”—now in the care of his aunt, the vivacious Lucia (Loren).

Mike spends “two seasick hours” following Lucia out to Capri, where he ends up stuck when the last boat to the mainland leaves earlier than scheduled. The ceaseless celebrations from the street keep him awake at 1 a.m., so Mike joins the carousers in the town square and orders coffee, asking the waiter: “How are people supposed to sleep on this island?” “Together,” the waiter cracks. Any remaining amusement grows to concern when Mike encounters Nando (Carlo Angeletti) handing out cabaret fliers, advertising the talents of his voluptuous aunt. Mike heads to Club Capriccio in time to find the scantily clad Loren serenading the audience with her famous performance of “Tu vuò fà l’americano”.

The movie was released in August 1960, three months before Gable would suffer his third and ultimately final heart attack. In addition to his daily routine of copious cigarettes and alcohol, the Italian production reportedly contributed to Gable’s declining health as the actor became reasonably—if unhealthily—addicted to the hearty Italian food that ballooned his weight up to more than 230 pounds, a fluctuation noticeable on screen as Gable’s character ranges from 190 to 235 pounds over the course of a few weeks’ worth of action.

What’d He Wear?

Clark Gable typified the class of “golden era” actors who put attention into how he dressed, rarely appearing in public in anything less than a finely tailored and stylishly appointed suit, looking every bit the gentleman when he took the stage in resplendent white tie to accept his Best Actor Oscar in February 1935.

A quarter of a century later, Gable’s style adapted with the times, favoring suits consistent with the era’s shifting fashion sensibilities while also regarding that his aging physique would need a little more effort to flatteringly tailor than the leaner young actor who so daringly appeared sans undershirt in It Happened One Night.

“While working for the legendary tailor Gennaro Rubinacci, Attolini designed a completely revolutionary men’s suit jacket featuring a slimmer fit, higher armholes, and a boat-shaped breast pocket. The new coat was more comfortable than the stiff English Savile Row silhouettes that the Italians were duplicating at the time. The design also had a more natural fit and held its shape longer, which is why that jacket became the prototype for what is today known as the Neapolitan style,” wrote William Kissel in his 2002 article for Robb Report, explaining that Attolini had first crafted this style in the 1930s. “But the Neapolitan look didn’t truly gain international attention until Clark Gable and Vittorio De Sica sported Attolini suits for the 1960 film, It Started in Naples.”

But is that really the case?

The dapper duo of De Sica and Gable walk the Neapolitan streets in their Neapolitan suits… or at least De Sica wears a confirmed Neapolitan product, Gable still appears to be clad in his American-made duds.

Gable’s Michael Hamilton arrives in Naples wearing a lightweight two-piece traveling suit in olive-tinted taupe gabardine, which would be the more frequently seen of his two suits. While the stylish De Sica had famously been an Attolini client for years and Gable most likely had some suits made for him during his sojourn in southern Italy, I don’t believer his screen-worn suits were tailored by Attolini as Kissel stated in his article. In fact, I would suggest that—more consistent with his character and the details of his tailoring—they are American-made and quite possibly products of American menswear bastion Brooks Brothers.

The taupe suit jacket has moderately narrow notch lapels that cleanly roll over the top of the 3/2-roll button formation. The edges are swelled on the lapels and pockets, including the flaps and patches of the hip pockets and the welted breast pocket. The straight shape of this pocket suggests that this is not a Neapolitan style suit, which would be rigged with the more gently curved “barcetta” pocket. That said, the soft, natural shoulders are suggestive of the Neapolitan spalla a camicia shoulder developed to resemble a shirt sleeve, characterized by its more natural appearance than the heavily roped con rollino or “pagoda” shoulder also favored by some Italian tailors. (That said, it also lacks the shirring of a signature Neapolitan jacket.)

The verdict? The 3/2-roll and natural shoulders are a common trait to both American and Italian suits, but the specific shoulders, looser fit, lower armholes, pocket detailing, and single vent are all far more suggestive of an American-made suit… which makes more character sense as we’re to believe that Michael Hamilton hasn’t been in Naples since World War II, fifteen years earlier.

Gable wears flat front trousers that hug his hips, indicating an instance where pleats may have been a more flattering—if not more comfortable—choice to accommodate the actor’s fluctuating waist line. The tightness around the hips causes the vertical side pockets to flare out at times, a phenomenon that tailors would briefly attempt to rectify with the boom of “frogmouth” pockets through the ’60s and most prominently into the ’70s before pleats would again become the predominant style during the 1980s, giving men more room through the hips and nullifying the benefits of frogmouth pockets.

Gable wears a burgundy leather belt that closes through a rounded gold-toned single-prong buckle. The trousers have two button-through back pockets and are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms.

Mike Hamilton is dismayed by the quality of tap water in his Capri hotel bathroom.

While there may have been some confusion about the provenance of Mike Hamilton’s tailoring, Mike’s white button-down shirt leaves little question that he dresses like the “Americano” that the subject in Loren’s famous song aspires to be. Brooks Brothers had introduced the classic polo shirt with its button-down collar to the American market at the turn of the 20th century after John E. Brooks had admiringly noted the hidden buttons securing the shirt collars worn by English polo players.

Over the course of the early 20th century, Brooks’ sporty shirt with its admittedly elegant collar roll evolved into a staple worn casually with insouciant pride by Ivy Leaguers and more formally with suit and tie by dashing Americans, including Gable himself who was a Brooks Brothers customer from the 1940s on. In fact, Josh Sims writes in Icons of Men’s Style that “Clark Gable, Hollywood superstar, may have killed the vest… but he helped make the button-down shirt. With his 112-centimetre chest and 81-centrimetre waist, he was generally ill-suited to most ready-to-wear clothing of the time—with the exception of the Brooks Brothers button-down shirt.

The white oxford cloth cotton shirt in It Started to Naples with its enduring fold lines from hours tucked away in Mike’s suitcase is almost certainly a Brooks Brothers product, detailed with that distinctive button-down collar, front placket, and rounded cuffs that Gable wears unbuttoned and rolled up his forearms when hanging around his hotel room.

Mike realizes with some begrudging pride that Nando lifted his gold lighter.

Aside from the dressed-down wardrobe he briefly adopts during his romance with Lucia, the only other shirt that Mike wears is a short-sleeved version of the white button-down shirt, best seen when he’s boating, baseballing, and bonding with Nando. He wears that shirt with these orphaned suit trousers, burgundy belt, and monk strap shoes.

Gable’s skinny bronze woven silk tie is patterned in a mini tic-check.

Note the continuity error of what appears to be a yellow gold watch bracelet on Gable’s left wrist.

The least traditionally American element of this ensemble are Mike’s chestnut brown leather monk strap shoes, each detailed with a single strap that closes through a large rectangular gold-toned buckle. The current popularity of both single- and double-monk strap shoes mean that most modern shoemakers offer quality versions of at least one or the other, with the Clarks “Tilden” single-strap monk in dark tan leather (via Amazon) likely being your best bet for an affordable update of Gable’s screen-worn kicks.

Gable wears tonally coordinated chocolate brown cotton lisle socks.

A lonely night in Mike’s Capri hotel room.

As an American traveling on business who has yet to be enveloped in the leisurely Capri culture, Mike rarely ventures outside at first without his dark olive felt short-brimmed trilby. The self-edged hat has a high crown devoid of pinching, finished with a wide black grosgrain band.

Clark Gable had been photographed wearing a few gold chain-link bracelets over his career and one makes a few flash appearances on his right wrist in It Started in Naples. Based on the curb-chain linkage and the long flat tag on the top of his wrist, we can deduce that this was the medical ID bracelet he started wearing in middle age—likely in tandem with his military service—and not the gold bracelet engraved with his initials that Carole Lombard had gifted to him in the 1930s (which you can read more about at Dear Mr. Gable.)

Assuming that this was Gable’s own medical ID bracelet, it’s likely the same one included in a September 2010 Guernsey’s auction and a September 2012 Nate D. Sanders auction that both described the 14-karat yellow gold bracelet as inscribed with “CLARK GABLE” on one side and “O-565390” on the reverse.

Mike wears a gold signet ring on his left pinky, likely also Gable’s own ring as this was affectation shared by many of his contemporaries.

Of greater plot significance is Mike’s wristwatch, a plain steel watch with a round silver dial worn on a black leather strap. Mike himself identifies it as an American watch during his lunch with Nando, though—at the time—the few watches to feature alarms included the Vulcain Cricket, Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox, and the Tudor Advisor. Of those options, I propose that Gable’s screen-worn watch most resembles the Vulcain, but I’d welcome the feedback of stronger horological eyes and minds than I have. (You can read more about the development of alarm watches at Timepiece Chronicle or some of Gable’s own watches at Horologium.)

“Gable was and wasn’t there,” Loren recalled in Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. “He’d get to the set very early, right on time and very professional. He was always perfect. Perfect with his lines, perfect with his makeup, perfect with his schedule. So perfect that when five in the afternoon came around you’d hear the ringing of his wristwatch. Which meant that it was over and he could leave the scene midway through and just take off.” Perhaps the alarm watch was one of Gable’s own?

Mike shares his cheeseburger ingredients, the fruits of two hours with his English-to-Italian dictionary, with Nando during their “man-to-man” talk… when Mike’s watch alarm goes off, startling the boy.

“What for you got campanile on your hand?” asks Nando, referring to the Italian term for a bell tower. “Well, time can be a very important thing,” explains Mike. “Sometimes on a little island like this we forget about it, but forgetting about it isn’t going to stop it.”

During his campaign to “Americanize” Nando by endearing him to the country’s great American pastime and enforcing a rigid scholarly schedule, Mike goes so far as to give the boy his watch and begins wearing a plain gold tank watch instead, perhaps symbolizing Mike’s growing disregard for American punctuality as he comes to appreciate the easier pace of Capri life.

Nando sports Mike’s gifts to encourage Americanization: a Phillies cap and an alarm watch.

Per the original purpose and duration of his trip, Mike packs only this sporty suit and a more businesslike black pinstripe suit, briefly eschewing both in favor of more casual, leisure-oriented clothing, notably an untucked blue-striped “Italian collar” shirt worn with khakis and espadrilles.

What to Imbibe

Apropos the actor’s rugged reputation that MGM had encouraged with their “lumberjack in evening clothes” publicity in the ’30s, Gable’s character finds the tap water in his Capri hotel room to be below his drinkability standards so he instead opts to brush his teeth with a bottle of Kentucky Tavern bourbon whiskey from his suitcase.

“I’m not drunk! I brushed my teeth with a little whiskey, that’s all,” he later protests while on the phone with his fiancee.

Kentucky Tavern was first distilled by the R. Monarch Distillery in Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1880, though ownership transferred to James Thompson’s Glenmore Distillery Company around the turn of the century. Available in 80- and 100-proof varieties, Kentucky Tavern remains well-regarded among affordable bourbons, recently awarded the Bronze Medal in the 2019 World Whiskies Awards.

How to Get the Look

Clark Gable as Mike Hamilton in It Started in Naples (1960)

Clark Gable dressed for his penultimate screen appearance in It Started in Naples wearing the quintessential “Americano” garb of a lightweight sport suit, button-down shirt and tie, and businesslike trilby with his natty brown monk-strap shoes adding a natty continental flair.

• Olive-tinted taupe gabardine tailored sport suit:
  • Single-breasted 3/2-roll jacket with spalla a camicia-style natural shoulders, notch lapels, straight welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat front medium-high rise trousers with belt loops, straight side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• White cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, and rounded button cuffs
• Bronze mini tic-checked woven silk skinny tie
• Burgundy leather belt with curved gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Chestnut brown leather single-monk strap shoes with gold buckle
• Chocolate brown cotton lisle socks
• Dark olive felt trilby with black grosgrain band
• Gold signet ring
• Gold medical ID bracelet with curb-chain links
• Steel-cased alarm watch with round silver dial on black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

When a man’s been a bachelor as long as I have, marriage is neither a convenience nor a necessity… just a means of reducing the tax rate.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 3.09: “The Telltale Moozadell”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, New Jersey mob boss

New Jersey, Winter 2000-2002

Series: The Sopranos
Episodes:
– “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11, dir. Henry J. Bronchtein, aired 3/21/1999)
– “The Telltale Moozadell” (Episode 3.09, dir. Dan Attias, aired 4/22/2001)
– “Pine Barrens” (Episode 3.11, dir. Steve Buscemi, aired 5/6/2001)
– “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09, dir. Tim Van Patten, aired 11/10/2002)
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

Background

Let’s kick off the first 2020 post about James Gandolfini’s expansive wardrobe on The Sopranos by looking ahead this week to Wear Red Day, the American Heart Association’s annual observance on the first Friday of each February that encourages people to wear red to show their support for the awareness of heart disease.

What’d He Wear?

I was always particularly drawn to the rich knit long-sleeved polo shirts that Tony Soprano wore in various shades of red across the series, differing from a pinkish mauve to an inky dark burgundy. These rich pullover shirts have been depicted as a casual staple in Italian-American mob fiction dating back to the era represented in Goodfellas, and the red shades of Tony’s shirts evoke power, passion, and—ultimately—the blood spilled by the Soprano family’s dangerous profession.

Though they differ in color, all three of Tony’s red knit long-sleeved polos share a soft structure lent from their luxurious cashmere or silk construction that includes a soft collar and elasticized hem and cuffs. All three shirts also have three-button tops with slightly contrasting plastic buttons on the gray-to-black color scale. He always wears them tucked into slacks with a dark belt and coordinating bit loafers.

These shirts, practically lightweight sweaters with a collar and button-top, are not to be confused with the more pedestrian pique short-sleeved polo that Gandolfini wears with black trousers à la Tiger Woods (or a post-coital Ron Swanson) during his panic attack in the pilot episode.

Brick Red in “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11)

Tony wears the first of these red knit long-sleeve polos in the first season episode “Nobody Knows Anything”. His troubled acquaintance, corrupt detective Vin Makazian (John Heard), has just thrown himself off a bridge and Tony enjoys a moment of consolation with Debbie (Karen Sillas), the madam who ran the high-end brothel frequented by Tony’s cronies as well as Vin. We next see Tony at dinner with his family, interrupted by an unannounced visit from his capo Jimmy Altieri (Joseph Badalucco Jr.) The visit convinces Tony that Jimmy is a government informant and he hurries to get ahold of Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) to make sure Paulie hasn’t already whacked their suspected friend Pussy:

You answer me like I’m Jesus Christ himself and, if you fuckin’ lie to me, may your mother die of cancer of the eyes! Where’s Pussy?

This rich brick red knit silk-blend shirt has a soft, polo-style collar with three flat smoke-gray plastic buttons at the top, which Tony wears with only the lowest button done. He occasionally pushes his sleeves up his forearms, which puts pressure on the elasticized ribbing on the cuffs and can lead to excessive loosening over time.

“Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11)

Tony wears dark charcoal pleated trousers with a dark leather belt, likely dark burgundy leather to coordinate with his shoes. His dark burgundy split-toe loafers have silver horsebit detailing and are worn with dark socks.

“Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11)

Dark Burgundy in “The Telltale Moozadell” (Episode 3.09)

Two years later on Carmela’s birthday in “The Telltale Moozadell”, Tony kicks off the celebration by giving her a sapphire ring from Harry Winston, which she would wear with decreasing pride over the next few episodes.

Based on the cut, style, and his identification of a similar black shirt worn in “Amour Fou” (Episode 3.12), my friend who runs the @tonysopranostyle Instagram account deduced that this dark burgundy shirt is almost certainly a product by Axis.

Tony presents Carmela with her birthday gift in “The Telltale Moozadell” (Episode 3.09). Somehow, his motives are even more suspect than A.J. giving her The Matrix (then going off to watch it himself) and Meadow giving her a shared spa day (which she put on Carmela’s credit card).

As a lighter contrast to the dark shirt, Tony wears the standard issue trousers of the suburban dad: pleated khakis. These slacks have single reverse pleats, side pockets, back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs) on the bottoms, and they’re worn with a dark brown leather belt that closes through a squared gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Tony again wears Gucci-style loafers with this outfit, perfectly suitable for a small celebration at home more dressed down than the graduations and confirmation parties that have been celebrated at the house. While I recognized that they were likely made by Allen Edmonds, the esteemed shoemaker preferred not only by Tony but generations of U.S. Presidents, my friend @tonysopranostyle was able to lock down the likely model as the Allen Edmonds “Verona”, still available via Amazon in black, brown, and walnut tan. These black Italian leather moc-toe loafers have a strap across the vamp detailed with gold horse-bit ornamentation. Tony wears them with dark brown ribbed cotton lisle socks.

Carmela dishes some side-eye over coffee during her birthday celebration in “The Telltale Moozadell” (Episode 3.09).

Mauve in “Pine Barrens” (Episode 3.11) and “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09)

The third and last of the reddish knit long-sleeve polos that Tony wears on The Sopranos is the lightest-colored of them all, shaded in a purplish tone somewhere between mauve and a muted cerise. The shirt has a short three-button French placket, like the others, with three black slightly recessed plastic 4-hole buttons.

Unlike the others included in this post, this shirt appears more than once, first during the therapy session closing out the famous “Pine Barrens” episode and again when Svetlana (Allia Kliouka Schaffer) comes calling after Junior (Dominic Chianese) took a tumble on the courthouse steps.

Tony and Svetlana are subconsciously united in their dark red tops when she arrives at Junior’s house in “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09). The following episode, “The Strong, Silent Type” (Episode 4.10), they would take this union to the next level.

In both episodes where Tony wears this shirt, he wears a businesslike pair of dark gray pleated slacks with belt loops, side pockets, and cuffed bottoms with a pair of black calf cap-toe oxfords, a perhaps excessively formal choice for this dressed-down approach.

“Oh, and by that I’m supposed to know she’s gonna throw a fuckin’ roast beef at my head?” Tony runs the emotional gamut during his therapy session with Dr. Melfi that closes out “Pine Barrens” (Episode 3.11).

By the fourth and fifth seasons, costume designer Juliet Polcsa was phasing polo shirts out of Tony’s wardrobe, later explaining her reasoning in a 2014 interview with Christopher Hooton for The Independent: “Less polo shirts became more of a necessity as Jim Gandolfini gained more weight. He wasn’t comfortable in knits that clung to him.”

Tony’s Accessories and Jewelry

After the first episode, Tony wore essentially the same gold jewelry and accessories through the duration of the series. Around his neck, he wears a gold necklace with a round St. Jerome pendant that he keeps under his shirt. His right wrist is adorned with a gold bracelet with a custom curb link that @tonysopranostyle describes as the ostensible result of “a Cuban curbed link chain and an Italian Figaro link chain with a twist.” Tony wears his usual gold ruby-and-diamond bypass ring on his right pinky with his gold wedding band on the third finger of his opposing hand.

Dinner at the Soprano household in “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11).

Tony’s luxury watch is an 18-karat yellow gold Rolex Day-Date ref. 18238 “President”, so named for its distinctive link bracelet with a hidden clasp. This chronometer has Roman numerals around the champagne gold dial with a long display for the day of the week at the top and a date window at 3:00.

Tony flashes his Rolex during a moment of mid-therapy emotional strife in “Pine Barrens” (Episode 3.11).

The quartz Seiko SGF206 is strapped to a Jubilee-like bracelet while the automatic Seiko SNKK52 has a bracelet that more closely resembles the President while the dial itself is considerably different.

What to Imbibe

The Sopranos firmly established the drink preferences of its inhabitants; no meal was complete without Ruffino Chianti, Tony would turn to Scotch in good times and in bad, and Adriana had to learn to love White Russians when she couldn’t stomach anything much stronger.

One more rarely seen drink is the Coffaro beer that Tony and Junior are drinking in “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09). Now defunct, this “Italian Style” beer had once been brewed in Brick, New Jersey, about an hour and a half south from Junior’s pad in Newark.

Tony and Uncle Junior enjoy beers, sandwiches, and antipast’ in “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09).

According to a press release dated June 2003, Tony Coffaro explained that the beer and branded swag were delivered to the show on request: “They asked us to supply them with props such as cases of beer, umbrellas, neon signs, etc., to be used in the background of the sets. You can catch a glimpse of these various items in the last 3-4 episodes. Currently, HBO is filming their fifth season of the hit show and we dropped off about 30 cases for the cast and staff. There is no guarantee that the props will be used in the upcoming season, but the fact that they asked us for more leaves us hopeful, so keep watching.”

While some of the additional merchandise and boxes do make sporadic appearances, I believe the only other time we see a character actually drinking Coffaro beer was Bobby Bacala (Steven R. Schirripa) in “Where’s Johnny?” (Episode 5.03).

How to Get the Look

Tony Soprano wore a few different variations of the long-sleeved red knit polo and slacks, but this comprehensive approach should get you started in the right direction if you want to channel a favored casual look from The Sopranos‘ dynamic boss.

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 3.11: “Pine Barrens”)

• Red cashmere-blend knit long-sleeve polo shirt with soft collar, dark gray three-button top, and elasticized cuffs and hem
• White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
• Dark gray pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black or burgundy leather belt with rounded gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black or burgundy leather horsebit loafers
• Dark cotton lisle socks
• Rolex Day-Date “President” 18238 chronometer watch in 18-karat yellow gold with champagne-colored dial and “President” link bracelet
• Gold curb-chain link bracelet
• Gold pinky ring with bypassing ruby and diamond stones
• Gold wedding ring
• Gold open-link chain necklace with round St. Jerome pendant

If you like the style, I recommend checking out some of the following:

• Cashmere Heartland 4 Ply Men’s Polo Cashmere Sweater in burgundy cashmere ($229, Cashmere Heartland)
• Corneliani Burgundy Silk, Merino Wool, and Cashmere Jumper in burgundy 35% cashmere/35% merino/30% silk ($428, Corneliani)
• Ermenegildo Zegna Men’s Long-Sleeve Jersey Polo Shirt in medium red cotton/cashmere ($545, Neiman Marcus)
• Orvis Cotton/Silk/Cashmere Long-Sleeved Polo in currant cotton/silk/cashmere ($89 to $119, Amazon)
• Zanone Cashmere Polo in burgundy cashmere (€599, Frans Boone)

All prices up to date as of January 2020.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series. Particularly for fans of Gandolfini’s wardrobe and accessories, I suggest you follow my friend @tonysopranostyle on Instagram!

The Quote

Why does everything gotta be so hard?

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, washed-up TV actor

Los Angeles, February 1969

Film: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Release Date: July 26, 2019
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips

Background

Now that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood has been released on video and streaming services, I wanted to get cracking on the much-requested to cover Arianne Phillips’ fantastic costume design that brought the end of the swinging ’60s to life. Phillips’ costume design is one of ten categories for which Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a contender at the Academy Awards this Sunday, in addition to nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt.

As Pitt’s yellow Aloha shirt and jeans was already the subject of a BAMF Style “preview” post last summer (with a more robust post to come, I assure you!), I wanted to turn my attention to Rick Dalton, the fading star of TV westerns who’s forced to admit at the start of the movie:

It’s official, old buddy. I’m a has-been.

Given how intensely people have requested content from Quentin Tarantino’s ninth movie, I hosted an Instagram poll last where more than 500 of you voted for which of Rick Dalton’s signature leather jackets should receive the first BAMF Style post, with more than two-thirds of the vote leaning toward the brown leather jacket that he wears in the first “contemporary” scene of the movie, set 51 years ago this week on Saturday, February 8, 1969.

Full of swagger to mask his insecurity, Rick brings his stuntman and best friend Cliff Booth along as they stride into Musso & Frank Grill, an iconic Hollywood hotspot that would’ve been celebrating its 50th anniversary that year. The occasion is a meeting with Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino), the flamboyant talent agent and recent Rick Dalton superfan who dedicates himself to putting the star of Bounty Law back on the map with a series of the “spaghetti Westerns” that catapulted Clint Eastwood to superstardom earlier in the decade.

What’d He Wear?

Promotional photo of Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Margot Robbie in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

There’s little surprise that Arianne Phillips’ vibrant costume design in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood has earned her accolades and nominations from the Academy Awards, BAFTAs, Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics’ Choice Awards, Hollywood Film Critics Association, and many more, with interest abuzz from fans ever since Leonardo DiCaprio posted a photo of he and Brad Pitt in their respective costumes on his Instagram profile in June 2018, more than a year before the movie’s release.

In the months to follow with more images and clips steadily being released by the production leading up to the release, fans were clamoring to hear not just from the director and stars but also from the production and costume design teams. In a July 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Cathy Whitlock, Phillips shared that:

Since DiCaprio’s character is a 1950s Western actor, his turtlenecks and leather jackets were “browns, oranges and mustards,” the designer says, while Pitt was clad in Hawaiian shirts, aviators and “denim, part of the 1960s youth culture.”

Rick Dalton’s color scheme becomes quite evident the first time we ever see him in color, riding alongside his loyal pal in his cream-colored Cadillac sporting brown leather jacket and boots with underpinnings in tonal shades that nod toward orange and gold.

While the energetic agent Marvin Schwarz jumps from the screen in his vibrant blues, Rick Dalton almost blends into the Musso & Frank atmosphere in his brown leather that matches the paneling. It’s perhaps significant that Marvin and Cliff Booth, who would both be responsible for Rick’s eventual comeback success, are both clad in eye-popping blue “suits” (though Cliff’s is made of denim) as they each take their turns providing Rick with their own means of support during this sequence.

Rick’s vintage brown leather jacket combines car coat styling with the shorter, tailored fit of a blouson-style flight jacket. The wide collar with its deep and narrow “V”-shaped notch resembles the wool serge M-44 “Ike” jackets worn by U.S. Army officers during World War II. The front closes with four leather-covered buttons, though in Rick’s distress as he leaves the restaurant, he only fastens the second button down. The cuffs are plain—devoid of buttons, zips, or straps—but are reinforced with wide pieces of leather that are shaped with a gradual point that meets the seam running down each sleeve.

All of the seams are double-stitched, including the collar edges, the wide placket-like panels flanking the four center buttons, and the horizontal yoke that extends across the chest just below the top button and above the two patch chest pockets, which are also double-stitched on the edges and along the pointed flaps that are each fastened with a single leather-covered button.

Production photo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

Under his jacket, Rick wears a tonally coordinated mock-neck long-sleeved jumper in a rust brown lightweight ribbed-knit material, possibly merino wool or an acrylic blend. I’ve been able to find a few modern alternatives, including:

• Parisbonbon pullover with the same color and style, made from expensive cashmere (via Amazon)
• A much cheaper but tanner cotton/acrylic version from Insearch (also via Amazon)
• Likely the best match, though a bit more burgundy than brown in “plum” merino wool from the Jos. A. Bank Traveler Collection (via Jos. A. Bank)

Over his shirts, Rick wears a small gold pendant monogrammed with the initial “R” on a thin gold chain, which Phillips explained—to Fawnia Soo Hoo for Fashionista—was custom-made by jewelry designer Stuart England:

That gold pendant was custom-made for our film by a wonderful jewelry designer Stuart England. Stuart makes these wonderful medallions and pendants. I wanted to use his work for a long time in films. I almost did in ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle.’ I just felt like Rick should have some kind of masculine jewelry and Steve McQueen was famously photographed with a medallion and I always loved that. I always thought it was sexy. So I thought Rick needed one, and Leo and Quentin responded to it. It actually is monogrammed with a little ‘R’ on it.

Phillips also explained to Haleigh Foutch of Collider in a December 2019 interview that the reverse of Rick’s necklace was etched with a Tudor rose-inspired design.

The distinctive Wrangler branding on the back right seam of Leonardo DiCaprio’s costume trousers can be seen as he converses on set with Quentin Tarantino.

Rick wears a pair of light fawn casual pants made from a polyester twill that allows some stretch. They are styled like jeans with frogmouth front pockets (but no coin pocket) and patch back pockets. Perhaps in solidarity with Cliff, who wears a Wrangler trucker jacket in these scenes, Rick’s trousers are also a Wrangler product, identifiable by the small black patch with “Wrangler” in yellow text, stitched on the horizontal seam across the seat just above the back right pocket. Unlike modern Wrangler jeans, these back pockets lack the “W”-branded stitching and leather patches.

Though Wrangler is still around (and thriving), this particular style of pants has been mostly discontinued, though vintage examples exist via eBay, Etsy, and other outlets. (For example, these khaki polyester Wrangler jeans of 1970s vintage—found on Etsy—appear to be a near-perfect match for Rick Dalton’s trousers in these scenes.)

Rick’s jacket and untucked jumper cover his waistline, but he appears to be wearing the same dark brown leather belt with its monogrammed gold-and-silver single-prong oversized buckle that gets more prominent screen time with his orange leather blazer, tucked-in mustard yellow turtleneck, and brown slacks.

Leaning into his Western roles and his rural Missouri roots, Rick wears cowboy boots constructed of a dark brown leather with ribbing on the vamps and decorative stitching up the shafts.

“You can really tell the difference between Cliff Booth and Rick Dalton by their shoes,” Phillips explained in the aforementioned Collider profile. “If you imagine the feeling of wearing cowboy boots it makes you feel like a badass, right? Tough, strong, protected. And it’s a pair of boots he probably would have worn on Bounty Law or Lancer, so it’s a part of his persona… Quentin had a lot of ideas about his day wear as Rick Dalton, that maybe he took them off the wardrobe people from the set because he was too lazy to buy himself clothes.”

Rick steps out of his Caddy, pounding his discarded cigarette butts with his cowboy boots.

As opposed to Cliff Booth’s more distinctive (and slightly anachronistic) “bullhead” Citizen watch on its unique custom bund strap by Red Monkey Designs, Rick Dalton wears a more subdued classic timepiece that has been identified by Esquire Middle East as a Chopard Classic with a 36mm 18-carat yellow gold case, mechanical manual-winding movement, and brown alligator leather strap that closes on a gold-covered steel buckle. The watch has a round white dial with gilded hour markers with Roman numerals at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions. (See more of the Chopard Classic collection here.)

Rick’s right pinky is adorned with a chunky gold lion pinky ring that was created in collaboration with property master Chris Call, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Quentin Tarantino. It’s perhaps no coincidence that “Leo”, both the real-life actor’s nickname and an astrological sign often associated with stardom, is the Latin word for “lion, making the king of the beats a particularly appropriate motif for Rick Dalton’s jewelry.

Ashamed to be crying in the Musso & Frank parking lot, Rick dons Cliff’s helpfully offered sunglasses, a pair of gold-framed aviators with amber-tinted lenses. Rick wears them for the entirety of his ride home with Cliff, even after he is re-energized upon realizing that Roman Polanski lives next door to him on Cielo Drive.

“So you’re feelin’ better now?” asks Cliff. “Gimme my glasses back!”

Rick takes a closer look at his next-door neighbors.

Given Brad Pitt’s longstanding real-life preference for Oliver Peoples sunglasses, it’s possible that these on-screen aviators are an OP product, though they may also be a true vintage pair.

Seeking an alternative? See below:

• J+S Premium Classic Aviator with gold 58mm frame and brown lenses (Amazon, $16.99)
• Ray-Ban RB3025 Aviator with gold 58mm frame and crystal brown “classic” lenses (Amazon or Ray-Ban, $153)

What to Imbibe

“Eight fucking whiskey sours… I couldn’t stop at fucking three or four. I have eight!” Rick chastises himself the next day in his trailer on the set of Lancer, providing a likely answer to what we see poured in his glass—and garnished with a maraschino cherry—at Musso & Frank Grill.

Cliff and Rick enjoy their respective drinks—a Bloody Mary for the stuntman and a Whiskey Sour for the actor—at Musso & Frank.

I was a little surprised that Rick blamed the whiskey sours and not the abhorrent Scotch-and-raw-egg concoction we see him making later that evening and drinking from a massive beer stein. Then again, the whiskey sour is the only cocktail I’d ever had honest-to-god nightmares about (thanks to the events of January 13, 2012, which centered around a cheap bar that believed in sours mix over more traditional ingredients) so I can sympathize with Rick.

According to Wikipedia, the whiskey sour would have been nearly a century old by the time Rick downed his cursed eight cocktails, having been first mentioned in print by the Waukesha Plain Dealer newspaper in January 1870. “Unlike other nineteenth-century drinks that appealed exclusively to high society, the whiskey sour was modeled after the maritime grogs of the 1870s,” writes Aliza Kelly Faragher in The Mixology of Astrology, associating the drink with Aquarians. “Sailors would drink citrus-infused elixirs (‘sours’) to combat waterborne disease.”

To make a whiskey sour in a manner that won’t encourage nightmares or embarrassing acting mishaps (and may just succeed in combating waterborne disease!), I suggest the following from The Gentleman’s Guide to Cocktails by Alfred Tong:

Ingredients

• 50 mL (2 oz) bourbon whiskey
• 2 dashes of Angostura bitters
• 1 tablespoon cherry juice
• 50 mL (2 oz) lemon juice, freshly squeezed
• 50 mL (2 oz) sugar syrup (or to taste)

Method

Add the ingredients to an ice-filled shaker. Shake hard and strain into a tumbler full of ice.

The Mr. Boston Official Bartender’s Guide suggests a simpler method, shaking and straining 2 oz of whiskey, 1 oz of lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of either superfine sugar or simple syrup into a chilled sour glass, then garnishing with a half-slice of lemon and a maraschino cherry.

If that really is a Whiskey Sour that Rick is drinking, the bartender left out the lemon slice.

How to Get the Look

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

A celebrity known for his roles in Westerns, Rick Dalton adds a cowboy-inspired touch to the classic Hollywood casual ensemble of a leather jacket and boots.

• Brown leather hip-length vintage jacket with wide, narrow-notched collar, four leather-covered buttons, two vertical-split chest pockets (with pointed, single-button flaps), and plain cuffs with ornamental stitching
• Rust brown ribbed-knit merino wool mock-neck long-sleeve jumper
• Fawn-colored polyester twill vintage Wrangler jeans with belt loops, frogmouth front pockets, patch back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with oversized gold single-prong fitting and silver “R”-monogrammed extension
• Dark brown leather cowboy boots with ribbed vamps and decorative-stitched shafts
• Gold “R”-monogrammed/Tudor rose pendant on thin gold necklace
• Gold chunky lion-motif pinky ring
• Chopard Classic 18-carat yellow gold wristwatch with round white dial on brown textured leather strap
• Gold-framed aviator sunglasses with amber-tinted lenses

As seen with most popular stylish movies, replicas of dubious quality quickly abounded for those seeking Rick Dalton’s jacket. The best bet for fans would likely be to seek something vintage that is more unique for their own personalities, but anyone hell-bent on replicas can find a few here:

• Danezon ($129)
• Fashion Vision ($125)
• Prime Jackets ($128)

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

If you were one of the 174 who voted for Rick’s orange Western-themed leather blazer as the topic of this post, have no fear… that post will be here before the summer!

The Quote

If comin’ face-to-face with the failure that is your career ain’t worth cryin’ about, then I don’t know what the fuck is!

Dean Martin as Matt Helm in Murderers’ Row (1966)

Vitals

Dean Martin as Matt Helm, smooth secret agent

New Mexico to French Riviera, Summer 1966

Film: Murderers’ Row
Release Date: December 20, 1966
Director: Henry Levin
Costume Designer: Moss Mabry
Tailor: Sy Devore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is National Wear Red Day, observed the first Friday of February to raise awareness of the dangers of the heart disease. In recognition, I wanted to feature an example of a movie or TV character prominently wearing red beyond just the usual red shirts, sweaters, or ties. Enter Matt Helm.

After Columbia Pictures acquired the rights to produce loose adaptations of Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm spy novels, they quickly got to work developing a film franchise focused more on spoofing the Bond-mania that was sweeping the world, starring Dean Martin reprising his lounge lizard stage persona as the American counter-agent. In 1966 alone, the two first two entries—The Silencers and Murderers’ Row—were released back to back.

The quartet of Matt Helm movies eventually produced never garnered much critical acclaim but they were relatively well-received by audiences at the time and, despite following in 007’s footsteps, ostensibly established the more lighthearted, gadget-focused tone that would be aped by James Bond movies during the following decade.

Murderers’ Row even shares a similar premise with You Only Live Twice, the Bond adventure that would be released six months later, as Matt Helm fakes his death at the start of the movie… though Helm’s faked death is played for considerably more comic value, to the extent that a sham wake is held in Helm’s honor at a bar called Chez When, attended by a wealth of past loves. Of course, Helm is alive and well, meeting his boss “Mac” MacDonald for a covert rendezvous at a service station, where Mac assures Matt that he needs to stay “dead” to more effectively complete his next mission:

Mac: Matt Helm is dead, and he’s gonna stay dead.
Matt: Now just a darn minute-
Mac: Direct from the White House, Matt.
Matt: Well, I ain’t votin’ for him again.

The next day, Matt lands via Pan Am flight at Nice-Cote d’Azur airport, still wearing the same clothes as the day before. As Mac assured him, there was an identical Thunderbird waiting for him… as well as a bottle of Scotch to deliver his briefing.

Unfortunately for the functioning alcoholic Helm (but fortunately for his fellow drivers), the Ballantine’s bottle in Matt Helm’s Thunderbird contained only a briefing… and nary a dram or drop of the good stuff.

Helm’s task? To track down Dr. Normal Soleris (Richard Eastham), a scientist who has been kidnapped by a secret evil organization led by Dr. Julian Wall (Karl Malden). His “investigation” brings him into contact with Dr. Soleris’ vivacious daughter Suzie (Ann-Margret), first outside a dead lead’s bungalow and again in a dizzying discotheque where he’s wrongly arrested for murder!

Matt: Now, just a doggone minute, I got some rights too. I’m an American citizen.
Police caption: We will play “The Star Spangled Banner” when you’re in the electric chair.
Matt: Ah, then I have to stand up.

What’d He Wear?

When we first see Matt Helm in Murderers’ Row, he’s dressed for comfort during a photo shoot in a matching powder blue knit short-sleeved shirt and elastic-waisted pants. It isn’t until he greets Mac in his Thunderbird that Martin is dressed in Matt’s usual outfit of a tailored jacket and turtleneck.

Production photo of Ann-Margret and Dean Martin in Murderers’ Row.

Matt Helm’s sport jackets were typically made from bolder colors and unique cloths, so this coral red single-breasted jacket made from a lightly napped cloth suggestive of cashmere would have a very fitting place in Helm’s wardrobe. While the costume design is credited to the prolific Moss Mabry, I’m not sure if Martin’s clothing was tailored by Sy Devore, the “tailor to the stars” who dressed Dino and his Rat Pack pals in real life up until his death in July 1966.

This red sports coat is fully cut and styled in accordance with the era’s fashions with slim notch lapels and low two-button stance. The jacket has double vents, two-button cuffs, and patch pockets: one on each hip and one on the left breast, dressed with a rich gold satin silk pocket square worn in a rakish puff.

Our turtleneck-loving hero doesn’t let us down, wearing the first of three under his red jacket. This light canary yellow roll-neck is knit from a lightweight material, possibly merino wool or an acrylic blend, and worn untucked.

Matt leans back for a big gulp, revealing the narrowly rolled polo-neck of his yellow skivvy.

Matt’s slacks are a shade of rust brown that nods toward maroon to coordinate with his red jacket. Likely cut similarly to his other trousers, they are single reverse-pleated with buckle-tab side adjusters, slanted side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Matt steps into Dominique’s bungalow, blissfully unaware that he’ll be arrested for her murder by the end of the day.

Matt completes the look with a pair of brown sueded leather Chelsea boots, a style embraced and popularized by mods of the mid-1960s despite its relatively staid origins a century earlier when Queen Victoria’s shoemaker J. Sparkes-Hall had developed his “patent elastic ankle boots.”

Thanks to countercultural stars like Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles—who commissioned Anello & Davide to modify them into the iconic “Beatle boots”—Chelsea boots were revived by trendsetters on both sides of the pond and remain a mainstay of major shoemakers. My particularly favorite Chelsea boots are the rugged, comfortable, and stylish Blundstone 550, which I own in “antique brown” leather with black outsoles and side gussets.

The Gun

Issued inside Matt Helm’s Thunderbird is a gun case for this new equipment, a Hy Hunter Bolomauser modified AR-7 pistol with a delayed trigger that you can read much more about in this post about the blue double-breasted blazer he wears when using the pistol to greater effect.

Matt finds himself far more interested in…

What to Imbibe

… a fifth of Ballantine’s Finest hidden in a secret compartment within the gun case. The boozehound at the wheel is delighted, until he realizes that the bottle is merely a vessel for his tape-recorded mission briefing.

Drinking, driving, and gunplay… all at the same time? Matt isn’t setting a very good example, is he?

Dean Martin often incorporated bottles of Scotch into his stage act, particularly his preferred J&B Rare which he drank on the rocks in the first Matt Helm movie, The Silencers. Only Ballantine’s returned as the prominently seen on-screen bottle for Murderers’ Row, perhaps signifying a shift in Dino’s tastes.

The Ballantine’s brand traces its history back to 1827, when George Ballantine opened a small Edinburgh grocery that included a selection of whiskies for sale. George slowly but steadily grew his clientele over the next thirty-odd years until handing over the reins of the store to his son Archibald and focusing more on the spirited spirits trade, eventually creating his own whisky blends. The family name remained over the generations to follow through sales and acquisitions as Ballantine’s continued to grow in popularity in the world market.

Teased by the empty Ballantine’s bottle, Matt pulls out his flask. It isn’t the first we’ve seen him drinking in a car, having brought highballs to his initial front seat briefing with Mac.

At least they’re not actually driving!

I can’t stress enough that not only is drinking and driving a bad idea but Helm’s need to actively take pulls from his flask or glass while behind the wheel—played for laughs—is extremely not recommended by this author… even when you’re given a bottle in your government-issued Thunderbird.

The Car

…and let’s talk about that government-issued Thunderbird, shall we? After Matt and Mac toast with highballs in the front seat of Mac’s coupe and get briefed from a sliding TV panel on the dash, Mac reassures Matt that “there’s a car just like this waitin’ for you” at the airfield in Cannes. Indeed, Matt deboards to find a pea green 1966 Ford Thunderbird Town Landau just steps away.

Matt Helm gets acquainted with his latest ride.

The Ford Thunderbird was already closing out its fourth generation when Matt Helm’s 1966 model rolled off the production line. The marque was introduced for the 1955 model year as Ford’s response to the sporty Chevrolet Corvette, though Ford wisely positioned its new two-seater Thunderbird as a “personal car” that offered performance-oriented luxury and comfort in a uniquely styled package. The approach worked, and Thunderbirds actually outsold Corvettes by more than 23-to-1 in 1955, the T-Bird’s first year on the market. The Thunderbird underwent some design revisions (including the famous Continental-style spare tire over the rear bumper) and performance upgrades over the next two model years. When the last 1957 Thunderbird rolled off the line following a banner sales year of more than 21,000, it was the last two-seat car that Ford would offer for a quarter century.

The next two iterations of the Thunderbird saw the addition of a back row of seating and, in 1961, a bullet-like redesign that emphasized Space Age sleekness and was only powered by the new 390 cubic-inch V8 engine, mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. The Thunderbird had risen from a boutique novelty to a visible icon of American success, serving as the Indianapolis 500 pace car, composing part of JFK’s inaugural parade, and heavily featured on TV shows like 77 Sunset Strip. The bullet-like third generation gave way to a more squared appearance for the fourth generation, which began with the 1964 model year, as the big three U.S. automakers tried to find their footing in an increasingly performance-focused era.

This fourth generation of the Thunderbird was a transitional period as Ford determined how to balance its initial vision of luxury, the car’s increasing weight, and the trend toward performance-oriented muscle cars. From the start, the Thunderbird had always opted for luxury rather than performance, allowing its GM and Mopar competition to show off at the drag strips. While Ford was unveiling its sprightly Mustang for 1964, it also pushed out a new, even heavier Thunderbird model that required approximately 11 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour, even with the considerably powerful 390 V8 that remained standard. With curb weights topping 4600 pounds, at least 100 more than the prior generation, Ford determined that the Thunderbird would need some added boost if it wouldn’t be totally left in the dust, and—for only $86 more—drivers could upgrade to a 428 cubic-inch V8 offering 345 gross horsepower and a slightly reduced 0-60 time that at least stuck to single digits.

For the 1966 model year, the Landau style option that had been introduced in 1962 was refreshed and replaced by the blind quarter formal-roofed Town Landau that would become the year’s best-selling model, accounting for just over half of 69,176 Thunderbird sales in 1966.

WIKI: “For 1964 the Thunderbird was restyled in favor of a more squared-off appearance, which was mostly evident when viewing the car from the side or rear. Hinting at its roots in the previous generation Thunderbird that it evolved from, the new model retained a similar grille design with quad headlights and a 113.2 inches (2,875 mm) wheelbase. As before, the new Thunderbird continued to be offered in hardtop, convertible, and Landau versions. The 300 horsepower (220 kW) 390 cu in (6.4 L) FE V8 continued as the standard engine for the Thunderbird. It was paired with a 3-speed automatic transmission. For 1965, sequential turn signals were added, flashing the individual segments of the broad, horizontal tail lights in sequences from inside to outside to indicate a turn. Also new for 1965 were standard front disc brakes, and doubled sided keys. Even though it was the last year of the generation, 1966 saw a stylistic revision for the Thunderbird highlighted by a new egg-crate style grille with a large Thunderbird emblem at its center and a single-blade front bumper. The rear bumper was restyled to include new full-width taillamps. Engine choices were also revised for 1966. The standard 390 cu in (6.4 L) V8 equipped with a single four-barrel carburetor produced 315 horsepower (235 kW). Newly optional and taking the top position for performance was a 345 horsepower (257 kW) 428 cu in (7.0 L) FE V8. The 428 cost only $86 over the base engine, and was a popular option.[9] This would be the last year for the convertible until the “retro” models of 2002-05.”

1966 Ford Thunderbird Town Landau

Body Style: 2-door hardtop coupe

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 390 cid. (6.4 L) Ford FE V8 with Ford 9510 4-barrel carburetor

Power: 315 bhp (235 kW; 320 PS) @ 4600 RPM

Torque: 427 lb·ft (579 N·m) @ 2800 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed Ford “Cruise-O-Matic” automatic

Wheelbase: 113.2 inches (2875 mm)

Length: 205.4 inches (5217 mm)

Width: 77.3 inches (1963 mm)

Height: 52.7 inches (1339 mm)

Feeling rightly confident that the Mustang was the brand’s contender against GM and Mopar muscle car competition, Ford wisely kept building the Thunderbird in the luxury personal car segment, moving its design upmarket more in line with its Lincoln models. Unfortunately, the convertible option that had been available from the beginning was dropped for 1967 when the even larger fifth generation of the Thunderbird was introduced. Sales would steadily drop until 1971, the last year of the fifth generation which leaned in heavily to the luxury offerings with Neiman Marcus offering a pair of “his and hers” Thunderbirds for $25,000 total.

As usual, each generation of the Ford Thunderbird meant a massive design overhaul until production was quietly discontinued in 1997, closing the tenth generation. A five-year hiatus gave Ford time to refresh, and a retro-influenced eleventh generation of the Thunderbird was introduced in 2002, returning to the original formula of a futuristic two-seater with the first convertible option in more than 35 years. The new Thunderbird was an instant hit with more than 31,000 sold in 2002, but the novelty soon wore off and—after sales failed to break 10,000 in 2005—the Thunderbird was again discontinued with no new models on the roads in the last fifteen years.

Dean Martin as Matt Helm in Murderers’ Row (1966)

How to Get the Look

While Dean Martin’s trademark tuxedos often made their way into the final scenes of his Matt Helm adventures, Dino’s attire as the American counter-agent was not surprisingly as laidback as the entertainer himself, consisting of simple items like a sport jacket, turtleneck, trousers, and boots in eye-catching colors that would get Helm maximum attention with minimal fuss.

• Coral red napped cashmere single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with slim notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and double vents
• Yellow turtleneck with ribbed-knit neck, cuffs, and hem
• Rust brown single reverse-pleated trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, slanted side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Chocolate brown sueded leather Chelsea boots
• Chocolate brown socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie or the whole four-film Matt Helm series.

The Quote

I’m sorry I missed my funeral. How’d it go?

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino in The Irishman (2019)

Vitals

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino, old-school northeast Pennsylvania Mafia boss

Philadelphia to Detroit, Summer 1975

Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 77th birthday, Joe Pesci! The Newark-born actor emerged from nearly 20 years of retirement to again collaborate with director Martin Scorsese and star Robert De Niro in The Irishman, which is up for multiple Academy Awards tonight including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Costume Design, and Best Supporting Actor for both Pesci and his co-star Al Pacino.

Should Pesci take home the statue tonight, it would be his second Academy Award after he received a well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor recognizing his work in Goodfellas. (Interestingly, he was up against Pacino that year as well!) His five-word speech in 1991 is still considered one of the shortest (and thus, in my opinion, best) in Oscar history:

It’s my privilege. Thank you.

In the brief Netflix documentary The Irishman: In Conversation, Pesci recalls that it was De Niro that first presented him with the project, an adaptation of Charles Brandt’s book I Heard You Paint Houses. “I read the book a long time ago… guy brought it to me on the golf course,” explains Pesci, giving us a glimpse into his fantastic retirement that evidently composed of plenty of cigars, golf, and true crime reads. “The guy even told me then, ‘You guys are gonna make this movie someday.’ I said, ‘Yeah, good, okay, bye.'”

Scorsese confirms that he had the same thought, reflecting with Pesci on how one of the aspects that brought Pesci out of retirement and into Russell Bufalino’s Italian leather oxfords was the contrast with this quiet, shrewd old-timer as opposed to the explosively violent and impulsive Mafia killers he had become famous for playing in movies like Goodfellas and Casino. “Russell is interesting because it was just the opposite way than we normally…” started Scorsese, with Pesci interjecting “see me play?” As Scorsese laughs, Pesci recalls: “Yeah, you told me, ‘You’re not gonna be like the gangsters you always play.'”

We meet the pragmatic northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Russell as he’s leaving for his nephew’s wedding. It’s an understated introduction, scored by Robert De Niro’s narration as Frank Sheeran that explains Russell’s ban on smoking in the car as Frank, Russell, and their wives prepare to make the days-long drive from Philly to Detroit, a trip that would be interrupted by frequent smoke breaks for Irene and Carrie to enjoy their Kools and for Russell to conduct business along the way.

What’d He Wear?

In contrast to the expansive wardrobes of flashier movie gangsters, Pesci’s Russell Bufalino wears a characteristically understated tan sport jacket and slacks for the road trip, changing only his shirts and trousers for each day of the trip. Wearing a tailored jacket for a long drive almost guarantees that it’ll accumulate some wrinkles, but Russell’s choice of a hopsack jacket is smart both for its natural wrinkle resistance as well as the breathability of hopsack’s signature open basket-weave.

Hopsack refers to the weave, rather than the fabric—typically worsted wool but can also include cooler-wearing fabrics like cotton, linen, or mohair—which gives the cloth “an appearance of minute squares,” according to Hardy Amies in ABCs of Men’s Fashion. For a more technical description, Alan Flusser defines this coarse, loose weave in Dressing the Man as the result of when “two threads of both weft and warp rise together instead of only one, using rough-textured yarns.” The hopsack weave ranges from large and loose gages to small and tight gages like Pesci wears, a more structured look that’s also more durable and less prone to snagging.

The coarser “basket-weave” texture of Russell’s hopsack jacket neatly harmonizes with his dressed-down road wardrobe of short-sleeved polo shirts and button-ups.

Russell’s tan hopsack sports coat has notch lapels that are fashionably broad for the mid-’70s without hitting the excessive widths found on some disco-era menswear. The pick-stitched lapels roll to a single button that subtly nods to the quality of his clothing, as one-button jackets are a subtly rakish detail most traditionally associated with bespoke tailoring or more formal dinner jackets. Additionally, the single button flatters Pesci’s 5’4″ height by not adding rows of buttons to the jacket that would draw attention to his shorter stature.

The sporty jacket has a patch pocket on the breast and large patch pockets over the hips. The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with three buttons on each cuff. The foot-long double vents are likely the most dated detail of this otherwise relatively timeless sport jacket.

For the first day of the road trip, Russell rides shotgun in a beige knit short-sleeved pullover shirt. Though styled like the traditional polo shirt, a closer look at the details reveal a garment considerably more complex.

The front of the shirt, from the shoulders to the hem, is an open, breathable waffle stitch that contrasts with the tighter weave on the collar, placket, pocket welt, sleeves, and back. The wide collar, elbow-length sleeves, and the welt over the set-in breast pocket are all piped with a white edge, though the sleeve piping is considerably narrower than on the collar and pocket. The shirt buttons at the top with two clear plastic two-hole buttons, placed low on the placket so that the neck can never be buttoned.

With this beige knit shirt, Russell wears a pair of full-fitting stone gray semi-solid trousers with a subtle white and beige pinstripe effect. Likely worn with a belt unseen under his untucked polo shirts, these flat front trousers have slanted front pockets and jetted back pockets with a button-tab closure over the back left pocket. The bottoms are plain-hemmed.

Throughout the road trip, Russell wears the same brown leather wingtip oxford brogues with a rotation of dark socks.

Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci on the set of The Irishman. This same photo would be used for an on-screen snapshot depicted among Frank Sheeran’s mementos.

The second day of the Sheeran-Bufalino road trip covers nearly 400 miles, leaving Pennsylvania and stretching up into northern Ohio, where the two couples stop at a Howard Johnson’s in Fremont, the seat of Sandusky County, Ohio. The drive was fraught with business dealings, flat tires, and—of course—smoke breaks for the wives, and the foursome rewarded themselves with poolside cocktails.

Russell breaks from the neutral tones of his road wardrobe for this second day, wearing a sky blue button-up shirt, subtly striped in sets of five narrow vertical stripes. The lightweight shirt has an ample fit, with large short sleeves that envelop his elbows when he removes the jacket, and a very long point collar that would have been hard to avoid when buying off the rack in 1975. The shirt has a breast pocket and a wide front placket with blue-threaded white buttons.

Russell has a chameleon-like ability to blend in with the atmosphere around him, sitting poolside in a blue shirt that reflects the water rather than traveling the dusty roads in his neutral tans and beiges.

For this second day of the trip, Russell wore a more richly colored pair of trousers in a rusty shade of brown. The fitted waistband suggests Russell as the sort of man who has clothes made to fit him perfectly without need for belt and braces… and the sort of man disciplined enough to stay in the same shape so they always fit. The waistband has a pointed self-tab in the front that closes through a single button after passing through a single “belt loop” just to the right of the fly.

These trousers also have slanted front pockets, cutting down diagonally from the belt line to the side seam, as well as jetted back pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms.

Production still of Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino overseeing Frank Sheeran’s (Robert De Niro) effort to change a flat tire on his Lincoln.

At the start of the third day of their trip—over breakfast cereal and coffee at the Fremont HoJo—Russell tells Frank there’s going to be a detour for the two to make a solo drive to Port Clinton, where Frank will catch a plane to assassinate his friend of 15 years, Jimmy Hoffa:

You’re gonna go to De-troit, and when you come back—me and you—we get together with the girls and take a nice, slow drive up… with cigarette breaks, you know.

Russell is back in all earth tones for this conversation, wearing a chocolate brown knit polo shirt that he seems to be wearing with the same stone trousers from the first day of the trip. Unlike the beige shirt, this brown shirt has smoke-gray plastic buttons fasten all the way up to the neck like a conventional polo.

“Frank, I hadda put you into this thing… or you would never let it happen. And I know you wouldn’t. But it’s gonna happen… either way, he’s goin’.”

By the 1970s scenes in The Irishman, the aging Russell has taken to wearing a large pair of glasses on a regular basis. These large black acetate wayfarer-style frames have been identified by EyeGoodies as the Italian-made RetroSuperFuture “Classic Specular”, worn with both clear lenses and custom gray gradient Essilor lenses.

Aside from a gold necklace under his shirt that doubtless has a Catholic pendant or cross, Russell travels with no watches or rings, not even the decorative gold “liberty coin” ring that matches the one he gifted to Frank earlier in the film.

Go Big or Go Home

They say it’s the most important meal of the day, and Russell Bufalino—ever the pragmatist—ensures that his friend and colleague Frank Sheeran has had his breakfast before tasking him with executing one of his closest friends:

Total or Corn Flakes?

For the record, Frank went with Total.

How to Get the Look

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino in The Irishman (2019)

If you’re inclined to wear a sports coat for your summer road trip, Joe Pesci’s hopsack jacket in The Irishman is a classic example of an outer layer that would be both breathable and wrinkle-resistant to keep you feeling cool throughout your journey and looking cool once you hit your destination. The informality of the coarsely woven cloth coordinates better with casual shirts and trousers than many other jacket fabrics and weaves/

• Tan hopsack worsted single-breasted sport jacket with notch lapels, single-button closure, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
• Beige or brown knit short-sleeve polo shirt or sky blue short-sleeve button-up shirt
• Light brown flat front trousers with self-belted waistband, slanted front pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather wingtip oxford brogues
• Dark socks
• Black acetate-framed wayfarer-style eyeglasses
• Gold necklace

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Netflix.

The Quote

If it’s not good for you, it’s not good for me. You understand what I’m saying.