Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle in High Sierra (1941)

Vitals

Humphrey Bogart as Roy “Mad Dog” Earle, professional armed robber on parole

Sierra Nevada Mountains, California, Spring 1940

Film: High Sierra
Release Date: January 21, 1941
Director: Raoul Walsh
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the release of High Sierra, arguably the movie that launched Humphrey Bogart from a Warner Bros. background player in the ’30s to superstardom in the ’40s. A violent criminal with an earnest streak, Roy Earle was the ideal role for Bogie to transition from the secondary sniveling bastard in movies like The Petrified Forest and The Roaring Twenties to the tilted-hat heroes we love in The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and more.

W.R. Burnett had blazed the trail for American gangster fiction with his 1929 novel Little Caesar, an Al Capone-inspired roman à clef inspired by Burnett’s own experiences as a night clerk in a seedy Chicago hotel. The filmed adaptation starring Edward G. Robinson arguably launched the American gangster movie as we know it, and Burnett busied himself during the following decade as a somewhat more idealistic alternative to the more hardboiled James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett, inspired by the headlines to draft his criminal characters that yearned for something better in their lives.

Seven years before High Sierra hit the big screen, American newspapers were filled with the exploits of an actual Indiana bank robber who would thrill the nation with his daring escapes, including a disputed “wooden gun” jailbreak.

Burnett found the ideal muse in John Dillinger, the Indiana-born bank robber whose yearlong crime spree captivated the imaginations of a cynical populace looking for folk heroes against the despair of the Great Depression. Unlike the pariahs of other decades, Depression-era desperadoes were eagerly received by a public captivated by anti-authoritarian rebels, and the charismatic Dillinger became a surprising celebrity with his crooked smile, laidback demeanor, and relative aversion to violence, at least when compared to more bloodthirsty contemporaries like “Baby Face” Nelson or Wilbur Underhill.

Dillinger was gunned down by federal agents in July 1934, acting on a tip from the infamous “Lady in Red” (although Anna Sage was, in fact, wearing an orange skirt that night), cementing his legend in the annals of American crime and giving rise to scores of characters in the burgeoning sub-genre of gangster cinema. No doubt due to his physical resemblance to the famous gangster, Bogie himself had a turn as the Dillinger-esque “Duke” Mantee in The Petrified Forest, though Mantee was 100% snarling swagger and 0% charm.

Left: John Dillinger, photographed after an arrest in Ohio, 1933.
Right: Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle.

Roy Earle, on the other hand, was a considerably more dimensional character. Born in Brookfield, Indiana—just thirty miles east of Dillinger’s hometown of Mooresville, on the other side of Indianapolis—Earle is presented as a professional who approaches crime as a means to an end rather than as an outlet for his violent urges. Like Dillinger, who found an audience in the less fortunate among the American population, Earle connects with underdogs like the club-footed Velma (Joan Leslie), the “dime-a-dance” girl Marie (Ida Lupino), and his dog Pard, played by Bogart’s own dog Zero:

Of all the 14-karat saps… starting out on a caper with a woman and a dog.

Roy has spent more than eight years languishing in prison when his parole is arranged by powerful Chicago gangster “Big Mac” (Donald MacBride), on the pretense that the experienced Earle pull a job on his behalf, robbing a resort in a Palm Springs-like town, echoing the motives behind Carter “Doc” McCoy’s early release in Jim Thompson’s The Getaway and the two subsequent film adaptations.

Earle learns more about the heist from Jake Kranmer (Barton MacBride), a burly crook whose appearance and mannerisms evoke George “Bugs” Moran, the real-life mob boss who gained infamy after members of his gang were wiped out by Capone’s thugs during the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929.

Bogart reportedly lobbied hard for the star-making role, talking George Raft out of it. Whether it was his own campaigning or Raft’s excessive stipulations, it was Bogie who spent the late summer of 1940 chased through California’s picturesque Sierra Nevada mountain range as the wanted “Mad Dog” Roy Earle.

What’d He Wear?

The Suit

Roy Earle spends much of High Sierra clad in a dark self-striped wool suit. Though an unfashionable color outside of funerals and evening wear, the suit has been depicted as black in artificially colorized versions of the movie, and it may indeed have been, given Earle’s villainous occupation.

Roy Earle, flush with freedom and an eight-year-old suit.

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels and a two-button front, which he wears tends to wear unbuttoned in coordination with his perpetually loosened tie. Standing 5’8″ with a lean frame, Bogart may not have been physically imposing but brought a dangerous menace to many of his characters that was emphasized by his tailoring, in this case building up the shoulders of his suit jacket with padding and high-roped sleeveheads as well as a subtly suppressed waist. His ventless jacket also has a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, and three buttons on each cuff.

Earle’s double reverse-pleated, full-fitting suit trousers are fashionably and flatteringly high-waisted, with the long rise accented by Bogie’s frequent habit of hooking his thumbs in his waistband. At the waist, his trousers are held up by a brown leather belt, as suggested by the considerably light color contrasted against his dark trousers, which closes through a small single-prong buckle. The waistband has only four belt loops: two on the front (each lined up with the more forward of the two pleats) and two spaced apart across the back. The side pockets are gently slanted, there are no back pockets, and the bottoms are finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Roy favors off-white work shirts in brushed cotton flannel, an informal alternative to the usual dress shirts that befit the more casual mountain environs and his value for function over flash. The likely colors would be a pale blue, gray, or beige, all of which had been used to depict the shirt in contemporary promotional art.

The shirt has a point collar that Roy always wears unbuttoned at the neck, whether or not he’s wearing his four-in-hand necktie which—for the sake of argument—we’ll describe as black. The somewhat oversized shirt fits properly at the shoulders but fully through the chest and arms, though the sleeves are just the right length with a single-button closure at each rounded cuff. The shirt has a front placket and two chest pockets that have single-button pointed flaps to close.

Roy Earle unpacks his .45.

The Sportier Alternative

Roy wears a variation of his usual outfit when he drives into Tropico Springs to stake out the resort. Similarly styled as his suit jacket but with a boxier cut, Roy’s sports coat looks like a heavier woolen cloth with more conventionally shaped notches in the lapels and a decided lack of roping on the still-heavily padded shoulders.

Roy picks up some new clothes in the form of a sports coat, linen shirt, and trousers, though wearing them with the same dark fedora and tie continue the aesthetic he established with his dark suit.

After Roy removes his jacket (flashing the manufacturer’s label stitched inside the right breast), we see that he’s also changed his trousers as these solid dark slacks are flat-fronted, lacking the pronounced pleats of his suit trousers and even worn with a darker leather belt.

Can anyone identify who made Bogie’s jacket based on the label we see stitched into the lining?

Ditching his jacket and tie in his Plymouth, Roy strides into the resort in his shirt sleeves. The two-pocket shirt may initially resemble his flannel work shirts, but the lighter color and lighter-weight material given to wrinkling indicates that he’s also changed into a white linen shirt, a fashionable must for any gent’s summer wardrobe.

Like his work shirt, the linen shirt has a point collar, front placket, two pointed-flap pockets, and button cuffs that Bogart wears unfastened and rolled up his forearms.

Roy thumbs open a fresh pack of Old Golds that he’ll plop in the breast pocket of his breezy linen shirt.

Everything Else

Evoking the traditional villains in old-fashioned B westerns, Roy the dangerous criminal wears a black hat—at least I’ll assume it’s black—though it’s a more contemporary fedora with a coordinated wide grosgrain silk band. Like the rest of his tailoring, Bogart’s hat builds up his appearance with a high, pinched crown and a shorter self-edged brim that serve to elongated his vertical definition on screen.

Roy wears leather oxfords, likely constructed with black calf uppers, with six-eyelet closed lacing and a brogued toe-cap.

Changing gears as he escapes up into the mountains.

The Car

Roy Earle drives a Plymouth De Luxe Coupe, though IMCDB and IMDB have both observed that his two-door coupe alternates between a 1937 (P-4) and the 1938 (P-6), the newer model characterized by a shorter, wider grille. Both coupes were powered by a 201 cubic-inch “L-head” straight six-cylinder engine that produced 82 horsepower at 3600 RPM and 145-lb.ft. torque at 1200 RPM.

More than 67,000 Plymouth De Luxe coupes were produced for 1937, sold at $575 each. Production dipped to just over 27,000 for the following year, though the base price increased to $730.

Pard welcomes his owner’s return at the wheel of his trusty Plymouth.

One of the screen-used Plymouth from High Sierra, a 1937 coupe painted stone gray, currently resides at the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine, California, not far from where much of the film was shot. Bogart would land in the cockpit of the 1938 Plymouth, suggested by some to be the same, five years later as Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep.

The Guns

Bogie poses for a studio portrait as Roy Earle, dual-wielding .45s and wearing a more napped flannel work shirt with suspenders that never appeared on screen. Warner Brothers would reuse some photography from these sessions, including this image specifically, when crafting promotional art for The Maltese Falcon (1941).

Due to how unreliably .45 ACP blanks fed through pistols, many Hollywood productions shied away from arming its characters with the venerable 1911 pistol when it was required to be fired on screen, either using revolvers instead, swapping in the cosmetically similar 9mm Star Model B (as famously seen in movies like The Wild Bunch and The Untouchables), or even building 1911 mock-ups around revolver frames as seen wielded by the Depression-era outlaws in The FBI Story.

The same year that Sergeant York had to give its famous protagonist a Luger instead of a 1911, High Sierra managed to arm Humphrey Bogart with a genuine .45-caliber M1911A1 as Roy Earle, echoing the favored choice not just of John Dillinger but also those in his orbit from Clyde Barrow to “Pretty Boy” Floyd, all of whom made liberal use of 1911-style pistols chambered in both the standard .45 ACP as well as the newly innovated .38 Super, a high-pressure round favored for its ability to pierce auto bodies.

After High Sierra made Bogart an established star, he often continued to be featured wielding full-size 1911 pistols on the posters for movies like Casablanca, though—unless playing a military character who would have reason to carry one—he tended to favor smaller-framed pistols like the Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer or Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless on screen, as these wouldn’t look quite as oversized in the slight-framed actor’s hand.

Roy Earle’s M1911A1 pistol.

Another Roy Earle portrait featuring the non-used shirt and suspenders, as well as a Winchester Model 1912 shotgun that never appeared on screen. The July 1940 portrait session commenced a month before production began, so the armorers may not yet have decided which firearms Roy would use on screen.

During the same Warner Brothers photo shoot that stuck a pair of .45s in Bogie’s hands, the actor posed with a snarl and a shotgun, specifically a Winchester Model 1912 pump-action shotgun with a riot-length barrel. The Model 1912 had been developed as a modernized supplement to the popular Winchester Model 1897, the notable difference being the Model 1912’s hammerless receiver against the Model 1897’s external hammer. While prominently featured in those publicity photos and some promotional material for High Sierra, Bogart never actually wields the shotgun as Roy Earle on screen.

Instead, Roy’s long arm of choice would be a Winchester Model 1892 lever-action carbine rifle that he takes with him during his last-ditch escape attempt into the high mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

John Browning had developed the Model 1892 as a lighter version of the powerful Model 1886 rifle, chambered for handgun rounds and thus supplementing the venerable Winchester Model 1873, which had served the same purpose prior. The Model 1892 was available in a range of calibers also found in six-shooters like the Colt Single Action Army, thus allowing shooters to only need to carry one type of ammunition that would service both revolver and rifle.

The Model 1892 was introduced for the .32-20, .38-40, and .44-40 Winchester centerfire rounds, with the powerful .44-40 WCF emerging as the best-selling option. Winchester would manufacture more than a million rifles during the production timeline that ended in 1945 after more than half a century, also introducing small-game and varmint rounds like the .25-20 WCF and .218 Bee.

Though he uses it to considerable effect from his high position in the Sierras, Roy’s Winchester helps him the most when he needs to write a note and, lacking a pen, extracts a few full-jacketed rounds from the rifle to draft a final note declaring Marie’s innocence in his crimes.

Who needs a pen when you’ve got a handful of .44-40 rounds from your trusty Winchester?

How to Get the Look

Humphrey Bogart as Roy Earle in High Sierra (1941)

Roy Earle establishes an early template for the professional criminal dressed to steal (and, if necessary, kill) in a plain black suit and tie, an example that would be revived by Steve McQueen in The Getaway and the slick crooks in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

• Black self-striped wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, padded and roped shoulders, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Double reverse-pleated trousers with belt loops, gently slanted side pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Off-white cotton flannel work shirt with point collar, front placket, two button-flapped chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Black tie
• Brown leather belt with squared single-prong buckle
• Black calf leather 6-eyelet cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Black felt fedora with wide black grosgrain silk band and self-edged brim

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. (When looking to grab this link from Amazon, my Prime account reminded me that I had actually purchased my own DVD copy of High Sierra eleven years ago today on January 20, 2010!)

The Quote

I wouldn’t give you two cents for a dame without a temper.

The post Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra appeared first on BAMF Style.

Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami (2020)

Vitals

Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke, “King of Soul”

Miami, February 25, 1964

Film: One Night in Miami
Release Date: December 25, 2020
Director: Regina King
Costume Designer: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck

Background

Soul legend Sam Cooke was born 90 years ago today, on January 22, 1931. Although Cooke died young, shot at a Beverly Hills motel just over a month before his 34th birthday, his smooth voice endures as the pioneering “King of Soul” who not only wrote and recorded scores of classic hits but also supported, produced, and influenced some of the most talented musicians of the day.

A week ago today, One Night in Miami was released to stream on Amazon Prime Video, adapted by Kemp Powers from his own one-act play. The night in question is February 25, 1964, the night that Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight boxing championship in a surprise victory over Sonny Liston. Powers brings Clay together to celebrate his victory with Cooke, Malcolm X, and Jim Brown on a night that proves to be pivotal for all four icons.

For Clay, it’s the announcement to his friends—and the public—that he will be joining the Nation of Islam and forthwith known as Muhammad Ali, while his friend and religious mentor Malcolm X considers his own future with the organization. For Brown, it’s a professional crossroads as the 28-year-old NFL star considers a career in front of the camera rather than behind the offensive line. And for Cooke, it’s a reckoning on how he can more strongly use his voice to advance the message of the civil rights movement.

The evening begins as Cooke peels into the parking lot of the Hampton House motel, where Malcolm X’s Nation of Islam sentries are already standing guard. “I’m the first one here? Me and my fast-ass cars…” Cooke comments on his cherry red Ferrari. (Indeed, Cooke was an automotive enthusiast… more on that later!)

“It’s a damn dump,” Cooke comments to himself after exploring Malcolm X’s room, which is significantly less glamorous than Cooke’s own lodgings across town at the famous Fontainebleau. Clay, Brown, and Malcolm X are soon to follow, and Cooke is particularly disheartened when he learns that Malcolm X’s planned post-title celebration will consist not of booze-soaked revelry but of ice-cream fueled reflection.

Of the four men featured in One Night in Miami, only two would live beyond a year after Cassius Clay’s title win, with both Sam Cooke and Malcolm X shot and killed in separate incidents within the year. Muhammad Ali died in June 2016, making Jim Brown the only figure represented in the main cast still alive today.

Kingsley Ben-Adir, Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr. deliver fantastic performances as the four leads, and the Tony Award-winning Odom showcasing a mastery of Cooke’s inflections and mannerisms as he leads us through some of the King of Soul’s greatest hits including “You Send Me”, “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons”, “Chain Gang”, “Good Times”, and particularly “A Change Is Gonna Come” during One Night in Miami‘s stirring coda. (Some dramatic license is taken to depict that Malcolm X’s urging inspired Cooke to write the latter, though Cooke had already released “A Change Is Gonna Come” as a single almost a month earlier on January 30, 1964.)

To showcase Cooke’s talent for your listening pleasure, I’m compiled his original recordings of the above tracks as well as “Having a Party” (in the spirit of the evening’s intended events) and “Basin Street Blues”, a cover of Spencer Williams’ Dixieland standard that Cooke had recorded just months earlier and is one of my personal favorites from his prolific discography.

What’d He Wear?

The Burgundy Sharkskin Suit

The opening scene depicts Sam Cooke’s low tolerance for ribbing from anyone but close acquaintances, so you know later that Jim Brown must be a close pal when he jests about “that cheap purple suit.”

Of the four leads, Sam is arguably the flashiest dresser in his burgundy suit with a tonal pink shirt and day cravat, standing boldly apart from his pals in their more traditional suits. True to life, Malcolm X was the most conservative dresser in a typical business suit, white shirt, and tie as well as his iconic browline glasses. Jim Brown and Cassius Clay are costumed in a manner bridging the gap between Sam Cooke’s form and Malcolm X’s function, Brown looking stylish in his mod black three-piece suit and button-down collar and Clay fashionable and contemporary in a light brown suit with a windowpane check echoing his teal knitted sports shirt.

Clad in his burgundy sharkskin suit, Sam Cooke literally shines among his more traditionally dressed friends.

Clay, Brown, and Malcolm X wear pieces that could have been found in any man’s closet during the ’60s, but Cooke takes measures to dress in a manner that lets us know he’s somebody who can afford custom-made clothes that make a statement. It’s an interesting contrast, as Cooke is charged by Malcolm X as being the most comfortable among the oppressive establishment, and thus may see the least need to dress to fit in.

Fawnia Soo Hoo for Fashionista cites the movie’s production notes to explain that Cooke was costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck’s favorite character to design, drawing on how the artist appeared on album covers in his father’s collection when she was growing up. “Sam Cooke was the most fashionable of all the four,” Jamison-Tanchuck explains. “The sharkskin suit was just so wonderful and indicative of the ’60s. Leslie wore them well and Leslie just went with it.”

“Cooke was into sharkskin, so we built a two-piece wine-colored suit,” Jamison-Tanchuck elaborated to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Cathy Whitlock. Sharkskin is characterized by its shine, a silky iridescent finish that belies that the base fabric of most sharkskin suits is a soft, smooth worsted wool, woven or warp-knitted in two color threads incorporating fabrics like mohair or rayon, depending on the quality. The subtle shine of Leslie Odom Jr.’s burgundy screen-worn suit suggests tasteful natural fibers as were popular on more sophisticated sharkskin through the mid-20th century rather than the “fast fashion” manmade fibers that cheapened sharkskin’s reputation in the decades to follow. (You can read more about sharkskin from Burton Menswear and Style Girlfriend.)

Cooke’s single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels that roll to a two-button front, positioned neatly to match the top of the trousers at Leslie Odom Jr.’s waist. At 5’7″, Odom is not a particularly tall actor, but his clothing is fit to flatter, suggesting quality tailoring on par with what the real-life clothes horse Cooke would have worn. The double-vented jacket has structured shoulders with roped sleeveheads and four buttons at the cuff of each sleeve. The set-in breast pocket does not have a prominent welt like many traditional suit jackets, and the flapped hip pockets are positioned on a gentle slant toward the back.

As mentioned, Cooke’s trousers rise to Odom’s natural waist line, where they are tailored to fit without requiring belt, braces, or even adjuster tabs. The narrow waistband has an extended tab that fastens through a hidden hook closure positioned to the right. The minimalist trousers lack pleats and appear to have a flat front, though there may also be darts to fit the trousers over the hips.

Consistent with emerging styles of the ’60s, the trousers have the distinctive full-top frogmouth, or Western-style, front pockets which Matt Spaiser of Bond Suits defines as “slightly slanted down across the front, and offset down from the waistband so the pocket is in the middle of the hips rather than on top of the hips.” There are two jetted back pockets, and the trousers fit straight through the legs to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

As the night—and debate—heats up, Cooke and Clay have removed their jackets, and Cooke has even slipped off his silk cravat.

The real Sam Cooke, clad in light open-collar shirt and shiny long-rise trousers, possibly sharkskin.

Cooke tonally coordinates with a pink shirt that softens the visual impact of his bold suit. The shirting has a shine reflective of either a high-twist cotton or possibly silk, with the same cloth covering the buttons up the shirt’s plain “French placket” front.

Though the opening scene depicts Sam Cooke bombing at the Copacabana for his first appearance in March 1958, he would be received with remarkably better success for his return in the summer 1964, which also yielded the spectacular live album Sam Cooke at the Copa. “Immediately after the last show, Jules Podell, the gruff Copa manager, presented Sam with the prized cuff links and bonnet,” wrote Peter Guralnick in his well-researched Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck copied these to create one of the gold sets that Odom wears as Cooke, though I’m not sure if these were the rectangular links worn with his double (French) cuffs in this sequence or the more ornate links he wears for his appearance on The Tonight Show during the finale.

Cooke adds an aristocratic air to his ensemble with a day cravat made from a rich burgundy silk, embroidered with beige star-shaped designs.

Cooke wears a silk day cravat with his open-necked shirt as an elegant and sporty alternative to his companions’ ties.

Cooke continues the color into his shoes with a pair of burgundy cotton lisle socks. Even his black derby shoes are non-traditional, textured with woven leather vamps inside the apron-toe.

Cooke kicks back in Malcolm X’s motel room, strumming a few bars of “Put Me Down Easy” on his six-string Martin to pass the time until his friends arrive.

Cooke balances his flashy look by going light on ornamentation, wearing only a gold signet ring on his left pinky as far as visible jewelry and accessories.

Sam Cooke’s style evolution was chronicled by Peter Guralnick in Dream Boogie, beginning with the singer’s embrace of Ivy-inspired clothes around the time of his first major success in the fall of 1957. “I like the Ivy League look in clothes. I am fashion conscious,” Cooke himself told Amsterdam News in December 1957, a time when Guralnick notes that “he began to cultivate a collegiate look: V-neck sweaters and pleated belt-less pants for casual situations, a growing number of modestly elegant business suits for more formal ones.”

The Silver Copa Suit

One Night in Miami opens during one night… in New York. At the famous Copacabana nightclub, in fact, where Sam Cooke is making his debut appearance, attempting to appeal to the audience demographic by covering Debbie Reynolds’ frothy “Tammy”. No specific date is given on screen, but it was March 1958 when Cooke famously bombed at the Copa.

Odom’s Cooke takes the stage in a shiny suit that would be established as Cooke’s sartorial signature, though this sharkskin cloth actually looks like the skin of a shark in its silvery gray, coordinated to a skinny dupioni silk tie with a tonal dot and stripe pattern in an “uphill” direction that coordinates to the traditional sharkskin weave. He wears a white shirt, as he does for all of his on-screen performances, dressed at the cuffs with a set of white-filled round silver links.

Cooke at the Copa.

Shaped by darts, the silver suit jacket diverges from the otherwise similar burgundy sharkskin suit in its detailing, such as the slimmer lapels with more obtusely angled notches. The lapels roll to two buttons very closely spaced at the waist. The built-up, padded shoulders with no sleevehead roping is more contemporary to the late ’50s, and the sleeves flare at the two-button cuffs. The welted breast pocket is empty, as usual, and the flapped pockets on the hips slant rearward. Cooke’s non-pleated suit trousers are cut to resemble the burgundy suit with their beltless waistband and frogmouth-style pockets.

Cooke’s Performance Green

“Cooke was into sharkskin, so we built a two-piece wine-colored suit and purchased one in jade green from Western Costume as seen in his concerts and on the Johnny Carson show,” Francine Jamison-Tanchuck told The Hollywood Reporter, suggesting that Odom may be wearing the same green suit both for the flashback show in Boston and his closing appearance on The Tonight Show.

For the Boston show Malcolm X recounts, Cooke is dressed in a green suit that takes on a teal cast under the stage lights. It’s cut in his usual style, a two-button single-breasted jacket with notch lapels and double vents, with the traditional layout of a welted breast pocket and straight jetted—rather than flapped—hip pockets. The shoulders are padded with some roping at the sleeveheads, and the two-button sleeves lack the flare present on the silver suit from the Copa. He wears another French-cuffed white shirt but with no tie, laying the open collar flat over the lapels of his suit jacket.

Cooke improvises after the volatile Jackie Wilson attempts to sabotage his Boston show.

One Night in Miami concludes with Sam Cooke’s appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where he debuts “A Change Is Gonna Come” after singing “Good Times”. (In reality, this performance was February 7, 1964, nearly two weeks before the pivotal night, with Cooke singing “Basin Street Blues” rather than “Good Times”.)

Cooke wears another shimmering green suit, almost identically detailed to what we saw in Boston save for the pocket flaps (though, to be fair, he could have had those tucked into his pockets for the earlier scene.) Sharkskin’s iridescent nature can be deceptive, but I believe we see enough of both suits for me to discern that the Carson show suit is actually a darker green, more olive than jade.

As Cooke did for the actual set, Odom wears a white cotton shirt with semi-spread collar and straight tie, depicted as a sage-colored silk with subtle “downhill” striping. His French cuffs are rigged with a set of substantial gold links, and he appears to be wearing a pair of more conventional black leather cap-toe derby shoes with his thin dress socks, coordinating to the black leather belt he wears with his trousers.

Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson flank Sam Cooke as he prepares to introduce “A Change Is Gonna Come”.

Sam Cooke sports knitwear and tattersall trousers in the studio, circa 1960.

Casual Knitwear and Checked Trousers

Among all of his stylish sharkskin suits, Sam Cooke also gets to take it easy in some natty and comfortable sports wear, seen while serenading his wife Barbara (Nicolette Robinson, Odom’s real-life wife) in their Fontainebleau hotel room the afternoon before the Clay-Liston fight.

Cooke wears a pair of cream tattersall check trousers that look like they could have come from the singer’s actual closet as there are several photos from the early ’60s of the real Sam Cooke sporting similarly checked slacks with blazers, cardigans, and the occasional tie. The One Night in Miami trousers are patterned in a navy-and-gold tattersall check against a cream ground, finished with button-through back pockets and frogmouth front pockets like his other pants.

Cooke lounges in an open-knit short-sleeved shirt with a white slubbed body, detailed with three lime green bands around the torso and matching lime green ribbed waist and sleeve hems. There is a white woven collar and a quarter-zip closure with a silver ring pull. He completes the resort-ready look with a pair of white shoes.

The Car

The real Sam Cooke, perched atop his Jaguar E-Type. Peter Guralnick’s Dream Boogie attributes this photo to Joe McEwen.

Sam Cooke was an automotive enthusiast, cycling through a score of fashionable rides from sports cars to luxurious limousines through the shining years of his career from the late 1950s through the mid-’60s. His years touring with the gospel group The Soul Stirrers had reinforced the importance of a car that could withstand the stresses of traveling the country while also communicating status.

In 1957, the year that Cooke’s debut single “You Send Me” shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts, Cooke obtained the first of a growing fleet of cars, an eggshell-painted Imperial LeBaron complete with dangerous fins and iconic Continental tire mounted on the trunk. The success of “You Send Me” financed Cooke’s dream car, a white ’58 Cadillac convertible with red leather upholstery and gold trim. Within a year, the Cadillac was totaled in a tragic accident that took the life of Cooke’s driver, Eddie Cunningham. After Cunningham’s death and the destruction of his first Cadillac, Cooke’s tours were served by a new Cadillac limousine and a Buick station wagon.

As Cooke’s success continued to grow into the 1960s, so too did his automotive collection as he added a white Corvette, a Jaguar E-Type, and a Maserati purchased from Eddie Fisher. The night he premiered at the Copa in June 1964, Allen Klein gifted Cooke with his updated dream car, a new Rolls-Royce costing $15,000.

In the spring of 1964, Cooke traded the Maserati for the bright red Ferrari that he would famously drive through the last night of his life that December. The actual car was a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso berlinetta sports coupe, though it’s depicted on screen as the even-rarer Ferrari 250 GTO, of which only 36 were produced.

Vanilla ice cream and 7 Up not being enough to satisfy Cooke and Clay’s idea of a celebration, the two head to an all-night liquor store in Sam’s speedy red Ferrari.

Ferrari produced the 250 GT Lusso in limited numbers, with just over 350 manufactured during its production run from 1962 to 1964 and attracting star drivers like Sam Cooke, Steve McQueen, and Brian Wilson. It was powered by a 3.0-liter Tipo 168U V12 engine like the 250 GTO, though the Colombo engine of the 250 GT Lusso produced an output of 240 horsepower against the 250 GTO’s racing-oriented 290-horsepower engine that utilized a dry sump and six Weber carburetors. If the 250 GTO was designed for performance, the 250 GT Lusso was its more civilized cousin (“lusso” being Italian for “luxury”), offering a more spacious interior by positioning the engine in the front.

You can read more about Sam Cooke’s cars at Patrick Smith’s blog and specifically about Cooke’s Ferrari at Concept Carz.

How to Get the Look

Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami (2020)

The flashiest dresser of the One Night in Miami quartet, Sam Cooke balances boldness and taste with his wine-hued sharkskin suit and tonally appropriate accompaniments.

• Burgundy sharkskin wool-and-mohair tailored suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, double vents
  • Flat-front high-rise trousers with fitted waistband, “frogmouth” front pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Light pink shirt with spread collar, plain “French placket” front with covered buttons, and double/French cuffs
• Burgundy embroidered silk day cravat
• Black leather derby shoes with apron toe and woven leather vamps
• Burgundy cotton lisle socks
• Gold signet pinky ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

I began the new year by reading Peter Guralnick’s exhaustively researched volume on Cooke, Dream Boogie, and gained an even greater appreciation for the conflicted and charismatic entertainer. Of the events of February 25, 1964, Guralnick wrote:

Dee Dee Sharp, who was performing at the Sir John Hotel and had been seeing Cassius on and off for the last few months, had been planning a post-fight party for him, but Cassius chose to go back to the Hampton House with Malcolm, Sam, and Jim Brown, the football great, who had provided radio commentary for the fight.

They sat in Malcolm’s room with Osman Karriem and various Muslim ministers and supporters, eating vanilla ice cream and offering up thanks to Allah for Cassius’ victory, as an undercover FBI informant took note of this apparent nexus between the Nation of Islam and prominent members of the sports and entertainment industries. Sam was uncharacteristically quiet, taking in the magnificent multiplicity of the moment. To him, Cassius was not just a great entertainer but a kindred soul. He had made beating Liston look easy, and Sam was convinced he would beat him again. Because, armed with an analytic intelligence, he had made him afraid. Jim Brown, an outspoken militant himself, though not a member of the Nation, appeared to veteran black sports reporter Brad Pye Jr. to be more elated over Clay’s achievement than any of his own. “Well, Brown,” said Malcolm with a mixture of seriousness and jocularity, “don’t you think it’s time for this young man to stop spouting off and get serious?”

The Quote

Everybody talks about they want a piece of the pie, well I don’t! I want the goddamn recipe.

The post One Night in Miami: Leslie Odom Jr. as Sam Cooke appeared first on BAMF Style.

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974)

Vitals

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, calculating Mafia boss

Havana, December 1958, and Lake Tahoe, Spring 1959

Film: The Godfather Part II
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

When “gangster style” comes to mind, you may think first of the silk suits from Goodfellas or tracksuits of The Sopranos, but Michael Corleone established an aristocratic sense of style as he grew into his leadership role in accordance with his reserved nature.

The Godfather Part II debuts Michael’s penchant for the day cravat, a decorative and sporty scarf-like neckwear. Some use the term “ascot” when referring to a day cravat, though it’s worth pointing out that the ascot tie is a different, more formal type of neckwear worn inside a shirt collar like a traditional tie while the day cravat is worn against the skin, under the shirt itself. (Michael may be a rarity among fictional mafiosi to sport this elegant type of neckwear, but Joe Pantoliano as the vain sociopath Ralph Cifaretto on The Sopranos illustrates that he wasn’t alone.)

My previous post explored the silk day cravat that Leslie Odom Jr. wore as Sam Cooke in the recent One Night in Miami. Now, on #MafiaMonday, let’s take a look at how Al Pacino wore his cravats to dress up Michael Corleone’s dressed-down looks in The Godfather Part II.

What’d He Wear?

Unlike some movie mobsters—think Robert De Niro’s pastel wardrobe in Casino—Michael Corleone has a practical and utilitarian approach to his clothes that matches his mind for business. Across the events of The Godfather Part II, Michael cycles through a limited closet of quality pieces that make a powerful impression on friends and foe and everybody in between. Indeed, he only appears on screen wearing four different suits, though he wears them with such versatility that it can feel like more: a flashy gray dupioni silk suit for public events like his son’s communion and a meeting in Havana, a sinister black suit when he needs to evoke power (worn with or without waistcoat), a businesslike pinstripe suit for austere occasions like testifying during a Senate hearing, and a summer suit with a subdued check for low-key business dealings in warmer cities like Miami and Havana; it’s with this latter suit that he first see Michael in a day cravat, dressing the suit down with a white knitted polo shirt for Hyman Roth’s birthday party.

A serious man aware of the importance of his appearance, Michael never appears in public wearing anything less dressier than a tailored jacket and collared shirt, anchoring his few “casual” outfits with a tasteful navy blue sports coat that appears to be made from a comfortable wool serge. Not technically a blazer like some odd jackets in this color, this single-breasted jacket avoids the trendy extremes of ’50s fashion with its timeless cut. The notch lapels roll to a two dark blue plastic buttons that resemble the three buttons on each cuff. The welted breast pocket is conventional, but the patch pockets on the hips are sporty enough to discern this jacket from traditional business attire. The single-vented jacket has padded shoulders—with gently roped sleeveheads—that were fashionable in the ’50s but also build up the 5’7″ Al Pacino’s silhouette to look more subtly powerful.

Michael contrasts Fredo’s flashy pink-on-pink with a subdued navy jacket and white shirt, his only affectation being the day cravat that was considerably less out of place in the resort-like atmosphere of 1950s Havana.

We first see Michael’s “off-duty” sports coat in Havana during the days leading up to the fateful New Year’s Eve celebration. An afternoon in his hotel room with only his bodyguard and newly arrived brother Fredo (John Cazale) present calls for something a little less dressy than his usual suit and tie, so he recycles the white short-sleeved shirt from Roth’s birthday party and ties on a dark indigo and gold paisley silk day cravat.

It may be December, but the tropical Caribbean climate still averages around 80°F in Havana so Michael is wise to wear this lighter white shirt, constructed from a breezy knitted cotton. The shirt has a three-button top, worn with only the top button undone to accommodate the day cravat, and a breast pocket. Michael wears light gray wool double forward-pleated trousers and a black leather belt that coordinates with his black leather shoes and socks.

Michael’s casual look in Havana, consisting of a navy odd jacket with white shirt and gray slacks, would be the most neutral ensemble in his trio of dressed-down appearances across The Godfather Part II.

Back in Lake Tahoe, he dresses more warmly for the snowy winter. Again, Michael is meeting with Fredo but his demeanor is as chilly as the snow-covered docks outside as he formally severs ties with the brother who betrayed him.

Michael’s light gray button-up shirt diverges from his polo-style shirts, worn under a dark gray wool sweater with a ribbed-knit V-neck that draws more attention to the shirt’s open point collar and the dark paisley silk day cravat. This manner of dress gives Michael the appearance of a cavalry officer—think Colonel Kilgore from Coppola’s later masterpiece—as he firmly lays out his orders for Fredo to follow.

Resembling a martinet in his high-necked collar and scarf, Michael’s steel tones communicate his cold callousness as he disowns his brother: “Fredo, you’re nothing to me now. You’re not a brother, you’re not a friend. I don’t want to know you or what you do. I don’t want to see you at the hotels, I don’t want you near my house. When you see our mother, I want to know a day in advance, so I won’t be there. You understand?”

No longer in Havana and certainly not in any mood for lightness, Michael maintains his sartorial sobriety with a pair of charcoal slacks. His black leather shoes appear to be cap-toe oxfords, again worn with uninteresting—but not unexpected—black socks.

Michael sits in his familiar “power position” while Fredo slumps, as good as dead after his not-so-brotherly betrayal.

Finally, Michael manifests his warmest look for the quiet climax as he appropriately dons a blood red shirt while arranging the deaths of his adversaries.

I don’t feel I have to wipe everybody out, Tom… just my enemies.

The scarlet-hued long-sleeved shirt looks to have been knitted from a material like Ban-Lon, the trade name for Joseph Bancroft & Sons’ synthetic yarn that revolutionized men’s sportswear in the ’50s and ’60s. The long-collared shirt has three red plastic two-hole buttons, the top worn undone to reveal that indigo-and-“old gold” paisley printed silk day cravat. Again, he wears charcoal trousers with a black leather belt and shoes.

In case Michael’s deep red shirt didn’t already signal that blood was about to be spilled, he spends the scene eating an orange, Coppola’s famous forebear of death in The Godfather series.

Having engineered the deaths of his brother and two of his father’s oldest friends who have since had reason to turn against him, Michael can no longer behind his guise of continuing his evil deeds on behalf of his family, cemented by once again closing the door on his wife for a second—and arguably more decisive—time. With these final acts, Michael also discards the day cravats that had lent him the appearance of respectability. Who’s he trying to fool anymore?

Still in his open-necked red knit shirt and charcoal trousers, Michael layers on a broad-shouldered camelhair double-breasted overcoat and tonal cashmere scarf with fringed ends. These are items typically worn to fight against the cold, but the insouciant way that Michael wears them—coat open, scarf untied—suggests that he’s given up that fight, yielding completely to the coldness in his heart as he allows himself to commit to previously unthinkable acts.

Michael glares at his now ex-wife with disdain, shutting her out of his life as he more definitively severs ties with other acquaintances he’s known his entire life.

Michael would resume wearing day cravats, admittedly more loosely tied and supplemented by the occasional neckerchief, with his dressed-down suits and sport jackets in The Godfather Part III. By then, he’s refocused on reforming his image for the public after rebranding himself as a philanthropist.

The Watch

Throughout The Godfather Part II, Michael wears a yellow gold watch that has been speculatively identified as an Omega Constellation—appropriately of 1950s vintage—with a white dial and shining gold bracelet. Consistent with his personality, he eschews excessive jewelry and accessories, wearing only the plain gold wedding ring that communicates to the rest of the world that he’s a “family man”.

Michael flashes his Omega while lighting a Camel in his Havana hotel room.

What to Imbibe

Michael isn’t a teetotaler, but he limits his drinking to the occasional celebratory concoction or late-night cognac. When he takes Fredo out for an afternoon in Havana, he refreshes himself with a plain club soda while Fredo maintains a steady diet of, uh, “how do you say banana daiquiri?”

“Banana daiquiri,” Michael answers, allowing himself an amused smirk at his brother’s expense.

Admittedly, it would be a surprise to see Michael Corleone drinking a banana daiquiri. Fredo… not such a surprise.

This happy hour staple indeed originated in Cuba, credited to Americans around the time of the Spanish-American War though, as with most cocktails, the true inventor of the daiquiri remains lost to history with mining engineer Jennings Cox and congressman William A. Chanler competing for credit among modern sources. Whoever invented it, the standard daiquiri recipe emerged as a generous amount of white rum shaken with lime juice and sugar before being strained into a chilled cocktail glass.

As rum-based drinks became increasingly fashionable in the United States following World War II and the boom of Tiki culture, Americans discovered their palette for cocktails like the Planter’s Punch, Zombie, and the almighty daiquiri. Mainland mixologists exercised their creativity on the original recipes, though it was reportedly British sea captain George Soule who pioneered the banana daiquiri while exploring St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, where he blended local bananas with rum, lime juice, and sugar for a tasty new concoction. (Captain Soule’s story is substantiated by Cruzan, stipulating that it was their rum, of course!)

How to Get the Look

Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974)

A shrewd leader like Michael Corleone is aware of the importance of a neat and tasteful appearance, even in casual situations. He adapts his dressed-down “uniform” of a navy odd jacket, open-neck shirt, and gray trousers to adapt to the temperature (regarding climate and situation) of his surroundings, completing each outfit with a day cravat that adds a subtle touch of affected elegance.

• Navy wool serge single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
• White or red knitted polo-type shirt with 3-button top
• Dark indigo and gold paisley silk day cravat
• Gray double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops and turn-ups/cuffs
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black socks
• Omega Constellation gold wristwatch with round white dial on gold bracelet
• Gold wedding band

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, including the masterpiece sequel The Godfather Part II.

The Quote

If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything… it says you can kill anyone.

The post The Godfather, Part II: Michael Corleone’s Navy Jacket and Cravats appeared first on BAMF Style.

Julian Glover as Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981)
Photo sourced from thunderballs.org.

Vitals

Julian Glover as Aristotle Kristatos, urbane but dangerous heroin smuggler

St. Cyril’s, Greece, Spring 1981

Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Wardrobe Master: Tiny Nicholls

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This year marks the 40th anniversary of one of my favorite James Bond movies, For Your Eyes Only, the grounded espionage adventure that brought 007 back down to Earth after Roger Moore’s space-trotting adventure in the polarizing Moonraker.

Subdued and serious, For Your Eyes Only was a departure from the underwater cars and land-going gondolas of Sir Roger’s previous outings, realigning itself with Ian Fleming’s stories after borrowing from the author’s 1960 short story of the same name as well as “Risico”, a story from the same volume that introduced the warring smugglers Columbo and Kristatos, portrayed on screen by Chaim Topol and Julian Glover, respectively.

As in “Risico”, Bond aligns with Columbo after realizing that his initial ally Kristatos is actually his enemy. Glover portrays Aristotle Kristatos with the sinister sophistication that made him a popular villain across ’80s franchise films from The Empire Strikes Back to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

What’d He Wear?

Bond and Columbo join forces with Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) to lead a commando team infiltrating Kristatos’ hideout at St. Cyril’s, an abandoned mountaintop monastery in the Peneas Valley. Unaware of the team scaling the mountain outside, Kristatos eagerly awaits the arrival of General Gogol (Walter Gotell) of the KGB, for whom he had retrieved For Your Eyes Only‘s MacGuffin, an ATAC communicator system purloined from a sunken British spy ship.

Kristatos dresses for his mountainous surroundings in an outdoorsy thigh-length jacket made from a cream padded cotton shell that has a reversible ribbed wool lining in the same color. The jacket was recently auctioned in December 2020, fetching £1,100. The Prop Store auction listing mentions only size markings in the jacket (“GB 42 USA XL”), so we may never know the manufacturer.

Kristatos lays out their next steps under the judgmental eye of Jacoba Brink (Jill Bennett).

The jacket has a full-zip front, up from the gently gathered waist hem to the tall standing collar. The collar can be fastened over the wearer’s throat (like a turtleneck) thanks to a two-button system on the inside of the shell, one button at the funnel-neck and another at the top of the collar that would close around the chin, though Kristatos wears the jacket fully open and unzipped. The jacket has raglan sleeves with ribbed-knit cuffs and hand pockets with a straight vertical zip closure.

A bad day for Kristatos. Note the buttons inside the jacket’s left collar and neck, which would be used to fasten over the throat if Kristatos were wearing it reversed. The buttons correspond to vertical buttonholes “hidden” among the ribbed wool along the inner right side.

Kristatos wears a sporty off-the-rack casual shirt that appears to be made from polyester or a blend of similar artificial fibers as was particularly popular through the 1970s into the ’80s. The all-over print consists of mini white circles that encapsulate a single dark navy dot, all neatly arranged and tightly spaced against a brick-hued brown ground. The shirt has a spread collar, front placket with white plastic buttons, and a breast pocket with the shirtmaker’s logo embroidered in white in the upper right corner. (The logo resembles a flattened “P” with an extended base, and I’m sure some BAMF Style readers may be able to readily identify it with more success than yours truly!)

Kristatos reaches for his last-ditch weapon, an out-the-front (OTF) automatic knife.

Kristatos wears khaki gabardine flat front trousers with wide belt loops for his brown leather belt, detailed with an elongated silver-toned buckle with a rounded end. His russet brown leather plain-toe loafers have raised heels, likely a fashion-influenced choice as, standing 6’2″ tall, Julian Glover was in no need of making himself appear taller to be a convincing villain. These slip-on shoes are sparsely detailed aside from short splits at each side of the upper where black elastic runs under the tongue to ease the wearer when putting them on and when dashing up a stone staircase to escape the clutches of a former comrade-turned-enemy.

Columbo catches up to Kristatos, whose high-heeled loafers don’t give him enough traction to get enough distance from his erstwhile ally.

Kristatos’ only ornamentation is a gold ring on his left pinky finger.

How to Get the Look

Julian Glover as Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Kristatos affects a somewhat Alpine casual look while awaiting the KGB at his Grecian mountaintop hideout, comfortably layering a reversible padded jacket over a contemporary sport shirt and slacks. It works.

• Cream padded cotton reversible thigh-length zip-up jacket with tall collar, vertical zip-closure hand pockets, and raglan sleeves with ribbed-knit cuffs
• Brick-brown closely-dotted polyester sport shirt with spread collar, front placket, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Khaki gabardine flat front trousers with wide belt loops and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Brown leather belt with curved silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Russet brown leather elastic-instep slip-on shoes
• Black cotton lisle socks
• Gold pinky ring

Jackets like this generally fell out of vogue after the advent of the light-wearing “puffer jacket” in the decades to follow (though down jackets had existed since George Finch debuted his during the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition), though a few quilted jackets closer to Kristatos’ outerwear can still be spotted in the modern marketplace:

• Helmut Lang Men’s Quilted Jacket (MODESENS, $620)
• Loro Piana Voyager Zip-Front Coat (Neiman Marcus, $2,525)
• Topman Considered Stone Padded Puffer Jacket (Topman, $91.67)
• Woolrich Men’s Sierra Stag Down Jacket (Woolrich, $247.50)

Prices and availability as of January 25, 2021.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post For Your Eyes Only: Kristatos’ Cream Padded Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I. (Episode 1.14: “Adelaide”)

Vitals

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

Hawaii, Summer 1981

Series: Magnum, P.I.
Episodes:
– “No Need to Know” (Episode 1.05, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 1/8/1981)
– “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 1/29/1981)
– “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 3/19/1981)
– “Beauty Knows No Pain” (Episode 1.18, dir. Ray Austin, aired 4/16/1981)
– “Tropical Madness” (Episode 2.07, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 11/12/1981)
Creator: Donald P. Bellisario & Glen Larson
Costume Designer: Charles Waldo (credited with first season only)
Costume Supervisor: James Gilmore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

We all love Magnum, P.I., don’t we, folks? I’ll be transparent, I was hoping that I would have had enough of the series screencapped so that I could gift BAMF Style readers on the national observance of Selleck’s Birthday with a rundown of that iconic red “jungle bird” shirt that, if I’m not mistaken, was the most frequently worn—and prominently featured—of Tom’s tropical-printed Aloha shirts.

Though armed with the entire series on Blu-ray, my digital rewatch was stalled in the middle of the third season (blame the untimely death of my computer-friendly Blu-ray player and Amazon Prime for removing the show last summer), but the good news is that Tom sported enough stylish looks by that point that I should have plenty of Magnum fodder on hand to tide us over until I’m able to complete the series. (The bad news? Still nothing for those fans of Magnum’s Pepsi bezel Rolex.)

I considered the half-measure of featuring his black-and-neon version of the “jungle bird” shirt, but—given that Selleck’s January 29 birthday falls during #SweaterWeather for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere—it felt like the right time to divert from those famous Aloha shirts and summer-weight polos to focus on Magnum’s more winter-friendly knitwear.

What’d He Wear?

That said… Magnum isn’t exactly kicking back in bulky wool sweaters. For the first few seasons, TM’s knitwear of choice would be light-weight cable-knit jumpers worn sans undershirt, often pulled on as a warm cover-up layer after coming in from a refreshing ocean swim. Rather than warmer-wearing wool, which could be itchy when worn directly against the skin, Magnum’s sweaters appear to be made from synthetic fibers like acrylic, possibly blended with cotton. We see a variety of colors including a night-ready navy and a tactical taupe, but the focus of this post will be the cream-colored sweater shaded to resemble a classic Aran-style fisherman’s jumper.

Magnum’s sweater is knitted in alternating strips of a six-wide shaker-rib stitch and a twisted rope stitch which lines up directly with the center of the sweater, extending from the corner of the ribbed V-neck down to the long-ribbed hem, which coordinates with the ribbed cuffs at the ends of each set-in sleeve. Selleck always wore this sweater sans undershirt to allow the V-neck to illustrate that his virile hirsuteness wasn’t limited to his upper lip.

Magnum berates Ffolkes’ security team for not making him and Higgins aware of the danger they faced in “No Need to Know” (Episode 1.05).

Magnum debuts the sweater in “No Need to Know” (Episode 1.05) after a security team protecting Robin Masters’ latest houseguest, Brigadier Ffolkes, kills an assassin that infiltrated the property. The following morning, an impatient Magnum prepares for a swim by wearing the cream cable-knit sweater over his navy swimming trunks.

The same outfit reappears at the end of “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08), also with a pair of aquatic-friendly dark blue flip flops detailed with a white band around the soles.

Magnum debriefs with T.C. (Roger E. Mosley) and Higgins (John Hillerman) after the events of “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08).

The short-inseam swim trunks in question are navy blue polyester with an elastic waistband, a small pocket on the right side that closes with a single-button flap, a patch pocket on the back left, and a deep vent on each side seam that allows more athletic movement while in the waves.

Out for a morning swim in “No Need to Know” (Episode 1.05), Magnum meets the mysterious Mandy (Robin Dearden) on the beach.

Magnum begins incorporating the cream sweater into his day-to-day wear in “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14), starting with a scene at Robin’s Nest where Higgins finds droll glee in mocking his permanent houseguest for “that overly aggressive mustache of yours… you look a bit like Rhett Butler.” The more productive aspects of the conversation reveal that Magnum’s eponymous new client may have had her horse Norman abducted by her own uncle, who was hoping to collect on Norman’s sterility insurance.

Dressed for the action ahead, Magnum now wears the medium-wash blue denim Levi’s jeans that were his staple for much of Magnum, P.I.‘s first season, as well as his signature military-style khaki cotton web belt with the plain brass sliding buckle (before it would be replaced with his personalized USN Surface Warfare-badged buckle for the second season onward.)

Be they Pumas or not, Higgins would certainly take umbrage at Magnum so insouciantly kicking his shoes up onto Robin Masters’ desk as seen in “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14).

“Adelaide” also features Magnum’s go-to sneakers, a pair of white nylon Puma Easy Rider running shoes with off-white suede overlays on the T-toes, lacing, and heel counters as well as dark blue side stripes, dark blue “wedge” midsoles, and raised black rubber outsoles with leather studs for traction. San Jose State University running coach Don Riggs touted the comfort, durability, and overall quality of the Easy Rider in contemporary advertisements published by Puma at the time of the shoe’s introduction in 1977. Puma has introduced several reissues of this model over the years, though the retro-inspired “Easy Rider 78” arguably comes closest to what Selleck wore on screen.

Curiously, there’s a brief continuity error when Magnum and Adelaide are confronted by gunmen at the stables. He’s asked to drop his .45 to the ground, and we see it land next to his white sneakers, which are now a pair of Nike All Courts. With their white canvas uppers and Nike’s signature side “swoosh” marks in dark blue, these low-top tennis shoes are at least a consistent colorway with his regular Pumas, but it’s still a curious swap. The Nikes have seven sets of eyelets with flat white laces like the Pumas, and the toes are reinforced with white rubber bumpers.

In “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14), Magnum is asked to drop his pistol on the ground where it lands next to his Nike All Court sneakers, a continuity error as he was clearly wearing his usual Puma Easy Riders earlier in the episode.

The sweater appears twice more, albeit briefly, first while Magnum convalesces after completing the grueling Iron Man marathon at the conclusion of the first season finale “Beauty Knows No Pain” (Episode 1.18) and finally making its swan song in “Tropical Madness” (Episode 2.07), appropriately worn for the episode’s conclusion.

Magnum again wears his Levi’s jeans, though this is a richer denim in a darker wash and curiously worn without TM’s usual web belt. His brown leather boat shoes are another Magnum staple and are likely genuine Sperry Top-Siders, the preppy staple that originated on the decks of a yacht off New England when Paul A. Sperry took inspiration from his dog’s paws to develop the Top-Sider’s signature “non-slip” siped sole.

Magnum packs to leave Robin’s Nest at the end of “Tropical Madness” (Episode 2.07) after Higgins punches him, but all’s well that ends well and Robin Masters’ permanent houseguest remains on the property.

Since this sweater made the majority of its appearances throughout the first season, Magnum has yet to be outfitted with his silver POW/MIA bracelet and the “Pepsi bezel” Rolex GMT Master he would wear from the fourth season onward. Instead, he’s still wearing the stainless Chronosport Sea Quartz 30 dive watch on a black tropic rubber strap. These episodes aired in 1981, a year before the full “Sea Quartz 30” designation was printed on the dial, so the black dial simply reads “Quartz” among the luminous hour markers (with numerals at 12, 6, and 9 o’clock) and the black day-date window at 3:00.

In all but the first episode of the first season, Magnum wore his gold team ring on the left hand rather than the right. This chunky gold ring has a black enamel-filled oval face with a French Croix de Lorraine (“Cross of Lorraine”) embossed to possibly represent the spirit of the French resistance that powered Magnum, Rick, and T.C. during their time in Vietnam that resulted in the trio sporting their matching rings. (If you want to look like one of the guys, plenty of replicas are available like this relatively well-reviewed ring on Amazon.)

The Gun

As his investigations take a more dangerous turn, Magnum often turns to his trusty Colt Government Model pistol, a civilian variant of the .45-caliber M1911A1 he would have carried in the Navy. The ubiquity of the 1911 as a widely issued military sidearm and popular civilian weapon has made it a mainstay of the movies since their introduction in the early 20th century, though this presented a unique challenge to filmmakers as blank .45 ACP ammunition became notorious for failing to cycle through 1911 pistols.

When it no longer became feasible to merely arm characters with revolvers or other pistols, prop masters sought alternative solutions such as the Star Model B, a Spanish-made clone introduced in 1928 chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum (a far more reliable round for blank ammunition at the time) and cosmetically similar to the 1911 in nearly every way, save for a prominent brass-finished external extractor on the right side of the slide. The Star Model B became a star during the New Hollywood era with muscular movies like The Wild Bunch (1969), The Getaway (1972), Dillinger (1973), Three Days of the Condor (1975), and The Untouchables (1987) that called for gunfights galore.

Magnum, P.I. would be no exception—at least in some earlier episodes—though the prop masters were eventually able to arm Selleck with a genuine Colt-made Government Model 1911, albeit chambered in 9mm Parabellum. The series took a few curious steps to get to this point, particularly during the first season when Magnum drew a Star Model B in “China Doll” (Episode 1.03) or, most curiously, a smaller-framed Star Model BM in “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14).

The smaller frame of the pistol that Magnum drops in “Adelaide” (Episode 1.14), suggests a Star Model BM, a compact variant of the Star Model B often used as a stand-in for .45-caliber 1911 pistols of productions from the mid-1960s through the ’80s.

Spanish firearms firm Star Bonifacio Echeverria, S.A. introduced the Star Model BM in 1972 as a smaller-framed alternative to the Star Model B, with a four-inch barrel that would mimic the purpose—if not the appearance—of the Colt Commander to the full-size M1911A1. The 9x19mm Parabellum fed from an eight-round magazine.

More than 215,000 would be manufactured over the pistol’s nearly twenty-year production run, which also saw the introductions of alloy-framed variants like the Model BKM and the .45-caliber Model PD. At first, I had considered that the pistol might be a Star Model PD, but the more prominent hump in front of the base of each grip better resembled the Model BM in my opinion. The Model BM was available in blued and chrome-plated steel, though Magnum’s is blued to resemble his more frequently seen full-size Colt 1911 pistol.

Magnum’s untucked sweater allows him to comfortably carry the pistol in his waistband, though Charles Cathcart (Cameron Mitchell) still recognizes that Magnum is packing and asks him to disarm himself. Adelaide (Christine Belford) picks up the pistol herself, though Magnum has to step in after suggesting that she “take the safety off!” in order to be a more intimidating threat to her villainous uncle Charlie.

I suspect the armorers may have selected the smaller Star Model BM for this scene as it would fit more comfortably in the actress’ hands.

How to Get the Look

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I. (Episode 1.14: “Adelaide”)

Who says you need bold tropical prints to dress like Thomas Magnum? Selleck often pulled on this Aran-inspired cable-knit sweater as a comfortably warm cover-up after a refreshing swim, but he also wore it just as effectively with jeans and sneakers over the course of his dangerous work.

• Cream cable-knit acrylic V-neck sweater with ribbed cuffs and hem
• Levi’s blue denim jeans
• Khaki web belt with gold-finished buckle
• Puma Easy Rider sneakers with white nylon uppers, off-white suede overlays, dark blue side stripes and midsoles, and raised black studded rubber outsoles
• 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 black tropic leather strap
• Gold Croix de Lorraine team ring

Slazenger makes an almost identical all-cream cricket sweater made from 100% acrylic fiber, available via Amazon as of January 2021. Unlike the famous wine-hued Slazenger sweater that Sean Connery would wear for 007’s round of golf in Goldfinger, this Slazenger sweater has no discernible brand marks.

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the entire series. I also recommend the extensively researched Magnum Mania!, a marvelous online resource maintained by passionate fans of Magnum, P.I.

Fans should also be sure to follow my friend @magnum_pi_super_fan_ on Instagram!

The post Magnum, P.I.: Cream V-Neck Cable-Knit Sweater appeared first on BAMF Style.

Clark Gable as Gay Langland in The Misfits (1961)

Vitals

Clark Gable as Gay Langland, aging cowboy

Nevada desert, Summer 1960

Film: The Misfits
Release Date: February 1, 1961
Director: John Huston

Background

The Misfits was released sixty years ago today on what would have been star Clark Gable’s 60th birthday. As the actor died three months earlier in November 1960 (just days after filming wrapped), audiences strolling into the theater were already aware that it had been the screen icon’s swan song but were tragically unaware that it would be the last for Marilyn Monroe, who died in 1962 before she could complete production in Something’s Gotta Give.

As it turned out, none of the film’s leading trio would survive the decade as third-billed Montgomery Clift died at the age of 45 in July 1966.

Though not warmly received at the time of its release, The Misfits‘ reputation has benefited from contemporary reconsideration over the years as critics have come to appreciate this somewhat offbeat take on a group of lovable losers and no-account boozers, to pinch a phrase from Billy Joe Shaver.

The central cast and crew of The Misfits, photographed by Elliott Erwitt.
Left to right: Frank E. Taylor (producer), Montgomery Clift, Eli Wallach, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, John Huston, and Clark Gable.

Isabelle: Him? He’s a cowboy!
Gay: How’d you know?
Isabelle: I can smell, can’t I?

Old-school cowboy Gay Langland has just kissed off another paramour and is sitting down for drinks with his high-flying mechanic friend Guido (Eli Wallach) when they spy the newly divorced Roslyn Tabor (Marilyn Monroe) and her sharp-witted landlady Isabelle (Thelma Ritter) downing some whiskey in the corner. As one would expect of any men who see Marilyn Monroe in a bar, the two buddies strike up conversation with the pair, inviting them out to join them in the desert country outside Reno where there’s nothing to do but “just live”. With a sigh, Roslyn despondently asks “how do you ‘just live’…?” to which Gay enthusiastically responds:

Well, you start by goin’ to sleep. You get up when you feel like it. You scratch yourself, you fry yourself some eggs, you see what kind of a day it is. Throw stones at a can. Whistle!

Sounds like a damn good life to me… and evidently to Roslyn, who impulsively decides to rent a car and join them in the desert, taking heed of Isabelle’s sage but skeptical advice: “Cowboys are the last real men left in the world… and they’re about as reliable as jackrabbits.”

Roslyn: “How do you find your way back in the dark?”
Gay: “Just head for that big star straight on. The highway’s under it. It’ll take us right home.”

What’d He Wear?

Gay Langland dresses like the prototypical cowboy in his weather-beaten hat and boots, snap-front shirts, and Lee Westerner jacket and pants, but—unlike some Hollywood gents—the grizzled Clark Gable easily sells us on the role. The King of Hollywood may have risen to stardom during the presumed “golden age” when the best-dressed actors typically took to the screen in elegantly cut three-piece suits, but Gable was among the few who could convincingly wear an immaculately tailored worsted suit with a fedora and oxfords in one movie and Western denim with a cattleman’s hat and Lucchese boots in the next.

Gable may have been one of the first to sport on-screen the beige Lee Westerner set that would appear throughout the decade worn by the likes of Sidney Poitier and Elvis, to name a few. Lee had confidently introduced this as the flagship of its “Lee-Sures” line in 1959, just a year before The Misfits went into production. While it may stretch reason to consider that an old-timer like Gay Langland would wear something so new (and ironically marketed to non-Westerners), Gable wears it as effectively as if he’d had the set in his closet for decades.

Gay and Guido turn on the charm.

Clark Gable’s screen-worn Lee Westerner jacket from The Misfits. Photo sourced from Invaluable.

While Gable often wore his own tailored clothing in his movies, more character-defining pieces like this were evidently sourced from costume departments as the Christie’s, Bonhams, Gotta Have Rock and Roll, and Invaluable auction listings describe “Western Costume Co., Hollywood, Calif.” stamped along the inside in blue ink as well as “No. 21-99-42, Name Clark Gable 1, Chest 46” typed on the label.

Gable’s screen-worn Lee Westerner jacket follows the modernized “trucker jacket” template set by Lee and Levi’s in their competing quest for American denim supremacy, albeit made in a creamy beige cotton sateen rather than the blue jean fabric of the traditional Lee Rider jacket. Just a touch longer than a shirt, the Westerner jacket has six copper rivet buttons up the front and chest yokes that slant toward the center.

Patch-style chest pockets are placed directly below the yoke seams, covered by rounded asymmetrical flaps that each close through a single rivet button; the left pocket flap has the black branded patch with “Lee” embroidered in yellow. Each button is also emblazoned with “Lee”.

Note the “Lee” branding on Gable’s jacket buttons and pocket flap.

A single pleat strip extends down from the front yokes (under the pocket flaps) to the waist hem, which can be adjusted for tightness with a short button-tab toward the back of each side. The set-in sleeves also close at the squared cuffs with a single rivet button. A horizontal yoke also extends across the back with gently tapering seams down from each side to create a keystone-shaped back piece.

Two screen icons, two classic Lee jackets. Marilyn famously wore a Lee Storm Rider for the final act of The Misfits.

Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable share a candid moment while filming The Misfits.

Gable wears three similarly styled snap-front shirts as Gay Langland, the pearl snap closure reportedly innovated by Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil in the early 1900s “for better functionality for cowboys and rodeo riders in the event their cuffs were snagged on a fence,” according to Blue Owl. Rockmount’s site even features Gable in The Misfits among its celebrity galleries and in a 2014 Tweet suggesting that he wore Rockmount style no. 640 shirts on screen.

Whether wearing his Lee jacket or not, Gable tends to keep the back of his shirts flipped up, possibly to protect his neck against the blazing desert sun.

The first and last shirts are very similarly shaded in the black-and-white photography, differing primarily in the cloth texture and the number of mother-of-pearl snaps on the cuffs and gauntlets; the first shirt has a total of four while the third has five. All of the shirts have single-pointed Western yokes—one on each side of the front and one on the back—and two chest pockets with a “sawtooth” double-snapped flap, with Gay constantly drawing from a deck of Kents he keeps in the left pocket.

Focusing on the first shirt the cloth appears to be a dark cotton sateen that shines in the light of the desert and inside Guido’s ramshackle home, with a candid photo of Gable and Monroe on set suggesting a dark brown color. The triple-snap cuffs have a single additional snap to close each gauntlet over the wrist.

Monty Clift is left out of yet another romantic romp in the sand.

Gable briefly wears a differently patterned shirt, printed with a blue-and-white mini check but otherwise similarly cut and styled with its Western yoking, double sawtooth-flap pockets, and four-snap cuff configuration.

The rest of Gable’s Western garb remains consistent, from the worn hat and boots to the Lee Westerner jeans worn occasionally with the jacket.

As of January 2020, Rockmount Ranch Wear offers a cotton snap-front shirt patterned in a small navy and white gingham check, style no. 615, that continues the look that Gable wore in The Misfits, albeit with a slightly more prominent check and diamond-shaped snaps rather than the round ones seen in the movie.

This checked cotton shirt appears during the montage that chronicles much of Gay’s burgeoning romance with Roslyn while the others are away, beginning with the scene where Marilyn Monroe famously caught Gable off-guard by appearing completely naked under the sheets and concluding with a romantic embrace on the cigarette-strewn beach where Monroe’s skimpy, skin-toned bikini makes her look nearly naked. (Yes, there’s a theme here, and it’s not unpleasant.)

Yeah, I’d be smiling like that too, Clark.

For the second half of The Misfits, Gable returns to wearing a dark, solid-colored snap-front shirt, with color photography (see below) illuminating for us that the color is a rusty russet, closer to maroon on the red-brown spectrum than the first shirt. The cloth looks somewhat heavier and coarser, likely a cotton flannel more adequately suited to the rigors of rounding up wild mustangs.

This final shirt also has an additional snap closure on each wrist; the cuffs close with the usual three but there are two snaps over the gauntlets for a total of five snaps, evenly spaced in a row at the end of each sleeve. Otherwise, the Western-yoked shirt with its pair of sawtooth-flap pockets continues the style established by the previous shirts.

Another day, another drink… another snap-front shirt.

Monroe and Gable on set.

As stated, Gable wears the Lee Westerner jeans-style trousers that match his jacket, made from the same light beige cotton sateen cloth. These were included with the screen-worn jacket in the Gotta Have Rock and Roll auction in April 2014, when the total set sold for $5,849.

Though not traditional denim, these flat front pants share the basic properties and configuration of Lee’s classic 101 Rider jeans with their five-pocket layout and copper-riveted corners on the front pockets.

The spade-shaped back pockets are detailed with the brand’s trademark “lazy S”—or “compound curve” as Lee more diplomatically names it—in a low-contrast thread. The back right pocket is marked by the black patch with a yellow-embroidered “Lee” along the top, while the top corners of both pockets are reinforced with the “X”-tack that had replaced copper rivets on the back pockets of all Lee jeans by the late 1930s to avoid scratching saddles. (You can read more about the signature details of all Lee jeans here.)

Gable wears a flashy brown tooled leather belt, contrast-stitched at the edges and detailed with rhinestones and diamond-shaped metal studs. The belt gently tapers before the buckle, a large horseshoe-shaped engraved silver single-prong buckle.

Note that this third and final-worn shirt racks up a whopping five snaps to close the cuffs and gauntlets, though you may understandably be too distracted by that belt to notice anything as subtle as mother-of-pearl snaps.

As a contrast to his more extravagant belt, Gable wears plain cowboy boots with brown napped leather uppers that have subtle decorative stitching on the shafts.

Gay kicks back on Guido’s couch, dubiously watching his pal dance with his new lady friend.

For rounding up wild mustangs, Gay protects himself with the added layer of a tanned rawhide vest, matching chaps, and work gloves. According to listings at Julien’s Live and Worthpoint, the non-fastening vest is stamped “FERNANDO VALLEY/SADDLERY/NUYS, CALIFORNIA”, likely referring to the San Fernando Saddlery off Woodman Avenue in Van Nuys, co-operated by Cliff Ketchum and Art Hugenberger from the early 1950s through its closure in 1967.

Sleeveless vests and waistcoats were often favored by cowboys for having less fabric than coats that could potentially snag on trees or fences while also offering an additional protective layer and a few extra pockets, such as the two patch pockets toward the bottom of Gable’s screen-worn vest. While it may be a bit hot for an extra layer, the protective qualities proved invaluable to Gay once he found himself being dragged by a stallion.

Dressed and ready for rounding up mustangs.

Gay’s chaps (shortened from the Spanish “chaparejos“) are cut in the traditional “shotgun” style that had emerged as the favorite of Texas cowboys in the years following the Civil War. Each leg is its own separate piece, tight through the legs but cut out completely over the crotch and seat, where they’re connected with a strap across the back that transitions to a basket-woven leather self-belt in the front that laces together via a short string-tie. Each leg is fully fringed along the side seam, and the front of each thigh is detailed with a sewn-on patch pocket that closes through a single-button shaped flap.

Gable appropriately wears a battered cowboy hat that appears to have seen almost as much living as its wearer. The beige felt hat has a cattleman-style crown with additional pinch to the front and a wide brim that curls up asymmetrically. The hat is finished with a narrow band of plain brown leather around the base of the crown, buckled on the left side.

A surprisingly elegant but undoubtedly functional watch for this rugged outfit, smartly paired with a tooled leather strap to echo the belt.

Clark Gable was a lifelong watch collector who often wore his own timepieces in his movies, and The Misfits appears to be no exception as Gay Langland keeps time with a square-cased tank watch that may be Gable’s own Cartier Tank, worn on a brown tooled leather strap. The white square dial has black Roman numeral markers for each hour.

The Gun

When Gay spots evidence of a rabbit eating the lettuce they planted, he grabs one of Guido’s pump shotguns and goes to load it with Winchester Xpert shells despite Roslyn’s protestations. He doesn’t get his chance to kill da wabbit as they’re still arguing when Guido and Isabelle return, but we see plenty of the shotgun which appears to be a Remington Model 870 Field Gun.

All eyes on Gay’s Remington.

The manufacturer is evident by the shape and style of the wood-finished slide and Remington’s distinctive cross-hatched cap on the fore-end of the magazine tube. The raised barrel ribbing defines it as a field gun; some hunters have expressed that a raised rib helps sighting down the barrel while others think it adds unnecessary weight and encourages too many shooters to aim and fire a shotgun like a rifle. (You can read more about the ribbed-barrel debate as tactfully addressed by Phil Bourjaily for Field & Stream.)

What to Imbibe

“What you girls drinking?” asks Gay as he strides over to Roselyn and Isabelle, to which Isabelle raises her rye-and water: “Whiskey. We’re celebrating the jail burned down.”

This marks the first of much whiskey to flow through The Misfits, a quantity that’s only compounded after rodeo competitor Perce (Montgomery Clift) joins up with the band. Once Gay, Guido, Roselyn, and Isabelle move the party out to Guido’s spread, the foursome share from a bottle of Walker’s De Luxe rye that Isabelle purchased. This Canadian whisky, “guaranteed aged in wood” as its labels tout, originated at Hiram Walker’s distillery in Ontario, once the site of his experimental workers’ town of Walkerville. While the De Luxe-branded whisky is no longer produced, Canadian Club remains among the more popular Walker brands.

Gay: Turn on that ice, Guido boy! Let’s get this stuff a-flowin’ and make the desert bloom.
Isabelle: Well, let it flow slow… we only got the one bottle.

Roselyn takes her glass, encouraged by Gay: “Well, there we are! Put that in your thoughts and see how they come out.”

Once they all have a glass in hand, Isabelle toasts:

Well, here’s to Nevada! The “Leave It” State.

Gallery

Production on The Misfits had been extensively chronicled by photographers like Eve Arnold and Elliott Erwitt. While it would be a massive undertaking (and beyond the scope of this blog) to comprehensively capture them all here, I did choose a select few of visual interest or that further highlight Gable’s wardrobe.

Clark Gable as Gay Langland in The Misfits (1961)

Of all the characters that have worn elements of the Lee Westerner “Lee-Sures” jacket and jeans, Clark Gable’s character in The Misfits arguably best embodies the image evoked by its name: a rugged, desert-bitten cowboy, perhaps a bit long in the tooth but who hasn’t lost his ability to tame wild horses… or wild women.

The post Clark Gable in The Misfits appeared first on BAMF Style.

Fabian Forte as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd in A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970)

Vitals

Fabian Forte as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Depression-era bank robber

Kansas City, Spring 1930 and 1931

Film: A Bullet for Pretty Boy
Release Date: June 1970
Director: Larry Buchanan (and Maury Dexter, uncredited)
Wardrobe Credit: Ron Scott

Background

After Warner Brothers’ success with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, American International Pictures (AIP) leapt at the chance to capitalize on the emerging trend of Depression-era crime movies using their own brand of inexpensive, exploitative filmmaking. This wasn’t AIP’s first rodeo in the realm of ’30s public enemies, having earlier produced The Bonnie Parker Story and Machine Gun Kelly, both released in May 1958. Their B-movie output in the decade that followed Bonnie and Clyde ranged from fictional stories like Boxcar Bertha (1972) directed by Martin Scorsese to those loosely based on actual criminals like Bloody Mama (1970) starring Shelley Winters as a caricature of “Ma” Barker (alongside a young Robert De Niro as one of her sons) to Dillinger (1973).

Even before that arguably most famous ’30s bank robber would be played by a grizzled Warren Oates, one-time teen idol Fabian got a shot to rebrand his image by playing Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, the outlaw whose moniker alone lent itself to suit the fresh-faced Mr. Forte.

The real Charles Arthur Floyd was born 117 years ago on February 3, 1904, in Adairsville, Georgia, though his family moved to Oklahoma when Floyd was seven, and it was the Cookson Hills that he would consider home for the 30 years of his life.

A fellow Aquarius, Forte was born only three days (and 39 years) later on February 6, 1943, making him 26—the same age as Floyd was for his first bank robbery—when A Bullet for Pretty Boy was filmed from June to October 1969. A Bullet for Pretty Boy loosely follows the facts of Floyd’s life, albeit exaggerated and certainly simplified for the sake of AIP’s low-budget, short-runtime formula for success that would thrill teens at the drive-ins just before these audiences found the real thrills in their own back seats later that night.

A Bullet for Pretty Boy does little to mask the influence of Bonnie and Clyde, having filmed in many of the same small Texas towns that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway tore through three years earlier and capitalizing on Floyd’s frequent female companionship, in this case his wife Ruby and his girlfriend Juanita “Beulah” Baird, renamed Betty for the movie. Dunaway’s stand-in from Bonnie and Clyde, Morgan Fairchild, even made her wordless on-screen debut as a bank robber’s moll seated behind the wheel of a getaway car. (More trivia: the Texas-born Fairchild turns 71 today, sharing her February 3 birthday with the real “Pretty Boy” Floyd.)

Morgan Fairchild made her on-screen debut in A Bullet for Pretty Boy wearing a Bonnie-approved beret and scarf as popularized by Faye Dunaway three years earlier in the very role Fairchild had stood in for.

At this point, I may have lost some of you who would be asking “okay… but who’s asking to read about this of all movies?” Well… me. I’m interested in the subject and this is my personal blog, so consider this post just another labor of love! I’d always been fascinated by “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s story the most of all Depression-era desperadoes, but I still feel it remains under-represented on screen.

The real Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, in custody circa 1929.

As enforcement of the Hays Code lightened up on its policy of “glorifying” criminals, we began to see more of the Depression-era outlaws returning to the screen by the late 1950s. Following the aforementioned AIP quickies about George “Machine Gun” Kelly and Bonnie Parker (with her companion renamed “Guy Darrow” in The Bonnie Parker Story), J. Edgar Hoover’s signed, sealed, and delivered propaganda The FBI Story (1959) presented a sanitized version of the downfall of each public enemy, including “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s first prominent big screen appearance as one of only three credited performances by an actor named Bob Peterson.

The following year, “Pretty Boy” finally got his own big screen treatment in the low-budget black-and-white movie Pretty Boy Floyd (1960) that starred a pompadoured John Ericson as Floyd with a young Peter Falk and Barry Newman among his criminal cohorts. His life and crimes would be dusted off again for A Bullet for Pretty Boy in 1970, which remains your best bet for a closest-to-the-facts retelling of the Floyd saga. The wave of post-Bonnie and Clyde Depression-set crime productions meant at least three more actors would show up as Floyd through mid-decade, beginning with a charismatic Steve Kanaly in the Dillinger supporting cast, then a fresh-outta-Badlands Martin Sheen in a 1974 made-for-TV movie The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd, and finally a not-so-pretty Bo Hopkins in a TV movie chronicling The Kansas City Massacre (1975).

Yours truly even stepped in to play the part of “Pretty Boy” Floyd in a very amateur, very low-budget biopic that my friends very graciously worked with me to create in my late high school and early college years, though this 2008 production would be soon eclipsed by Channing Tatum‘s brief appearance as the outlaw in Michael Mann’s 2009 period action drama Public Enemies. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite compete with Mr. Tatum.

What’d He Wear?

As low-budget studios AIP and New World Pictures rolled out more Depression-era exploitation films throughout the decade, costume design across many of these productions suffered when it became obvious the leads were merely sporting contemporary three-piece suits and disco-collared shirts rather than anything intended to resemble the nuance of a suit tailored in the ’20s or ’30s. (For example, Tarantino favorite The Lady in Red features Robert Conrad as John Dillinger, though his suit—not to mention haircut—looks more like he’s getting ready for a Merv Griffin appearance than a movie at the Biograph.)

A Bullet for Pretty Boy may have benefited from being part of AIP’s earlier output, filmed in late 1969 before the following decade’s fashion of excess took over and before many of the period-correct suits at their disposal would be bloodied and bullet-holed through dozens of movies to follow. Thus, Fabian Forte is able to echo the real “Pretty Boy” Floyd’s knack for wearing natty suits, all showcasing authentic details from the era.

A standout of Forte’s on-screen wardrobe is a navy worsted three-piece suit that he wears around the start of his new criminal career, considerably more stylish and better-fitting than the taupe striped suit he had worn a few years earlier for his wedding.

It’s now the late spring of 1930, and Floyd has broken out of the Oklahoma state prison (in fact, he had been lawfully released from the Missouri State Prison the previous spring) and has been taking refuge at a Kansas City brothel run by Beryl (Annabelle Weenick), a Mae West-type inspired by the real-life Sadie “Ma” Ash. Beryl’s two younger brothers Wallace (Jeff Alexander) and William (Gene Ross) resent the new man and the attention he’s been getting from Wallace’s sultry wife Betty (Jocelyn Lane). When they see Floyd striding down the stairs in his new navy three-piece suit, William snidely quips: “Thought he was supposed to be a farmer.”

The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels rolling to a two-button front, with a welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, single vent, and three-button cuffs. The shoulders have some padding with roping on the sleeveheads that contributes to a ’30s-correct silhouette. Another significant period detail is the double-breasted waistcoat (vest) with its shawl collar that sweeps across the torso to a six-button closure consisting of two columns of three buttons each: one functional, one vestigial. The straight-cut waistcoat bottom appropriately covers the waist line of the suit’s matching flat front trousers which may have belt loops but are worn sans belt.

Wallace: “You keepin’ him for yourself, Beryl?”
Beryl: “I might. He’s pretty enough.”
Wallace: “A great couple. You and ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd.”
Floyd: “Don’t call me that.”

Once her brothers have departed, Beryl informs Floyd that she’s hooked him up with a gang of bank robbers who will help him raise the money he needs to see his family, so he motors into the country to wait for them.

Floyd strips off his jacket and unbuttons the waistcoat, showing more of the shirt and tie he wears with the suit. His shirt is an icy pale blue cotton, styled with a semi-spread collar, plain “French placket” front, breast pocket, and button cuffs. His blue tie is patterned with what looks like fuchsia roses with green stems and yellow springs.

A bank robbery and prison break later, “Pretty Boy” is back in Kansas City by the spring of 1931, having joined with professional outlaw Ned Short (Michael Haynes) and “Preacher” (Adam Roarke) when a fight with Wallace results in both of Beryl’s sleazy brothers planning a trap to collect the $10,000 reward on the fugitive Floyd. Wallace and William believe they’ve got Floyd trapped when they corner him naked in bed with Betty until their prey surprises them by pulling his Thompson out from under the sheets and mowing down the two devious brothers. (The actual events of March 23, 1931, found Floyd narrowly evading a police trap by drawing two .45 pistols and shooting his way out. Upon learning that the Ash brothers had indeed tipped off the police, Floyd and his pal “Billy the Killer” Miller chased down Wallace and William Ash and executed them in a ditch a mile south of Kansas City, Kansas, two days later.)

With the two conniving brothers out of his way for good, Floyd embarks on a Bonnie & Clyde-style bank robbery spree with Ned, Preacher, Betty, and Betty’s sister Helen (Camilla Carr) that even goes so far as to film at the same Farmers & Merchants Bank in Pilot Point, Texas, that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway had “held up” two years earlier.

Throughout these adventures, Floyd wears a pair of black-and-white semi-brogue wingtip oxfords. Two-color “spectator shoes” like these were also known as “correspondent shoes” for their association with the disreputable cuckolding parties in divorce cases, known as the “correspondent”. Floyd wears several pairs of spectator shoes in A Bullet for Pretty Boy, including a brown-and-tan pair with his earthier suits and this black-and-white pair with his navy suits, worn with black socks. The uppers of Floyd’s shoes have white leather vamps with black leather wingtip toe boxes, black oxford-style lacing panels that curve down to each outsole, and black extended heel counters.

A barroom brawl begets the final chapter in Floyd’s long-running dispute with the sleazy Ash brothers. Floyd may be our protagonist, but his correspondent shoes reflect his role in breaking up Wallace and Betty’s admittedly toxic relationship.

Just as Floyd coordinates the palette of his shoes with his suits, he also alternates between his hats based on his suits. With more businesslike suits in navy and gray, Floyd wears a dove gray felt fedora with a tonal gray grosgrain ribbon and coordinating grosgrain edge piping.

Floyd oversees a bank job from under the brim of his gray fedora.

The Gun

Unique for the genre, “Pretty Boy” Floyd wields a Thompson submachine gun with far more frequency than any sort of handgun, depicted using it even when pistols would be more practical (or even when it was historically documented that Floyd used a handgun instead.)

We see Floyd introduced to the weapon before his first bank robbery when he’s handed a Thompson M1921AC, the model made famous with monikers like the “Chicago typewriter” and described as “the gun that made the ’20s roar” in a book of the same name by crime historian William J. Helmer. In fact, the first gang that the real “Pretty Boy” Floyd worked with wasn’t quite as well-armed, with Floyd himself reportedly carrying a more modest .32-caliber Smith & Wesson six-shot, swing-out revolver for his inaugural bank robbery in Sylvania, Ohio on February 5, 1930.

That’s not to say that the real Floyd was averse to Thompsons—naturally, a man in his profession welcomed the additional firepower when he could carry it—but he certainly did not carry them exclusively. Instead, he typically relied on the firepower of a twin set of Colt Government 1911A1 pistols, carried on several occasions throughout this four-year crime spree and documented as the two pieces on him when he was killed in October 1934.

Preacher (Adam Roarke) and “Pretty Boy” Floyd carry Thompsons for one of their bank robberies, while Betty appears to be armed solely with her charm and sass.

The Thompson began life when General John J. Thompson envisioned a “trench broom”, a handheld “one-man machine gun” that could replace bolt-action rifles in use during World War I. Though the war ended two days before prototypes of his “Annihilator” could be shipped to Europe, Thompson and his team of designers from Cleveland’s Auto-Ordnance Company continued development of what would enter production as the Thompson M1921. Chambered for the same .45 ACP cartridge used in the M1911 service pistol, this blowback-action submachine gun initially sold for $200 (close to $3,000 in today’s dollars), an amount that included a 20-round box magazine.

Early customers included the United States Marine Corps, U.S. postal inspectors, and the IRA, until Chicago gangsters got their hands on this fast-firing weapon that would compound the blood spilled in the Prohibition-era Beer Wars. Five years after Auto-Ordnance couldn’t figure out how to market its revolutionary submachine gun, business started booming on both sides of the law as law enforcement agencies tried to keep up with the well-armed criminals terrorizing the cities and countryside.

In 1926, Auto-Ordnance added the option of a Cutts compensator, a muzzle brake that would prevent the weapon from rising too dramatically during sustained fire. Thompsons configured with a Cutts were designated M1921AC while the older models were renamed the M1921A.

Floyd looks over the Thompson he’s given in advance of his first bank robbery. Note the Cutts compensator which was introduced with the M1921AC model in 1926.

As the United States geared up for war toward the end of the 1930s, the Thompson was finally authorized for military service, albeit simplified with modifications that included the removal of the distinctive vertical fore-grip in favor of a plainer horizontal hand-guard that first appeared on the M1928A1 and would continue on the M1 and M1A1 eventually designed for wartime use. The high-capacity drum magazines, prone to jamming, were also increasingly discarded in favor of lower-capacity but more reliable box magazines. More than 1.5 million Thompson were produced during World War II, though the weapon would be generally phased out phased out by the Korean War.

What to Imbibe

Floyd and Ned seem to be sharing a bottle of Canadian Club during a confrontation with the Ash brothers. though a country boy like Floyd reportedly enjoyed moonshine and “Choctaw” beer that lent him his nickname, Choc, it’s not unreasonable to assume that, when in the Big City, they drink as the Big City Gangsters do… in this case, the Canadian Club illegally imported from the Great White North during Prohibition.

How to Get the Look

Fabian Forte as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd in A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970)

It was reported that the real “Pretty Boy” Floyd was wearing a dark blue suit and white shirt when he was killed in 1934, so it may be intentional or merely coincidence that this navy worsted is Fabian Forte’s primary suit as the Oklahoma-born outlaw in A Bullet for Pretty Boy, though the period-inspired touches take this three-piece suit beyond the usual costume design expected of AIP’s low-budget fare.

• Navy worsted three-piece suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Double-breasted 6×3-button waistcoat with shawl collar, welted pockets, and straight-cut bottom
  • Flat front trousers with straight/on-seam side pockets and turn-ups/cuffs
• Icy pale blue cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain “French placket” front, breast pocket, and button cuffs
• Blue tie with fuchsia floral print
• Black-and-white leather wingtip oxford-laced spectator shoes
• Black socks
• Dove-gray felt fedora with gray grosgrain band and edges

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, streaming free for Amazon Prime subscribers.

As long as you’re not expecting a masterpiece, the movie isn’t too bad and Forte gives it a good shot, certainly looking the part of a pretty boy if not the “Pretty Boy”… and he certainly does a better job than I did when I made a much, much lower-budget biopic about Floyd with my friends in high school.

The Quote

All I know is, banks still got money.

The post A Bullet for Pretty Boy: Fabian’s Navy Suit appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Caan as Frank in Thief (1981)

Vitals

James Caan as Frank, professional jewel thief

Chicago, Spring 1980

Film: Thief
Release Date: March 27, 1981
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Supervisor: Jodie Lynn Tillen

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Michael Mann—born today in 1943—directed (and wrote) his feature-length debut, Thief, a moody neo-noir thriller that would portend his particular brand of stylized crime dramas to follow like Manhunter, Heat, and Collateral, as well as his work on the landmark series Miami Vice. The source material was the 1975 novel The Home Invaders: Confessions of a Cat Burglar by “Frank Hohimer”, a real-life criminal named John Seybold who served as an on-set technical advisor despite the pending FBI warrants against him.

As the eponymous thief, James Caan’s Frank establishes an early template for the professional criminals that populate Mann’s work, subdued in appearance and demeanor but ruthless against any target getting in the way of his payday…and his freedom.

Fronting his criminal enterprises, Frank owns both a car dealership and the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a real jazz club in uptown Chicago that opened in 1910 and grew famous for its associations with Prohibition-era figures like Al Capone, “Machine Gun” McGurn, and Texas Guinan. Once Snorky’s tax evasion landed him in federal prison and McGurn paid the piper in a North Milwaukee Avenue bowling alley, entertainment once again became the primary focus of the Green Mill, attracting icons like Billie Holiday and featuring the longest running poetry slam in the United States.

Late night at the Green Mill.

Though things are going well for Frank, our pragmatic professional is smart enough to know to quit while he’s ahead, especially as he hopes to build a life with his new girlfriend Jessie (Tuesday Weld) and adopt a son together. Unfortunately, the powerful Chicago Outfit boss Leo (Robert Prosky) has other ideas for how Frank could be useful to him.

What’d He Wear?

Last week, I put out an Instagram poll to see which of Frank’s leather jackets would be of more interest to readers, and his black flight jacket was the clear winner out of more than 2,500 votes… but the 500 or so received by the dark gray leather blouson ensured that it will see some coverage soon as well!

Frank’s hard-wearing black leather blouson takes inspiration from classic American flight jackets, specifically the iconic A-2 that was worn by U.S. Army pilots during World War II. The jacket has a fly covering the zip closure extending straight up from the ribbed-knit waist hem to the shirt-style collar. The patch hip pockets are covered with a single-snap flap and appear to have handwarmer pockets accessed from behind. The cuffs are finished with a ribbed knitting that echoes the hem.

Frank brings Jessie to see Okla in the hospital. Note the jarring bloody pan and forceps in the foreground.

The shoulders are finished with military-style straps (epaulettes) that are sewn down from the set-in sleeveheads through the center of each shoulder. Ideal for the extensive tactical shooting required during the finale, the “action back” jacket has side pleats that extend down the back from the center of each shoulder strap to an integrated self-belt across the back a few inches above the waist.

The “action back” pleats on Frank’s flight jacket serve him well after a night of… well, action.

Frank’s black leather jacket would be the last of his leather trio to be introduced on screen, first seen when he strides into the Green Mill to confront Leo about the increased police surveillance he’s noticed since he agreed to take on the proverbial “one last job” for him. The bad news keeps on coming for Frank, who brings Jessie to see his former mentor Okla (Willie Nelson), now dying in the hospital shortly after being released from prison.

No doubt one of the silk shirts that he had earlier bragged about to Jessie, Frank wears a light blue self-striped shirt with a covered button-up fly.

Later, once shit hits the fan and Frank explosively erases every element of his life, he storms into Leo’s household with his long-slide .45 blazing and enough loaded magazines at the ready to eradicate the entire Chicago Outfit. He’s dressed solely for function; no need for dressy silk shirts as he instead wears a plain purple cotton crew-neck long-sleeved T-shirt with a narrowly ribbed crew-neck and ribbed cuffs. He keeps the shirt tucked in to avoid any flapping hems getting in the way of his reloads.

Frank’s purple shirt is decidedly ruined after a surprise visit to Leo.

Eschewing the $150 slacks for everyday errands and tactical tasks, Frank wears his usual Lee jeans, constructed from a lighter wash blue denim. He wears them without a belt at the hospital, but he adds a brown leather belt for the finale, better for securing his pistol and spare mags in place while taking on the Outfit.

The hits keep coming as Frank’s .45 appears to have a stovepipe jam. Note that he’s wisely added a belt to his Lee jeans.

With this jacket, Frank always wears black leather boots with raised heels that hint at tall, cowboy-style boot shafts that remain concealed under the legs of his jeans.

Jessie accompanies Frank to the hospital.

Though Frank may not be as flashy as some screen criminals, the experienced jewel thief clearly takes pride in the oft-described “perfect D, flawless… 3.2-carat emerald-cut” diamond mounted in the gold ring that he wears on his left pinky finger. Let’s break down Frank’s ring using the “four Cs”, a system I for which I had to familiarize myself with while shopping for engagement rings last summer!

• Color: The “perfect D” refers to color and, indeed, D is said to be the highest grade of colorless diamonds on a 23-grade scale.
• Cut: Frank doesn’t give us any specific guidance regarding the correctness of the cut (“cut” does not refer to shape, so his “emerald-cut” description doesn’t apply here), but we can imagine that he would prefer an SI (Super Ideal) cut.
• Clarity: Frank twice calls his ring “flawless” which, rather than just being a superfluous description, refers to the clarity on a scale of 11 ratings that ranges from FL (Flawless) at the top end to I (Included) at the low range. To be considered “flawless”, a diamond must appear perfect with no internal flaws or blemishes at 10x magnification.
• Carat: Frank specifies that he wears a 3.2 carat diamond, referring specifically to the weight. It doesn’t refer specifically to size, though it’s reasonable to expect that a 3.2-carat diamond would fall around 9.5×7.5mm for an emerald cut (according to brilliance.com).

Taking just the color, cut, and clarity into consideration, a diamond like this would start at around $10,000 today, a dollar amount that you could realistically expect to be more than tripled for the 3.2-carat size. When I entered Frank’s specifications into a calculator at Washington Diamond, the final total was more than $154,000!

Frank’s expensive ring may be a liability for many, but we can assume this would be the last thing any mugger would see following an attempt to steal it.

Frank struts into the Green Mill wearing a pair of semi-rimmed sunglasses with an amber-finished aviator-style frame and gradient tinted lenses, riveted on each side of the lens where it meets the arm and bridge. He quickly pockets them in this scene, but they can be clearly seen with other outfits, as well as during the brief vignette when he and his partner Barry (Jim Belushi) take their families to the beach.

Even at the beach, poor James Caan is doomed to wearing a sweater. Based on how much he’s squinting, the sunglasses don’t appear to be doing their job.

On his left wrist, Frank wears a solid yellow gold watch with a white square dial on an expanding gold bracelet. When testing out the tool he needs for Leo’s “burn job”, he protects his hands (and his watch) with a pair of slate-gray napped leather work gloves.

Mann would later re-team with costume supervisor Jodie Lynn Tillen to design the costumes across the first season of Miami Vice, setting a standard for enduring ’80s fashion with Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas’ pastels and linen suits.

The Gun

Also to be established as a Michael Mann trademark would be his protagonists’ preference for .45 ACP pistols, such as the SIG-Sauer P220 carried by Robert De Niro in Heat, the Heckler & Koch USP-45 used by Tom Cruise in Collateral, and Johnny Depp’s twin 1911 pistols as John Dillinger in Public Enemies.

The venerable 1911 pattern designed by John Browning in the early 20th century has earned a position of esteem among many serious shooters, and thus Mann outfits Frank with a pair that he pulls from depending on the task ahead. One of the two is a chromed Colt Combat Commander with a shorter 4.25″ barrel that serves him more as a carry piece (though still substantially sized for concealed carry!)

For more tactical work like infiltrating Leo’s mansion and taking on the Chicago Outfit, Frank carries a blued Colt Gold Cup National Match pistol customized for the production by California gunsmith Jim Hoag of Hoag Gun Works.

Frank has his 1911 ready as he infiltrates Leo’s home.

The most instantly recognizable customization to Frank’s 1911 is the “long slide”, extended an extra inch to a full six inches. The users at IMFDB speculated that the base pistol was a Colt Gold Cup National Match by the long vertical cutout on the skeltonized trigger while further detailing Hoag’s customizations to include a squared trigger guard, a Bo-Mar adjustable rear sight, skeletonized hammer, and beavertail grip safety.

In addition to James Caan’s research with actual thieves to prepare for the role, the actor trained extensively with Galen D. “Chuck” Taylor of Arizona’s Gunsite Academy so that he would look convincing while clearing rooms, reloading, and performing techniques such as the double-tap “Mozambique drill” which would become another on-screen signature for Mann’s gunmen. (You can read more about Caan’s training with Taylor at Range365.com.)

Frank loads a fresh magazine into his longslide 1911 when the gun battle continues outside Leo’s home.

How to Get the Look

James Caan as Frank in Thief (1981)

For situations that don’t call for $800 suits or $150 slacks, Frank gets plenty of mileage out of the simple, timeless, and ultimately functional pairing of a black leather flight jacket and Lee jeans… with his less-than-functional expensive gold watch and diamond pinky ring.

• Black leather flight jacket with shirt-style collar, shoulder straps (epaulettes), set-in sleeves with ribbed-knit cuffs, snap-flapped hip pockets with handwarmer pockets, “action back” pleats, and ribbed-knit waist hem
• Light blue self-striped fly-front long-sleeve shirt
• Blue denim Lee jeans
• Brown leather belt with curved gold-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather cowboy boots
• Gold pinky ring with emerald-cut diamond
• Gold watch with white square dial on gold expanding bracelet

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie. In addition to being Mann’s directorial debut, it also marked the first feature film appearances for Jim Belushi, Dennis Farina (then a Chicago police officer), William Peterson, and Robert Prosky.

The Quote

My money goes in my pocket.

The post James Caan in Thief: Frank’s Black Leather Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

James Dean, photographed by Sanford Roth, 1955.

Vitals

James Dean, enigmatic young actor and rebellious emblem

Los Angeles, Summer 1955

Photographs by Sanford Roth

Part of BAMF Style’s Iconic Photo Series, focusing on style featured in famous photography of classic stars rather than from specific productions.

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of James Dean, born in central Indiana on February 8, 1931. Considering his cultural impact, it’s remarkable that Dean condensed his entire career into less than a half decade in the early 1950s, acting in a series of commercials, TV anthology programs, and uncredited bit parts in movies until delivering a trio of enduring performances in East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant that would be released within a year and a half of each other.

Famously—or perhaps infamously—a racing enthusiast, Dean only lived to see the release of East of Eden before the September 30, 1955, crash of his “Little Bastard” Porsche that took his life at the age of 24. He would become the first actor to be posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, in fact receiving nominations for both East of Eden and Giant after his death, though it may be Rebel Without a Cause that’s considered his signature performance as the disillusioned teen Jim Stark.

During this brief but shining career, almost everything that Dean wore on- and off-camera set a new standard, whether it’s the long greatcoat he was photographed wearing on the streets of New York City or the red McGregor windbreaker, white T, and blue jeans while exhibiting his all-American angst in Rebel Without a Cause.

“Importantly to his wider influence, Dean dressed as though for a fashion plate in his personal life too, his dress also reflecting the pioneer spirit inherent to the hard-wearing, masculine clothing he preferred,” wrote Josh Sims in Men of Style. “His clothing choices might include denims or work pants, patch-pocket work shirts, striped Oxfords, Bretons, or T-shirts, motorcycle boots or Jack Purcell sneakers, Perfecto black-leather biker jacket, flight jacket, or double-breasted overcoat, aviator sunglasses or horn-rimmed glasses and, capping the look, seemingly glued to his bottom lip, an ever-present cigarette. Shirts were invariably worn undone, collars crumpled or turned up. His quiff alone was instantly recognizable.”

On the set of his final film, Giant, Dean became fast friends with photographer Sanford Roth. A generation older than the actor, Sanford and his wife Beulah became almost adoptive parents to Dean, frequently hosting the actor as a houseguest at their Los Angeles home, where he would listen to stories of their European travels and play with their Siamese cat. “He liked us, but he loved our cat, Louis, and we came to recognize that he was Louis’ guest,” wrote Beulah Roth.

During one of these visits in the summer of 1955, Roth pulled out his 35mm camera and snapped some candid photos of the actor revealing a more sensitive side, looking both playful and philosophical.

I’m grateful to my friend Ruben, who I’m sure (and hopeful) that many of you follow on Instagram at @travelinggentleman, for sharing some of Beulah Roth’s insights from a TASCHEN book of Roth’s photography.

What’d He Wear?

James Dean, photographed by Sanford Roth, 1955.

Roth often brought out his camera when James Dean was visiting, capturing the actor in a variety of candid poses and outfits, though my favorite of these spontaneous sessions featured Dean in a unique Breton-striped top that cemented this French naval design in the annals of menswear. Though this pattern may be frequently associated with an icon of the fabulous fifties, its origins date back more than a century earlier.

“Fishermen in the Brittany region of north-western France had long worn warm, loose-fitting versions of the top, with three-quarter length sleeves and, according to France’s Musée de la Marine, specifically… blue and white stripes—in part out of regional pride, and in part because the stripes made it easier to see anyone who fell overboard,” wrote Josh Sims of the Breton top’s history in Icons of Men’s Style. The French Navy witnessed the effectiveness of the Breton top with its potentially life-saving stripes and lack of buttons or flaps that could snag on rigging, and the marinière was officially authorized for naval service in March 1858, with regulations dictating that “the body shall have 21 white stripes, each twice as wide as the 20 or 21 navy blue stripes.” As fans of Battleship Potemkin undoubtedly recall, the Imperial Russian Navy would soon follow with their own telnyashka jumpers.

During World War I, a vacationing Coco Chanel liked what she saw on the backs of fishermen below her Deauville balcony and transformed the Breton-striped jersey into a simple but striking style staple for chic women over the generations to follow, though the shirt never shook its hard-wearing origins as macho men like John Wayne and Lee Marvin sported Breton stripes in movies like Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and The Wild One (1953), respectively. (You can read more history of this shirt by Angus Walker for The Breton Stripe Co.)

Though he never wore it in any of his films, wild-titled or otherwise, the Breton stripe came to be intrinsically associated with James Dean after this series of photos at the Roth home as he sat at their table in a casual and comfortably chic long-sleeved pullover knitted shirt patterned in a bold navy and white horizontal striping that balanced the width of both colors to a total of 66 narrow stripes alternating in navy and white from shoulder seam to waist hem as opposed to the 40 or 41 found on a traditional Breton top. (That said, the white stripes on Dean’s shirt are still correctly wider than the blue, just not double the width.)

Unlike the simple boat-necked tops favored by sailors, Dean’s shirt has a large navy collar with a short V-neck placket that transforms the effect into a casual polo shirt. At the end of each set-in sleeve, a navy ribbed cuff echoes the collar.

“Louis was a generous host. He let Jimmy sit on his throne,” recalled Beulah Roth. “The throne was and still is an 18th century Venetian chair, scarred and stained by the many indiscretions of cats and dogs. Created for an aristocrat in brocade and lace, the delicate chair seemed to be outraged by the intrusion of Jimmy’s long blue-jeaned legs. It was there, in this awkward position, the chair creaking perilously under him, that he would fall asleep with Louis on his lap. The two of them dreamed together.”

Photography I’ve seen from the day doesn’t reveal the back of Dean’s blue denim jeans, specifically whether or not they’d include the “lazy S” compound curve that had been a Lee signature for the last decade, but the cut of the front pockets suggests that he’s indeed wearing the Lee 101 Riders. Dean often favored these durable jeans in real life, and he would prominently wear them on screen as Jim Stark’s preferred denim in Rebel Without a Cause.

Dean’s brown leather belt is tooled with decorative tan leaf designs and contrasting edge stitching and may be the same one personalized with his name across the back as worn (indeed, with a pair of Lee Riders) in a candid photo Roth shot of Jimmy with Beulah, beaming in the background as the actor seemingly turns a camera on Roth himself.

Jimmy, Louis, and an inanimate friend.

Glimpses of gold from Dean’s left wrist suggest that he’s wearing the LeCoultre watch he had purchased in 1955. The 18-karat yellow gold watch had a black dial with gold hour markers—numeric at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o’clock, with a sub-dial at the 6:00 position—and was fastened to his wrist via black leather strap.

You can read more about this watch—and Dean’s “lucky” Elgin pocket watch worn earlier in his career—at Crown & Caliber (which suggests the watch was a LeCoultre PowerMatic Nautilus) and see photos of his LeCoultre at the Timezone forums.

James Dean, photographed by Sanford Roth, 1955.

How to Get the Look

“May I say that James Dean wore these clothes because he liked them and he knew he looked well in them,” wrote Beulah Roth. “There was no social significance to this choice at all.”

Like so many style icons of the last century, James Dean’s unintentional style choices have inspired many to dress with intention, though there remains a fine line between the scores of imitators and those who can nod to Dean’s offbeat fashion choices while still carving their own sartorial path.

• Navy-and-white Breton-striped knitted long-sleeve pullover shirt with navy V-neck collar and ribbed cuffs
• Blue denim Lee Rider jeans
• Brown tooled leather belt
• LeCoultre yellow gold wristwatch with round black dial (with 6:00 sub-dial) and black leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Look for the TASCHEN book published in the early 1980s, memorializing James Dean through Sanford Roth’s intimate photographs and Beulah Roth’s eloquent memories.

The Quote

An actor must interpret life, and in order to do so must be willing to accept all the experiences life has to offer. In fact, he must seek out more of life than life puts at his feet. In the short span of his lifetime, an actor must learn all there is to know, experience all there is to experience, or approach that state as closely as possible. He must be superhuman in his efforts to store away in the core of his subconscious everything that he might be called upon to use in the expression of his art.

The post James Dean in Breton Stripes appeared first on BAMF Style.

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013)

Vitals

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella, cultured art critic and one-time novelist

Rome, Summer 2012

Film: The Great Beauty
(Italian title: La grande bellezza)
Release Date: May 21, 2013
Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Costume Designer: Daniela Ciancio
Tailor: Cesare Attolini

Background

Valentine’s Day is this Sunday, and whether you’re celebrating with a great beauty in your life or observing Singles Appreciation Day, you may want to have some eye-catching red ready to wear in the spirit of the season.

Unfortunately, our natty hero Jep Gambardella finds himself alone for yet another evening among friends on his terrace, his most recent romantic conquest—the “real beauty” Orietta—notably absent. Jep spars again with his combative and pompous friend Stefania about his perceived laziness and her lack of authenticity, calling her out to the point that she storms out of the party.

Jep takes to the romantic Roman streets, his aimless perambulations leading to a swanky club owned by his old friend, the self-described “loser” and drug addict Egidio (Massimo De Francovich) who has hired his own daughter Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli) as an exotic dancer.

Egidio: She’s 42, and she wants to be a sophisticated stripper. But the world’s no longer sophisticated, right Jep?
Jep: I know. Only you and I are.

What’d He Wear?

The titular “great beauty” of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2013 visually stunning tribute to Rome may be the Eternal City itself, but the description would also be apt for its central character’s colorful wardrobe, a stunning achievement in costume design by Daniela Ciancio that earned her a second David di Donatello for Best Costumes.

For an evening hosting his usual coterie on his terrace, Jep Gambardella dresses for celebrating in his most colorfully offbeat tailoring seen yet in the movie: a single-breasted sports coat made from a lush dark red soft woolen twill.

This outfit particularly underscores how any color can be elegant based on how it is worn. Contrast this red sports coat with the raw silk jacket of the same color, albeit a somewhat brighter shade, worn by Robert De Niro in Casino. Sported with midnight-hued underpinnings, De Niro’s red jacket as casino impresario “Ace” Rothstein is undeniably eye-catching, certainly interesting, and arguably well-tailored and coordinated, though it lacks the je nais se quoi that would merit any nods from top tastemakers.

The color of Jep’s jacket is only slightly more muted than Ace’s, but he wears it over an open-necked white shirt and chinos in a manner that doesn’t demand attention and should thus satisfy all but the most color-averse sartorial gatekeepers.

Toni Servillo tries on Cesare Attolini’s elegant and colorful sport jackets for Jep. Note the yellow jacket hanging beside him.

The details echo the even flashier yellow jacket that Jep would wear several scenes later, both cut by Cesare Attolini and thus resplendent with the Neapolitan tailoring that had been revolutionized by Cesare’s prolific father Vincenzo Attolini in the 1930s. Neapolitan jackets have soft, unpadded shoulders with larger sleeves that naturally shir against the smaller armhole which, depending upon how it’s constructed, can take the final form of the smooth “spalla camicia” shoulder or the bumped “con rollino“. The sleeves are finished with four dark brown horn buttons “kissing” on each cuff.

Even the pockets are Neapolitan, from the wide “tasca a pignata” patch pockets to the widely welted “barchetta” breast pocket, so named for its boat-like shape, which Jep dresses with a plain white pocket square folded to point skyward. The notch lapels are welted with “swelled edges”, rolling to a 3/2-roll button front that remains consistent with Neapolitan tradition, though the single vent is a departure from the typically ventless jackets of classic Italian tailoring.

Jep wears one of his usual plain white cotton shirts with the top two buttons of the plain “French placket” undone to contain the open-necked spread collar within the opening of his jacket. The dramatically rounded cuffs each close with a single button.

Jep’s off-white cotton flat front chinos continue the clean looks of his white shirt, breaking the effect only with a dark brown leather belt and the fact that the trousers are a softer eggshell shade than the plain white shirt.

Egidio “introduces” Jep to his daughter Ramona.

Michael J. Agovino’s Esquire article “The Most Stylish Movie You’ve Never Heard Of” features an interview with Ciancio, who confirms that she sourced Jep’s fashionable footwear from Italian shoemakers Hogan and Tod’s, both brands under the Tod’s Group umbrella.

With this outfit, Jep wears a pair of two-tone spectator oxfords with brown leather wingtip toes, lace panels, and heel counters against warm beige vamps. Though his trousers generally cover the distance, a pair of ivory socks cover his legs for an elegant continuance of the trouser fabric into his shoes.

A stylish passeggiata.

Fans have identified Jep’s silver-toned watch as a Rolex, strapped to his left wrist on an Oyster-style link bracelet, though the exact model varies between the Jake’s Rolex World entry suggestion of a silver-dialed Air-King and the BAMF Style reader who commented on Instagram that it looks like a platinum Day-Date with an ice blue dial.

Jep wears Ray-Ban glasses with dark tortoise acetate square frames.

Ray-Ban fans Jep and Romano.

What to Imbibe

A half-consumed bottle of Disaronno Originale on Jep’s terrace table suggests that this may be his spirit of choice, enjoyed on the rocks. 

The company significantly rebranded in 2001 “Amaretto di Saronno”, a more literal translation referring to the legend of when amaretto was first produced by a woman in the small town of Saronno in Lombardy. As the legend goes, according to Disaronno, a widowed innkeeper created the first amaretto in 1525 when she steeped apricot kernels in brandy as a gift for the artist Bernardino Luini. The innkeeper’s secret recipe was passed down through the generations to a descendant, Domenico Reina, who began bottling and marketing the family’s favorite amaretto in the early 20th century.

In 1942, the Reina family began packaging their “Amaretto di Saronno” in a unique square bottle, though it would be another three decades until a Venetian glass-blower would design the now-recognizable sparkling glass bottle that continues to be used through today. By then, the company was already finding international success exporting its product around the world.

A bottle of Disaronno on Jep’s table keeps his guests lubricated through one of many evenings on the terrace.

While it’s not clear if it’s meant to be Disaronno in Jep’s crystal rocks glass, we can be quite sure he isn’t drinking vodka, not only due to the color but also after Egidio’s lesson that Jep shares with Ramona that “vodka is uncouth.”

Cheers!

How to Get the Look

Toni Servillo as Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) (2013)

Jep Gambardella illustrates how one can wear a red sports coat without looking like a movie theater usher, car rental agent, or Vegas bookie.

• Dark red twill Neapolitan-tailored single-breasted 3/2-roll sport jacket with double back-stitched notch lapels, wide-welted “barchetta” breast pocket, rounded patch hip pockets, 4-button “kissing” cuffs, and long double vents
• White cotton shirt with semi-spread collar, plain front, and button cuffs
• Eggshell-white chino cloth flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with silver rectangular single-prong buckle
• Brown-and-beige leather 5-eyelet wingtip spectator oxfords
• Tortoise acetate rectangular-framed Ray-Ban eyeglasses
• Rolex Air-King with stainless steel 34mm case, silver dial with non-numeric markers, and steel Oyster-style link bracelet
• White pocket square

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

You can read more about the style of The Great Beauty in Michael J. Agovino’s December 2013 article “The Most Stylish Movie You’ve Never Heard Of” for Esquire here and about Neapolitan tailoring in Sonya Glyn Nicholson’s piece for Parisian Gentleman here. I also recommend this thoughtful tribute to the film’s style from The Tweed Pig.

The Quote

I’m a writer, not a pimp.

The post La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty): Jep’s Red Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey in Knives Out (2019)

Vitals

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey, mystery novelist and wealthy patriarch

Massachusetts, November 2018

Film: Knives Out
Release Date: November 27, 2019
Director: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Jenny Eagan

Background

The great Canadian actor Christopher Plummer died a week ago today at the age of 91 after three quarters of a century honing his craft across stage and screen from Shakespeare to The Sound of Music.

In his penultimate screen credit, Knives Out, Plummer starred as Harlan Thrombey, a charismatic writer who built his fortune through writing mystery novels and, on his 85th birthday, resolves to finally set his free-loading family free. The decision evidently results in Harlan’s violent death, which brings idiosyncratic detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) to the Thrombey family estate where he takes a special interest in Harlan’s devoted nurse Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) and what she may be able to reveal from Harlan’s final night.

Harlan and Marta share a laugh in his private study.

What’d He Wear?

Aside from a few flashbacks, most of our screen-time with Harlan Thrombey is spent on the evening of his 85th birthday party, a celebration marred by his decision to break most of his family’s financial dependence on his self-made fortune. The next morning, Harlan is found dead in his study, a knife drawn across his throat having spilled his blood all over his tasteful clothing.

Many costumes and props from Knives Out were auctioned last year, the costumes often accompanied by extensive notes from Jenny Eagen’s costume team that indicate exact details about the manufacturer and materials used for each piece worn on screen. Though the auction has ended and the link no longer active (but can be found here, if any internet magicians want try to recover a cached version), Christopher Plummer’s primary costume as Harlan was among these auctioned pieces.

Sharp-eyed viewers may notice that the painting of Harlan Thrombey that “monitors” Marta’s and Benoit Blanc’s progress over the investigation features the author wearing the same windowpane suit, striped shirt, and paisley tie that he would wear on the night he died.

Harlan dresses for his party in a Polo Ralph Lauren navy suit, checked with a subdued gray windowpane, and constructed from a soft wool gabardine. He’s almost exclusively seated when wearing the suit’s single-breasted jacket, but it’s enough to discern the notch lapels rolling to the top of a two-button front as well as a welted breast pocket and four-button cuffs.

I would suspect the suit has been cut with either single or double vents, the former more typical of classic American business suits while the latter side-vented style is frequently found on Ralph Lauren suits (including this discounted Lauren by Ralph Lauren navy windowpane suit available from Men’s Wearhouse as of February 2021; a more likely contender for an evolved version of Harlan’s suit would be this Polo Ralph Lauren suit, now unavailable but styled with all the hallmarks of Harlan’s screen-worn suit aside from a bolder windowpane check.) The full suit can be seen on display in photos shared by Hollywood Movie Costumes & Props, revealing other details like the straight flapped hip pockets.

Harlan signals his position of royalty as the Thrombey family patriarch with his rich gold silk tie, patterned with a paisley laced with sky-blue accents that call out the rich navy suiting or the lighter blue in his shirt.

The suit’s flat front trousers have sliding-tab adjusters toward the back of each side of the waistband, fastening through silver buckles, though Harlan also holds up his trousers with a black leather belt. The belt coordinates to his black smooth calf Santoni loafers, worn with black ribbed socks that rise up over his calves. The unique slip-on shoes are accented with hand-sewn stitching around the apron toe and a braided panel across the instep that offsets the crocodile-textured vamps.

The trousers’ side pockets have gently slanted openings, and the jetted back pockets each close through a single button. The bottoms appear to be finished with turn-ups (cuffs).

Not such a happy birthday after all! (Nor is it much of a spoiler, since this is literally our first look at Harlan Thrombey, about two minutes into Knives Out.)

We spend the most time with Harlan after the party, specifically through Marta’s recollections of the final night of his life. He’s more casually dressed for their round of Go, having discarded with his jacket and tie. Similarly to how men of his generation may have put on a cardigan to relax around the house, Harlan slips on an oatmeal-hued waistcoat (or “vest” to us Americans.)

This off-the-rack fine woolen tweed vest was made by Joseph Abboud, described by the costume tag as a “dull light beige leather” and size large. The vest has five brown plastic sew-through buttons, all worn undone by Harlan, with a finely welt following the edge of the single-breasted opening down to the notched bottom. Though the lining is a hairline navy-and-white stripe, the back of the vest is faced in the same tweed cloth as the front unlike some suit waistcoats where the back matches the lining. Harlan’s vest also has two lower welted pockets.

Harlan’s striped cotton shirt echoes his suit with its classic white pattern against a blue ground. Indeed, the shirt is also a Polo Ralph Lauren product, described in the costumer’s tag as a “very light cornflower blue oxford type fabric [with] 1/8″ wide white pinstripes.” I could hardly describe the shirting better than that, so let’s move on to the details.

The shirt has a traditional spread collar, front placket, and double (French) cuffs that Harlan fastens with a set of “two 3/8″-wide cream pearly plastic buttons sewn together [with] a 1/2″-long cream thread sewing tack,” again according to the costume notes.

Rather than flashier cuff links, Harlan fastens the double cuffs of his blue-and-white striped shirt with a set of plastic buttons converted to function like cuff links.

Harlan unbuttons his left cuff so that Marta may administer his intravenous dosages of ketorolac and morphine sulfate, revealing his wristwatch which has been identified as a vintage Waltham on a brown leather strap. It’s an appropriate choice for the New England-dwelling author as the Waltham Watch Company was headquartered just a dozen miles west of Boston and thus not far from the Thrombey estate.

Three years after producing its first prototype, the Boston Watch Company manufactured its first run of watches in January 1853. The following year, operations moved from Roxbury, Massachusetts to Waltham, where it would be reorganized after bankruptcy. The Waltham Model 1857 would become the first American pocket watch made of standardized parts and would be famously presented to Abraham Lincoln after he delivered the Gettysburg Address, signaling that the company had indeed arrived. Exactly 100 years after introducing the iconic pocket watch favored by Honest Abe, the Waltham Watch Company went out of business in 1957.

On his right wrist, Harlan wears a sterling silver ID bracelet on a link chain, but it remains generally covered by his closed shirt cuff; the steel-cased Waltham watch with its round cream dial and the brown leather strap closing through a gold-finished single-prong buckle remain much more prominently seen on screen.

Preoccupied with her patient, Marta my not be aware of which dosage she’s injecting into Harlan’s left arm, just a few inches above where he wears his watch.

Earlier that day, Harlan had confronted several of his family members who visited him in his study. He’s dressed more casually—and considerably more colorfully—in an earthy plaid sport jacket and a pink checked contrast-collar shirt.

The tweed single-breasted sports coat is block-checked in olive, sage-green, and rust, with a black and brown overcheck that makes the heavy twill jacket a somewhat more chaotic alternative to the tweeds one might expect to see worn by a wealthy older gentleman at his country estate, though the extended throat latch on the left notch lapel is a classic detail in the sportswear tradition. We don’t see much of the rest of the jacket aside from the straight, padded shoulders and welted breast pocket, though I’m sure the unique detailing and colorway could be enough for eagle-eyed sartorialists to trace its manufacturer. (If I had to guess, I’d suggest this was another Polo Ralph Lauren garment.)

Surprising contrast is added by Harlan’s hot pink shirt, detailed with a white mini grid-check that coordinates with the white cutaway-style spread collar. The double cuffs are made from the same checked pink cloth as the rest of the shirt, which I believe is also a Polo Ralph Lauren item as it resembles some of the Purple Label offerings I’ve seen from the brand in recent years.

Harlan pairs a countrified plaid hacking jacket with a fashionably detailed hot pink shirt.

Finally, a brief vignette set earlier that autumn features Harlan sharing the details of his son-in-law’s infidelity with Marta, dressed for warmth and comfort in a gray wool shawl-collar cardigan sweater tonally paired over a gray jersey-knit polo-style shirt. The stitch patterns of Harlan’s cable-knit cardigan alternate between a classic diamond-stitch and braided cable, illustrating that Ransom isn’t the only one in the family who knows how to wear a sweater with style.

Looking for computer recommendations from Harlan Thrombey? He may keep a mid-2000s Apple iMac G5 in his study, but it’s a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 that powers his investigating his suspicions regarding his adulterous son-in-law.

How to Get the Look

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey in Knives Out (2019)
Cropped from a photo by Claire Folger (©Lionsgate)

Harlan Thrombey dresses tastefully for his 85th birthday, elegantly mixing patterns with his windowpane suit, striped shirt, and paisley tie, easily converting the look for comfort after the festivities by swapping out the jacket and tie for a stylish tweed waistcoat.

• Navy windowpane wool gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and double vents
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, slide-tab side adjusters, slanted front pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Light blue white-striped cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, and double/French cuffs
• Gold paisley silk tie
• Beige heather woolen tweed single-breasted 5-button waistcoat/vest with two lower welt pockets
• Black leather belt with silver-toned single-prong buckle
• Black leather Italian loafers with hand-sewn apron toes, crocodile-textured vamps, braided instep straps, and leather soles
• Black ribbed over-the-calf socks
• Sterling silver chain-link ID bracelet
• Vintage steel Waltham wristwatch with cream dial on brown leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming services.

The Quote

I don’t fear death, but, oh God, I’d like to fix some of this before I go… close the book with a flourish.

The post Christopher Plummer in Knives Out appeared first on BAMF Style.

Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story (1970)

Vitals

Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV, preppy Harvard student

New England, Winter 1966, and New York City, Winter 1970

Film: Love Story
Release Date: December 16, 1970
Director: Arthur Hiller
Costume Design: Alice Manougian Martin & Pearl Somner

Background

Happy Valentine’s Day! In the spirit of the season of romance, it felt appropriate to explore the preppy style in one of the most famous cinematic love stories of all time… the perhaps uncleverly titled Love Story.

I went into my inaugural Love Story viewing this year familiar only with Larry Siegel and Mort Drucker’s Mad magazine parody and the movie’s reviled thesis that “love means never having to say you’re sorry,” so I was a little surprised to find myself non-ironically enjoying it more than I expected. Sure, my friend @berkeley_breathes had primed me to expect some standout Ivy-inspired style worn by Ryan O’Neal as our romantic hero Oliver, but I guess the half-century since Love Story has yielded considerably cornier products with the odd effect that this aged… relatively well? Or maybe I’m just speaking from behind the blinders of my enduring crush on early ’70s Ali MacGraw.

What’d He Wear?

The much-discussed (and copied) style of Love Story‘s leads would lead one to assuming it boasted a prolific costume designer, though the credited designers—Alice Manougian Martin and Pearl Somner—have very limited credits between them; in addition to this, Martin is credited on three 1963 episodes of East Side, West Side, and Somner for a little-known Pat Boone faith-based flick called The Cross and the Switchblade, released just six months before Love Story. Unless there’s part of the story I’m missing, Martin and Somner’s teamwork must be one of the most successful one-hit wonders in the history of cinematic costume design!

Much of the fashionable eye on Love Story has rightly been focused on Ali MacGraw as the scrappy and sharp-tongued Radcliffe student Jenny who swiftly steals Oliver’s heart, but it’s his warm shearling coat that undoubtedly wins the heart of many a menswear enthusiast.

An Ivy romance.

I mentioned my friend @berkeley_breathes in the introduction, and I’d like to thank him for his help and for encouraging me to take a look at Love Story for BAMF Style content. Earlier this month, he shared his characteristically thoughtful insights with Charles McFarlane for Put This On about Ivy inclusivity and style. I’m also grateful to him for identifying O’Neal’s screen-worn sheepskin coat as most likely a product by Sawyer of Napa, a theory that I’d argue is backed up by The Weejun‘s look at a 1969 Sawyer of Napa coat that shares many of the characteristics (aside from a few collar differences) as O’Neal’s jacket.

While there’s plenty recorded about the history of shearling outerwear, I was delighted that @berkeley_breathes was able to contextualize for me not only how shearling became associated with Ivy style but what it says about Oliver’s character that O’Neal wears it so prominently:

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, prep schools started drastically expanding the Ivy canon to include workwear and military surplus, but also (critically) Western gear like cowboy boots, hats, and shearling coats. The really cool thing is that you see them on teachers as often as you see them on kids; it really reinforces the idea that this style developed from practicality and style combined. In a cold New England winter, you need a heavy coat, but—like Tintin in 1975—you want to stay with the times, too, so you reach for the shearling. What you end up with on these prep school and Ivy campuses is a really beautiful sheepskin in a really classic design: no huge collar, very boxy cut, perfect for layering over Shetlands or jackets.

I think the coat really emphasizes Oliver’s character; he’s annoyed by the burden of his name and legacy, and his clothes reflect how he’s starting to push against the confines of those traditions. He looks awkward in his blazer and flannels at the family mansion but at ease and carefree playing in the snow in his shearling coat. It’s a way that Oliver identifies himself with a younger, hipper generation, one that’s open to new ideas rather than being hidebound and reactionary. Of course, Oliver has his own struggles with that and with relationships in general, but that’s one take I have on the coat. It’s practical, it’s stylish, it’s making a point. And it doesn’t age at all; that coat looks as great today as it did in 1970.

Sheepskin is unusual among leathers as it’s tanned and processed with the shearling lamb’s soft woolen fleece intact, providing the effect of an insulating but breathable lining that often presents on the collar and cuffs. The 1960s marked a renaissance for sheepskin, its warm and hard-wearing reputation having popularized it among pilots and cowboys until it fell into the hands of the fashionable set, sported by the likes of Alain Delon and Robert Redford before Ryan O’Neal put his shearling coat through the rigors of a New England winter in Love Story.

Oliver’s sheepskin shearling car coat shows the usual cognac tan on its suede-like outer shell with the natural-shaded woolly shearling fleece presenting on the collar, about three quarters of an inch from the edge. A loop on the left side of the collar indicates a button at the top to close over the neck with three more brown woven leather buttons closing the coat beginning just below a horizontal yoke across the chest. The coat has set-in sleeves, a single vent, and deep hand pockets that gently curve toward the center of the coat to follow the natural movements of the wearer’s arms when inserting one’s hands through the slanted, jetted openings.

In his perfect Sawyer of Napa sheepskin coat, Oliver stands out among more blandly dressed students for a fall day on campus.

Oliver layers his shearling coat over a limited but well-loved cycle of Shetland wool sweaters, all given to considerable pilling after each wear. Once you’ve read about this versatile sweater from the Scottish Isles at Put This On, you can start looking for one of your own, starting with the Oliver-approved colors yellow (via Pendleton or Plain Goods) and green (via O’Connells). For a more comprehensive look at Shetland and lambswool sweater purveyors, I offer this guide by From Squalor to Baller.

The first is a mustard raglan-sleeve sweater that he wears over a worn-in light blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt, an Ivy staple that Oliver wears with characteristic insouciance, the collar leafs unbuttoned and atop the widely ribbed crew neck of his sweater. (Perhaps significantly, he wears this both when he meets Jenny and again when the two have their First Fight years later, after their marriage.)

He’s wearing this sweater for the first scene when wrangling with Jenny over his right to patronize the Radcliffe library, unable to comprehend her reluctance to help him and her enthusiasm for referring to him solely as “Preppy”… despite the fact that he’s standing before her in a shearling coat, blue OCBD, Shetland, and khaki corduroys.

Oliver: What makes you so sure I went to prep school?
Jenny: You look stupid and rich.
Oliver: Actually, I’m smart and poor.
Jenny: Uh-uh, I’m smart and poor.
Oliver: What makes you so smart?
Jenny: I wouldn’t go for coffee with you.
Oliver: I wouldn’t ask you.
Jenny: Well, that’s what makes you stupid.

CUT TO:

That Friday night, Oliver and Jenny share their first real date when she attends his hockey game against Dartmouth. “Jenny, I might not call you for a few months… then again, I might call you as soon as I get back to my room,” he quips at the end of the night, and indeed he moves swiftly to his phone when he returns home.

Slipping off his coat as he enters the apartment, we see a black manufacturer’s label sewn onto the reverse side of the coat’s left pocket.The tag is consistent with the look and placement of outerwear by Sawyer of Napa, the California brand suggested by @berkeley_breathes.

Oliver removes his coat once he returns home among his friends and roommates (including Hank, played by a young Tommy Lee Jones.)

Oliver peels off his shearling coat to reveal another variation of his campus uniform: OCBD, Shetland, and corduroys. His light blue shirt may be the same (or similar) as the one spotted earlier in the week, its unbuttoned collar leafs worn outside the sweater as usual, though he’s swapped out the golden sweater for a similar one in spruce green.

Oliver illustrates the durability and versatility of his Ivy gear by maintaining his wardrobe beyond his college years, such as the following autumn when he and Jenny move into their first Boston apartment. He’s wearing his light blue button-down layered under the green Shetland, this time with his light brown corduroys and oxblood oxfords.

Oliver and Jenny aren’t far removed from their college days when he’s carrying her across the threshold into their first home, he in his OCBD, Shetland, and cords and she sporting her usual Tartan plaids.

The true difference between sheepskin and suede emerges as we follow our lovers through a blustery New England winter, through which Oliver’s coat endures rain, snow, and never having to say you’re sorry. (I had to.)

While Jerry Seinfeld may have ruined his suede jacket by wearing it in the rain, no such harm comes to Ryan O’Neal’s sheepskin vestment, emerging victorious the following spring with perhaps just a touch of seasoned patina that merely adds to its value.

Jenny and Oliver don’t get a little rain get in the way of their romance… or their inclination to wear their favorite weather-ready coats.

As Oliver’s idyllic romance with Jenny progresses through the winter months, their weather-friendly coats serve them well for dates spent frolicking in the powder making snow angels and snowmen. Here, his outfit varies only slightly from his usual campus looks; he wears a white oxford cotton, the button-down collar unfastened as usual but considerably more disarranged.

Oliver’s slate blue Shetland sweater and blue jeans are likely the same as seen during a brief vignette of he and Jenny reading on his couch, the sweater rigged with a V-neck—as opposed to the crew-necks of its forebears—to show plenty more of the top of his white shirt and the undershirt beneath it.

Oliver’s sheepskin passes the snow angel test with flying colors.

Whether it’s fallen leaves or snow crunching under his feet, Oliver wisely stomps around campus in a pair of heavy dark brown leather lace-up boots. Though the boots are often too buried in snow to make out the details clearly, I believe I discerned the profile of derby-style open lacing.

Oliver almost always wears taupe knitted gloves, supplemented in moments of school pride by a wool scarf, block-striped in Harvard colors crimson and white with long fringe on the ends. Similar scarves are still available from The Harvard Shop more than a half-century later, though you could also go the more generic route via Amazon.

Almost mocking himself as he swaddles his throat in the school colors after losing a hockey game, Oliver despondently watches his aloof father drive away in his Jaguar.

We don’t see much of Oliver’s signature shearling coat during the early months of his and Jenny’s marriage; instead, he pulls on a shorter and darker sheep-lined flight jacket for his desperate dash around campus after their fitst fight.

Oliver presses the coat back into service later as he and Jenny relocate to New York for his new job at a law firm. He’s several years removed from campus and has updated some of his style to keep hip with the times, layering the coat over a simple slate-blue turtleneck as well as his trusty light brown corduroys just broken-in enough to be comfortable when spending hours cramped into the cockpit of his MG TC roadster between Beantown and the Big Apple.

Seconds after pulling up in front of the Manhattan high-rise they’ll now call home, Jenny again asks to be carried over the threshold.

Unfortunately, the young couple’s promising future is marred when they learn Jenny is terminally ill with cancer. Perhaps subconsciously hoping to recapture the magic of their first dates, Oliver reverts to his old campus “uniform” when making the most of his remaining time with Jenny.

For a wintry afternoon spent ice skating in Central Park, he’s in one of his old light blue oxford shirts, the button-down collar again worn undone and folded over the crew neck of his sweater, in this case a bulky ivory cable-knit fisherman sweater that he wears with dark brown corduroys.

“I want her to have the very best,” a distraught Oliver insists outside of Jenny’s hotel room.

How to Get the Look

Ryan O’Neal as Oliver Barrett IV in Love Story (1970)

From the shearling coat to the Shetland sweaters, several sheep sacrificed their skins for Oliver Barrett IV to arrange the outer layers of his campus uniform, insulating his Ivy staples like the light blue OCBD and earthy corduroys.

• Camel brown sheepskin shearling four-button coat with beige pile lining, loop collar, straight horizontal yokes, set-in sleeves, and curved jetted-entry hand pockets
• Light blue oxford cotton button-down shirt
• Woolen crew-neck raglan-sleeve sweater
• Brown corduroy flat front trousers
• Dark brown leather work boots
• White cotton crew-neck undershirt
• Taupe knitted wool gloves
• Crimson-and-white block-striped wool scarf with fringed ends

Got a few hundred bucks saved up? Search “Sawyer of Napa” on eBay and find that rugged style that’ll work for you!

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie… and, if you’re looking to get beyond tipsy this Valentine’s Day, watch Love Story and take a shot every time Ali MacGraw calls Ryan O’Neal “preppy”.

The Quote

Hey, if you’re so convinced I’m a loser, why did you bulldoze me into buying you coffee?

The post Love Story: Ryan O’Neal’s Sheepskin Shearling Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

Ken Takakura as Ken Tanaka in The Yakuza (1974)

Vitals

Ken Takakura as Ken Tanaka, disciplined ex-Yakuza

Kyoto, Japan, Spring 1974

Film: The Yakuza
Release Date: December 28, 1974
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Dorothy Jeakins

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of Ken Takakura, the Nakama-born actor with a record four Japan Academy Prizes for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. His presence in yakuza films through the 1960s brought him to the attention of screenwriting brothers Leonard and Paul Schrader, who wrote their action drama The Yakuza with Takakura in mind. Robert Aldrich, who had directed Takakura in the actor’s first American film Too Late the Hero (1970) was originally slated to direct him again here until Robert Mitchum was signed on to star and requested to work with a different director.

Mitchum plays retired detective and war veteran Harry Kilmer, sent to Japan to track down the kidnapped daughter of an old friend. To complete the task, Kilmer seeks to cash in on the decades-old debt owed him by former gangster Ken Tanaka (Takakura), now teaching at a kendo school in Kyoto.

I’ll try, but I don’t know how much I can do… I’m no longer Yakuza.

What’d He Wear?

Ken’s departure from the traditional world of the yakuza is signaled by his clothing as he’s dressed from head to toe in denim, his trucker jacket conspicuously branded with the familiar Levi’s “red tab” on the dextral side of the left pocket flap. The cut and details of Ken’s jacket date it to after 1962 when Levi’s introduced the “Type III” 557 (and later, 557XX) jackets to replace the older knife-pleated “Type II”. (You can read more about the history of Levi’s denim jackets at Heddels.)

Constructed from a rich dark indigo blue denim, Ken’s waist-length jacket is detailed with all the hallmarks of the classic Levi’s Type III including six copper rivet buttons up the front with matching buttons to close the cuffs and fasten the adjuster-tabs positioned toward the back of each side of the waist. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that Levi’s would add additional hand pockets to its venerable trucker jacket, so the sole outer pockets on Ken’s jacket are two chest pockets aligned just below the horizontal chest yoke with substantial pointed flaps that each close through a single button.

Ken eyes his old acquaintance over tea.

Given that this is The Yakuza, one of the great turtleneck movies of the ’70s (as illustrated by both Takakura and Mitchum), Ken layers his trucker jacket over a comfortable pale gray turtleneck made from a light cashmere that flatters Takakura’s lean, athletic physique.

Ken’s jeans are nearly a perfect match for his denim jacket, though I propose that he may not be wearing Levi’s but Wrangler jeans given the sharp and high angles we see stitched over the back pockets that resemble the “W” back-stitching on the North Carolina-based clothier’s signature 13WMZ jeans. Ken hold up his jeans with a black leather belt.

In accordance with Japanese customs, Ken doesn’t wear shoes inside, thus he sits opposite Harry with just his black socks on his feet.

Harry follows his friend’s example, honoring Japanese tradition by sitting in his stockinged feet inside.

A leather-clad Ken Takakura with Robert Mitchum on the set of The Yakuza.

Ken Takakura’s denim was also the subject of a Clothes on Film article, in which Christopher Laverty posits that Ken’s black leather jacket, worn for an action-packed sequence to follow, may also be a Levi’s product:

Ken wears similar clothing throughout the film – an East / West smart-casual combo. Of particular note is a black leather jacket seen when he and Kilmer storm a yakuza stronghold about mid-way through the story. Again worn with popped collar, it in fact fits very similar to the Trucker, as in close to the body and almost cropped by modern standards, although this is less noticeable because jeans and trousers were routinely cut much higher back then. This leather jacket could have even been made by Levi as they were producing items in a similar style at the time and shipping them internationally.

Most significant though is what all Ken’s casual ensembles represent: a rejection of his yakuza past, but, and this is most significant of all, not its ideology.

How to Get the Look

Ken Takakura as Ken Tanaka in The Yakuza (1974)

Ken Tanaka may honor his decades-old oath and promises, but he’s otherwise moved on from the past to embrace a new career and contemporary clothes like his head-to-toe denim by way of a Levi’s trucker jacket and jeans.

• Pale gray cashmere turtleneck
• Indigo blue denim Levi’s “Type III” trucker jacket
• Indigo blue denim jeans
• Black leather belt
• Black socks
• Steel wristwatch

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post The Yakuza: Ken Takakura in Blue Denim appeared first on BAMF Style.

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne in Gorky Park (1983)

Vitals

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne, American fur importer

Stockholm, April 1983

Film: Gorky Park
Release Date: December 15, 1983
Director: Michael Apted
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As winter rages on, you’d think I would be looking for escape via light movies set in tropical locations… but instead, I recently rewatched Gorky Park, adapted from Martin Cruz Smith’s 1981 novel that begins with three disfigured corpses found in the snow outside a Moscow ice rink. (And I wonder why I get depressed!)

Our ostensible hero is Militsiya officer Arkady Renko (William Hurt), whose investigation of the grisly murders leads him to the sophisticated yet sinister sable importer Jack Osborne (Lee Marvin). As a successful American businessman, Osborne’s stylish suits and sable hats present a marked contrast to the drab clothing of those in his orbit… though Renko, it should be said, has commendable taste in clothing, particularly when he’s off the clock.

Marvin, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran born 97 years ago on February 19, 1924, specialized in playing “tough guys” through the ’60s and ’70s. He brings a particular menace to Osborne, who’s described in the book as “equine and handsome” but with “the quality of animal assurance.” Physically, it’s as though Cruz Smith had Marvin in mind when building the image of the tall, lean, leather-skinned Osborne with his “straight white hair… more silver than white.”

What’d He Wear?

He was wearing hunting clothes, laced boots, a green jaeger hat, and pigskin gloves. The rifle was a bolt-action sporting model with a sight and a handsome burled stock. A heavy knife was sheathed on his belt. Arkady noticed that no more snow was falling; not a flake drifted down, not even from the overheavy branches. There was a ceramic clarity to the scene.

— Martin Cruz Smith, Gorky Park

The movie creatively interprets Jack Osborne’s “hunting clothes” for the climax, set not in Russia but nearly 1,000 miles west of Moscow, across the Baltic Sea at a remote farm outside Stockholm. The ground and buildings are still covered with snow, but it’s beginning to thaw as the winter gives way to spring.

For this still-chilly weather, Osborne turns to sheepskin, the reliable leather that’s been warming humans since the Stone Age. “Wait, wait, you just talked about sheepskin,” you say, having read my Valentine’s Day post about Ryan O’Neal’s shearling coat in Love Story. Sheepskin outerwear can take many forms, though the most common can be split into two major categories: the large medium-hued car coats championed by Delon, Redford, and O’Neal (to name a few), and the darker, hip-length bomber jackets inspired by the Irvin and B-3 flight jackets that warmed high-flying Allied aviators during World War II.

While I wouldn’t put it past Jack Osborne to develop a sable-lined bomber jacket, he instead dresses for action in a more traditional sheepskin coat.

Indeed, Marvin’s jacket as Jack Osborne follows the example of the B-3, which had been introduced in 1934 specifically for U.S. Army Air Force pilots in high-altitude bombers like the iconic B-17 Flying Fortress. Thus, the “bomber jacket” was born, typified by its sheepskin shell dyed to a military-spec dark brown and the thick piled sheep’s wool on the reverse side that lined the body of the coat up through the collar, which had two added straps to fasten the turned-up collar around the neck for warmth and protection. Osborne’s two collar straps are a slightly darker brown leather, matching the shade of the two sliding-buckle adjuster tabs toward the back of each side of the jacket, the horizontal back yoke, and the banded leather around the wrists and the hem.

On the original B-3 jackets, the piled fur lining spilled out of the cuffs and hem, though Osborne’s Finnish-made civilian’s coat has a slightly lengthened skirt that sacrifices the traditional furry hem. According to auction listings at Invaluable and Morphy Auctions, the screen-worn jacket has a label reading “S. Style Aitoa Nahkaa” and was likely purchased in Finland, where the film was produced. The coat is further detailed with a brief fly over the zip-up front and hand pockets with slanted welt openings.

While that may be a relatively neutral way for Osborne to hold a bolt-action rifle that needs to be cycled before each repeating shot, I still wouldn’t want to be Joanna Pacuła at that moment.

Under his half-zipped coat, Osborne wears an ivory wool sweater, knitted with a seed-stitched body with a shaker-rib stitched crew-neck and cuffs. Beneath the neck of his sweater, we see a blue paisley silk neckerchief that likely provides some degree of warmth but also adds a gently affected touch for our affluent and undoubtedly arrogant antagonist.

Apropos his now-unveiled villainy, Osborne wears a pair of black leather gloves, the squared case of his yellow gold watch gleaming from his left wrist between the glove and the sleeve-ends of his sweater and jacket.

That’s more like it!

Osborne wears brown wool flat front trousers that go hardly seen between the jacket skirt covering the waist line and the bottoms tucked into his well-worn russet leather bucket-top boots. This tall riding boot style dates back to the late 17th century, the uppers built with stiff leather shafts that swell out above the knees into cup-like buckets. These buckets can be worn unfolded up to the thighs or folded down over the shafts.

Marvin wears his boots in the latter fashion, showing the roughout reverse side of the leather and fastening them in the back with criss-crossed rawhide laces that culminate in tooled leather tassels that dangle around his heels. The moc-toes curl up toward the front, and there are buckled straps over each boot’s instep.

“The sables are dead… I do not intend to join them.”

The Gun

Though he carried a gold-plated Walther PPK/S in a previous scene—and reportedly used an older Mannlicher pistol to commit the murders—Jack Osborne has upgraded his firepower to a bolt-action rifle when facing down Renko and the KGB agents during the conclusion.

The IMFDB experts have identified Osborne’s rosewood-stocked rifle as a Colt-Sako Model L-579, a firearm I admittedly knew next to nothing about until reading what the IMFDB folks had to say. For several years in the early 1960s, Colt produced a series of rifles with bolt-actions by the Finnish firearms manufacturer Sako. From 1963 to 1965, these were built on the L-461 short action, the L-61 long action, and the L-579 medium action as seen in Gorky Park. Calibers varied across these models, but the L-579 was only available in .243 Winchester and .308 Winchester thus it’s likely one of these two rounds that Osborne fires from his scoped Colt-Sako rifle.

The obliquely angled fore-end was characteristic of the later run of Colt-Sako rifles.

How to Get the Look

Lee Marvin as Jack Osborne in Gorky Park (1983)

Jack Osborne was the character that Lee Marvin was born to play: charming but dangerous, rugged yet refined… the same qualities that could describe the sheepskin flight jacket he wears with an off-white sweater, paisley neckerchief, and bucket boots.

• Dark brown sheepskin hip-length bomber jacket with broad fur-lined collar (with two throat-latch straps), zip-up front fly, slanted welt hand pockets, and buckle-tab side adjusters
• Ivory seed-stitched wool crew-neck sweater
• Blue paisley silk neckerchief
• Brown wool flat front trousers
• Russet brown leather “bucket top” riding boots with curled moc-toes, buckled instep straps, and rawhide-backlaced shafts
• Black leather gloves
• Yellow gold watch with champagne dial on dark leather strap

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie and read Martin Cruz Smith’s novel.

The Quote

He killed my dogs. I gutted him… because he killed my dogs.

The post Gorky Park: Lee Marvin’s Sheepskin Flight Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.

Sidney Poitier as Dr. Matt Younger in A Warm December (1973)

Vitals

Sidney Poitier as Matt Younger, widowed father and clinic physician

London, Summer 1972

Film: A Warm December
Release Date: May 23, 1973
Director: Sidney Poitier
Wardrobe Supervisor: John Wilson-Apperson

Background

Happy birthday to screen legend Sidney Poitier, born 94 years ago today on February 20, 1927 in Miami. After two decades of screen success that landed him the Academy Award for Best Actor (and he remains both the oldest living and longest surviving recipient), Poitier began directing his own movies in the early 1970s, beginning with the groundbreaking 1972 Western Buck and the Preacher.

Poitier proved the diversity of his directorial talent by sliding to the other end of the genre spectrum the following year when he released the romantic drama A Warm December, in which he also starred as a recently widowed doctor who finds love across the Atlantic when he meets the magnetic Catherine (Esther Anderson) during an extended trip to London with his daughter.

One of Matt and Catherine’s first dates is dinner and a show, including the now-famous performance of Letta Mbulu and an African choir singing “Nonqonqo” by Miriam Makeba. The evening concludes with her sneaking him into her quarters at the Torunda embassy, where they consummate their attraction.

What’d He Wear?

Dr. Matt Younger’s extensive wardrobe brought to London evidently includes not one but two navy blazers, one a more traditional single-breasted piece rigged with gilt buttons while the other is a trendier double-breasted jacket with flat mother-of-pearl buttons.

Made from an attractive navy blue serge, Matt’s blazer boasts the peak lapels typical of double-breasted jackets, albeit fashionably wide for the early ’70s, with high, angled gorges that point the lapels sharply toward the roped sleeveheads on each shoulder. The blazer has four pearl-finished plastic sew-through buttons in a square configuration with two to close, matching the three buttons spaced on the end of each cuff. The blazer boasts sporty patch pockets on the left breast and hips, and the long double vents add another detail characteristic of the ’70s.

Tie undone but blazer buttoned, Dr. Younger searches for an exit from the Torunda embassy.

In real life, Poitier was a customer of famed London shirtmaker Frank Foster, and the flatteringly cut light pink cotton poplin shirt he wears under this blazer appears to be one of Foster’s shirts. Cut with a straight hem, Dr. Younger’s shirt has a spread collar and two-button barrel cuffs.

Foster’s craftwork is particularly evident in the distinctive stitching on the front placket that narrowly flanks the buttonholes. In his comprehensive exploration of James Bond’s clothing on Bond Suits, Matt Spaiser calls out this signature detail on the shirts Frank Foster made for Sean Connery, George Lazenby, and Roger Moore as 007, citing that Moore’s shirts in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) have 3.5-centimeter wide plackets, stitched 1.5 centimeters from the edge. As this was the year before A Warm December was released, it’s reasonable to conclude that the dimensions are similar for Poitier’s screen-worn shirts.

Note the narrow stitching aligned with the buttonholes on Dr. Younger’s placket, a signature detail of Frank Foster’s shirts.

Dr. Younger wears a bright coral red tie patterned in a rust, bronze, and green paisley and tied in a substantial Windsor knot that fills the tie space between the leaves of his shirt’s spread collar.

Dr. Younger’s flat front trousers are made from a warm stone-hued gabardine that leans beige. They have no back pockets, the front pockets a slanted “frogmouth” style that runs obliquely parallel to the waist line. The bottoms are plain-hemmed with a touch of flare. He wears these trousers with a dark brown leather belt.

Dr. Younger gets dressed after spending the night with Catherine.

The dark brown leather moc-toe loafers with their silver-toned horsebit detail are the same as Dr. Younger wears in other scenes, and they coordinate with the leather of his belt that goes unseen under the double-breasted blazer when it’s buttoned.

How to Get the Look

Sidney Poitier and Ester Anderson in A Warm December (1973)

A navy blazer with slacks and a tie is a timeless and tasteful outfit for date night, and Sidney Poitier’s character signals his enthusiasm for the evening by sporting the trendier—and thus more youthful—of his two blazers, colorfully appointed with a pink shirt and bright paisley tie.

• Navy serge double-breasted blazer with wide peak lapels, 4×2 pearl sew-through button-front, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and double vents
• Light pink cotton poplin shirt with spread collar, front placket, 2-button barrel cuffs, and straight hem
• Coral red paisley tie
• Stone-hued beige gabardine flat front trousers with belt loops, frogmouth front pockets, and gently flared plain-hemmed bottoms
• Dark brown leather belt with squared gold-finished single-prong buckle
• Dark brown leather moc-toe horsebit loafers
• Dark socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, most accessibly available on DVD as part of a four-film “Sidney Poitier Collection” box set from Warner Brothers.

The post A Warm December: Sidney Poitier’s Navy Double-Breasted Blazer appeared first on BAMF Style.

Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Flemming on Prescription: Murder, the TV pilot movie that led to Columbo

Vitals

Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Flemming, smarmy psychiatrist

Los Angeles, Spring 1967

Film: Prescription: Murder
Original Air Date: February 20, 1968
Director: Richard Irving
Costume Designer: Burton Miller

Background

This week in 1968, TV audiences were introduced to an unassuming yet indefatigable homicide detective in a wrinkled raincoat whose humble mannerisms and appearance belied an uncanny ability to bring murderers to justice. Oh, and just one more thing… that detective was named Columbo.

Peter Falk wasn’t the first to play the detective, nor was he even the first choice when Richard Levinson and William Link’s stage play was adapted for TV as Prescription: Murder, the first episode of what would become the long-running series Columbo. Bert Freed had originated the role in a 1960 episode of The Chevy Mystery Show, to be followed by Thomas Mitchell when Levinson and Link debuted the play Prescription: Murder two years later in San Francisco.

Prescription: Murder establishes many trademark elements of Columbo, including the delayed introduction of the shrewd but shabbily dressed lieutenant himself until after we watch the murderer of the week commit his—or her—crime.

Gene Barry set a standard in Prescription: Murder that the killers foiled by Columbo would follow for decades to come: arrogant, well-dressed, and clever enough to pull together a murder scheme that keeps them above suspicion… from all but Lieutenant Columbo, of course.

Dr. Ray Flemming makes the dangerous mistake of not taking the humble Lieutenant Columbo too seriously, an oversight that he and dozens of other murderers would regret.

We spend a little more time with Dr. Ray Flemming than we typically do with Columbo’s adversaries, and Barry creates a memorable murderer out of the pretentious psychiatrist who murders his wife Carol (Nina Foch) in the hopes of building a life with his younger mistress and former patient, Joan (Katherine Justice).

Barry is debonair and dangerous as the devious Dr. Flemming, though the scenes he shares with Falk illustrate why NBC would have requested a full series featuring the detective, similar to how the first film in The Pink Panther series centered around David Niven’s smooth jewel thief though it was Peter Seller as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau who would become the breakout character at the center of about a half-dozen more films. (Of course, Columbo and Clouseau would occupy opposing ends of the competence spectrum.)

Though Falk looks relatively polished compared to Columbo’s later incarnation on the series proper, his wardrobe is understandably outshined by the dashing doctor. Indeed, this wasn’t Gene Barry’s first time playing a dangerous but well-dressed man, as his portrayal of real-life gunfighter Bat Masterson on the NBC series of the same name even included an episode with a plot driven by Bat visiting his favorite tailor.

I’m grateful to Matt Spaiser, whom we know as the brilliant writer behind Bond Suits, for mentioning Gene Barry’s excellent tailoring to me as a potential BAMF Style focus and sharing with me some additional context that draws a connection to agent 007:

When one of my readers suggested I write about Gene Barry’s wardrobe in the Columbo premiere for my blog, I was excited to be reminded of a wardrobe that could rival any James Bond film’s. My father has often spoken about Barry being one of the most stylish men ever to grace the screen, and there’s nothing he’d rather watch than interplay between Peter Falk and Gene Barry.

Barry’s well-tailored suits in grey, navy, and glen check paired with dark ties loosely recalls Bond’s wardrobe, but Barry does not play a spy. He merely plays a character who shares a name with Bond’s creator and wears a dinner jacket as well as Bond does. Rather than shoehorn Columbo into my blog, I thought it was a perfect fit for BAMF Style.

What’d He Wear?

As Columbo’s only antagonist we encounter during the 1960s, Dr. Flemming avoids some of the fashion excesses that would mar some of his brothers-in-murder across the following decade, and the interesting details he adds to his eight stylish suits are tastefully incorporated rather than being garish distractions.

As you can see, Dr. Flemming spends much of Prescription: Murder talking on the phone, putting on gloves, and enjoying glasses of bourbon. I may follow this post with more in-depth looks at some of his other standout looks, such as that dinner suit and the glen plaid suit when matching wits against Columbo, but I wanted to begin with the fawn-colored suit he wears when committing the actual murder that drives the episode.

This fawn tonal-striped wool suit stands apart from the others with its warmer-hued suiting, certainly earthier than his business suits in their conservative shades of gray and navy. The deviation makes sense when considering that Dr. Flemming was ostensibly dressing for a TWA flight to Acapulco where he and his wife would be enjoying a vacation for their anniversary, and thus he’d be dressed more for travel than business. (Note that for our debonair doctor, decorum still calls for a full suit, tie, and cuff links.) The self-striped light fawn suiting is a shade closer to khaki than taupe, interestingly similar to the color of the rumpled suit Lieutenant Columbo would wear throughout the episode. We get a quick glimpse at the tailor’s label sewn onto the puce satin-finished lining under the right breast, though I’d defer to more eagle-eyed readers to identify from this.

Aside from its color, the fawn suit shares the same characteristics as most of the others, comprised of a single-button jacket and beltless trousers and appointed with a nattily non-white pocket square and mod black loafers. The mid-to-late 1960s saw a brief rise in the fashionability of single-button suit jackets, appropriated from the more formal dinner jacket and dapperly deployed by stylish screen spies from Patrick Macnee’s John Steed to Sean Connery’s 007 as Matt Spaiser explored for Bond Suits. Regarding Barry’s suits specifically, Matt suggested to me the possibility of Hollywood tailor Harry Cherry—who made similar suits for Craig Stevens and Dick Van Dyke during this period—and shared additional background knowledge:

If you couldn’t get out to see the Bond films in the 1960s, tuning into American television was just as reliable to see perfect tailoring. Barry’s clothes epitomize the best of 1960s Beverly Hills style. Single-button jackets were ubiquitous on American television throughout the decade, but the style was a speciality of the exclusive West Coast tailors and was uncommon elsewhere. The single-button style with slanted hip pockets and single cuff buttons has a slightly flashy yet minimalist look that puts the focus on the cut of the suit. And the cut of Barry’s suits could not be more perfect.

The proportions of Dr. Flemming’s suits suggest the quality of his tailoring, the single-button closure perfectly meeting the rise of his trousers for the optimal effect of shirt-and-tie above the button and trousers below it.

A perfectly proportioned suit to carry out an almost-perfect murder.

The suit jacket has balanced notch lapels, straight and soft padded shoulders, and a single vent, the latter detail differentiating this from some of his double-vented but otherwise similarly tailored suits. The shorter length and closer fit—guided by darts—are contemporary with the trending direction of late ’60s tailoring. The sleeveheads are roped, and each sleeve is finished with a single functioning cuff button.

The flapped hip pockets slant gently rearward, and the welted breast pocket is decorated by the addition of a silk pocket square, patterned with a dark navy grid that neatly arranges the kerchief into a series of brown boxes, positioned askew to present as diamonds.

Dr. Flemming echoes the color of his tie with his pocket square, wisely not attempting to match them.

Apropos the earthier tones of his outfit, Dr. Flemming wears a solid brown satin silk tie, held in place just above the blade with a gold tie pin that appears to be shaped like a horse’s head.

Dr. Flemming’s pale yellow cotton shirt softens the overall effect of the outfit more than a plain white shirt. The box-pleated breast pocket and elegantly rolling button-down collar both serve to signal that this may be a more informal shirt appropriate for travel, though the shirt boasts a seemingly incongruous combination of a button-down collar and cuff links, a configuration championed by Cary Grant.

The cuffs appear not to be traditional double (French) cuffs but instead reinforced single cuffs, similar to the classic barrel cuff but with link closures rather than buttons. One of his patient—but ultimately doomed—wife’s last acts while alive is to help Dr. Flemming by fastening his gold rectangular cuff links onto the shirt, commenting that “you’re a brilliant man but not very mechanical,” to which he responds: “That’s what wives are for.”

If only helping her husband with his cuff links could have saved poor Carol’s life…

The flat front suit trousers are self-suspended with a set of slide-through adjusters on each side of the waist. Detailed with gently slanted side pockets and jetted back pockets, the trousers slightly taper toward the plain-hemmed bottoms that break cleanly at the tops of his slip-on shoes.

The short break of his trousers shows Dr. Flemming’s surprisingly uninspired black socks, which echo the black leather of his cap-toe loafers. The shoes appear to have black elastic side gussets which expand to guide his feet into the high-vamp shoes, a surprisingly dressed-down style for the distinguished doctor to wear with all of his suits, including the dinner suit at the episode’s opening.

Shining from his right pinky, Dr. Flemming wears a chunky gold ring with a bulging teal ovular stone. He wears no wedding ring, which wasn’t uncommon for men at this time but may have suggested to poor Carol that her husband’s disinterest in their marriage went dangerously beyond her suspicions of his infidelity.

Dr. Flemming slips on a pair of dove-gray three-point gloves made from a soft sueded leather, fastened with a single gray snap under each wrist.

As a contrast to the reportedly inexpensive watches worn by Lieutenant Columbo, Dr. Flemming wears an elegantly thin all-gold wristwatch with a slim oval dial against a rectangular case. I’ve seen similar-dialed watches from this era by Longines and Patek Phillippe, but those oval dials tend to be elongated vertically rather than horizontally like Dr. Flemming’s watch.

Like his soon-to-be-met nemesis, Dr. Flemming carries a raincoat, though he never wears it and we never see much more than the beige water-resistant shell fabric and the tattersall check lining.

Dr. Flemming and Joan—posing as his already-murdered wife Carol—board a TWA flight to Acapulco to establish his alibi.

How to Get the Look

Gene Barry as Dr. Ray Flemming on Prescription: Murder, the TV pilot movie that led to Columbo

From its first televised installment, Columbo illustrated that fine clothing was never a substitute for failed character. It’s okay to dress like the fashionable Dr. Flemming as long as you act more like Columbo!

• Light fawn self-striped wool suit:
  • Single-button jacket with narrow-notch lapels, welted breast pocket, slanted flapped hip pockets, single-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat front trousers with slide-buckle side adjusters, slanted side pockets, jetted back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Pale yellow cotton shirt with button-down collar, front placket, box-pleated breast pocket, and single cuffs
  • Gold rectangular cuff links
• Brown satin silk tie
• Black leather side-gusset cap-toe loafers
• Black socks
• Dark brown check-patterned silk pocket square
• Dove gray suede three-point gloves
• Gold pinky ring with teal oval stone
• Gold luxury watch with oval-shaped dial on rectangular case

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, included on the first-season DVD and also streaming on Peacock.

I highly recommend Columbophile as a comprehensive and entertaining online resource for fans of the series!

The Quote

People see what they expect to see.

The post Gene Barry’s Fawn Suit as Dr. Ray Flemming in Prescription: Murder appeared first on BAMF Style.

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005)

Vitals

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, rising country rock star

Texarkana, Texas, Summer 1955

Film: Walk the Line
Release Date: November 18, 2005
Director: James Mangold
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips
Tailor: Pam Lisenby

Background

Eighty-nine years ago on February 26, 1932, J.R. Cash was born in Arkansas. His childhood was dominated by music, as there was little else to encourage the family enduring the hard years of the Depression made worse by a dangerous flood and the violent death of Jack, one of the seven Cash children. It was when he joined the military that the 18-year-old Cash expanded his first name as the Air Force wouldn’t allow just initials, though it wasn’t until cutting his first recording at Sun Records that he established the name that would become legendary: Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash, circa 1955.

I’d long been a fan of Cash’s music, and my girlfriend fiancée Olivia surprised me this Christmas with At Folsom Prison on vinyl, among other great records and Booze & Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks, a volume by siblings by André and Tenaya Darlington that matches a duo of interesting cocktails with classic albums. It was while enjoying the Darlingtons’ recommended pairing of At Folsom Prison with more than a few of the rum-and-cider concoctions known as a Stone Fence that Liv discovered that she too is a Johnny Cash fan, and it’s been a delight hearing her playing one of my favorite artists.

Just over a year after Cash released his first Sun single, “Cry! Cry! Cry!”, he made his debut at the Grand Ole Opry in Memphis on July 7, 1956. It was while backstage at the Ryman Auditorium that he met June Carter, then two years his senior and a voice he’d long admired from the radio days of his childhood in Dyess.

The two would grow their personal and professional relationship, frequently touring together over the dozen years to follow until June accepted Johnny’s marriage proposal on stage in Toronto in February 1968, just over a month after they recorded the landmark At Folsom Prison. The couple would remain together until her death in May 2003, with Johnny himself to follow only four months later.

What’d He Wear?

June Carter and Johnny Cash meet backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, July 1956.

The 2005 biopic Walk the Line depicts Johnny Cash and June Carter’s first meeting a year earlier in Texarkana, between a characteristically chaotic Jerry Lee Lewis performance and Cash with the Tennessee Two performing “Get Rhythm”. Though the circumstances gently differ between their real-life meeting and the cinematic depiction, costume designer Arianne Phillips paid tribute to recreating Cash’s stage outfit, comprised of a white shawl-collar jacket over a dark shirt, bow tie, and trousers.

As Cash, Joaquin Phoenix wears an off-white single-button jacket in a lightweight cloth with an imperfect slubbing that suggests raw silk. Though the Walk the Line jacket nixes the showy “J.C.” embroidered on the real Cash’s left lapel, the narrow shawl collar is piped in a similar braided gilt embroidery.

The wide, padded shoulders are characteristic of the mid-1950s, and the jacket is additionally detailed with a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and a single vent. The sleeves are finished with two non-functioning white buttons at each cuff.

Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, clad in their white stage jackets with uniquely piped shawl collars. True to his nature, Johnny’s the only one sticking to black underpinnings while the bassist Marshall Grant (Larry Bagby) sports a bright red shirt and laconic guitarist Luther Perkins (Dan John Miller) wears a subdued beige.

Befitting the “Man in Black” image he would cultivate over his career, the rest of Cash’s attire under the gold-piped white jacket is all-black. His flat front trousers are self-suspended at the waist, worn without a belt but possibly fitted with button-tab side adjusters. He also wears black leather shoes, likely lace-ups.

Rather than the long striped Western-style bow tie Cash actually wore for the Opry debut where he met June, Phoenix’s Cash wears a simpler plain black satin bow tie in the straight, narrow style that was fashionable during the fabulous fifties.

Moments before introducing himself: “Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.”

Walk the Line suggests that Cash’s famous all-black stage wardrobe originated as it was the only shirt color that he, Marshall Grant, and Luther Perkins shared. Once they’re on the road, successfully touring and selling records, this seems to be less of a consideration as the trio opts for matching stage jackets and differently colored shirts, Cash sticking to black for reasons ranging from practical (easier to keep clean while touring) and pointed (symbolizing rebellion).

Rather than the striped black shirt seen in photos from the ’56 Opry appearance, Phoenix’s Cash wears a plain black cotton Western-style work shirt with mother-of-pearl snap closures up the front placket, on the triple-snap cuffs, and fastening the two “sawtooth” double-snap flaps over the chest pockets. The shirt snaps right up to the collar, which is lined along the inside in a beige sateen fabric.

After the performance, he takes off the bow tie and unsnaps the top of his shirt, showing the top of his white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt as he takes a seat next to June at the all-night diner.

Emboldened by his stage success, Johnny continues his budding friendship with June after a late meal at a local diner.

Once he’d reached (and surpassed) great fame and success, Johnny Cash was a known fan of Rolex watches, including a gold Day-Date on a “President”-style bracelet seen during performances across the late ’70s and into the ’80s. (To read more about the real Cash’s Rolex watches, check out these articles from Rolex Magazine and Revolution.)

We’re not quite there yet at this point in Walk the Line, as Cash has only just evolved from a struggling salesman into one of a half-dozen budding stars on the Sun Records touring lineup. He’s depicted wearing a different yellow gold watch, though the manufacturer and model are unclear to me. On the opposing wrist, he wears a sterling silver chain-link ID bracelet.

He also wears a gold wedding ring symbolizing his first marriage to Vivian, though we witness his commitment get a little hazier once he makes June’s acquaintance.

Things… aren’t great at home.

How to Get the Look

Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (2005)

Inspired by 1950s-era stage suits worn by the real Johnny Cash, costume designer Arianne Phillips rigged Joaquin Phoenix in a black-and-white outfit piped in gold that may not be practical for day-to-day wear but could inform some rockabilly-driven takes on creative black tie.

• Off-white slubbed silk stage jacket with braided gilt-piped shawl collar, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, vestigial 2-button cuffs, and single vent
• Black cotton work shirt with snap-up front placket, double-snap “sawtooth” flap chest pockets, and triple-snap cuffs
• Black narrow bow tie
• Black flat front self-suspended trousers
• Black leather lace-up shoes
• Black socks
• Sterling silver chain-link ID bracelet
• Yellow gold wristwatch with gold dial and gold bracelet
• Gold wedding ring

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, and pick up some Johnny Cash records. His 1968 live album At Folsom Prison may be personal favorite but to hear Cash at this early stage of his career, I recommend his debut album, Johnny Cash with his Hot and Blue Guitar!

Originally released in October 1957 by Sun Records, this record chronicles some of Cash’s biggest hits from the first three years of his recording career, including “Cry! Cry! Cry!”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, and “I Walk the Line”. The expanded reissue from Columbia includes alternate versions of the latter two hits as well as “Get Rhythm”, the pulsating B-side of “I Walk the Line” that Phoenix performs in this sequence.

The Quote

Hello. I’m Johnny Cash.

The post Walk the Line: Johnny Cash in Rockabilly White and Black appeared first on BAMF Style.

Warren Beatty as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel in Bugsy (1991)

Vitals

Warren Beatty as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, “celebrity” gangster and casino builder

Los Angeles, Spring 1945 and Las Vegas, Fall 1946

Film: Bugsy
Release Date: December 13, 1991
Director: Barry Levinson
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Everybody deserves a fresh start once in a while.

At least three times while wearing this outfit alone, Warren Beatty’s Bugsy Siegel pontificates on the power of fresh starts. While the real Siegel may not have been quite as forgiving, Beatty plays him with the actor’s characteristic charisma to better communicate to audiences how a violent gangster could have charmed the stars of “golden age” Hollywood.

The real Benjamin Siegel was born 115 years ago today on February 28, 1906, under the sun sign of Pisces that—among other things—has been described as the dreamer of the Zodiac.

“Benny’s always been a dreamer,” his pal Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) offers to fellow mob leaders, and it’s this signature trait that Bugsy leans into, resulting in the ultimate manifestation of our protagonist’s dream as he sinks six million in the mob’s ill-gotten cash into building the Flamingo Hotel and Casino and, in turn, establishing the once-quiet desert berg of Las Vegas into America’s bustling adult playground with the help of his adversary-turned-advisor Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel).

Our constant dreamer also refuses to let his own marriage—or the lack of interest on his new suitee’s part—get in the way of his attempted courtship of the vivacious Virginia Hill (Annette Bening), illustrated early on via a montage set to Johnny Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive.” This ode to optimism could sum up Siegel’s general approach to life as his constant dismissal of obstacles as “no problem” would surely align with Mercer’s demand that we “eliminate the negative [and] latch on the affirmative.”

Mercer co-wrote the song with Harold Arlen, recording it for Capitol Records with the Pied Pipers and Paul Weston’s orchestra in October 1944. It would become one of the first major hits of 1945, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song as it was featured in the Bing Crosby flick Here Comes the Waves and would be recorded by many popular artists of the day, including Crosby, Kay Kyser, Artie Shaw, and Dinah Washington.

“Accentuate the Positive” endures as one of the most popular post-World War II songs, not just for its enthusiastic sound but also its frequent use in movies—often to juxtapose the image of postwar prosperity with the realities of the era—such as L.A. Confidential and Blast from the Past, the latter incorporating Perry Como’s rendition.

What’d He Wear?

Bugsy represents the real Ben Siegel’s taste for expensive clothes with Warren Beatty’s well-tailored screen wardrobe. Beatty’s Bugsy arrives from New York dressed in businesslike gray double-breasted suits, but he soon adopts a more sporting look for life on the more casual West Coast, pairing colorfully checked sport jackets over silk sport shirts accented with the occasional day cravat or fashionable sunglasses.

One of the more frequently seen items rotated through Bugsy’s wardrobe is a houndstooth sports coat with a softly napped finish that suggests cashmere or a cashmere and wool blend. (If you want to know why this weave is called houndstooth, ask your dog’s dentist; if you want to know why it’s sometimes called pied-a-poule, ask a Gallic gallinaceous podiatrist.)

The base check is a medium-scaled black and cream houndstooth, offset by a scarlet red overcheck that creates a 20-by-20 square; each resulting square is, in turn, bisected by a sage green weft and a cornflower blue warp that adds a subtle complexity.

Think you have a colorful wardrobe? Try wearing a jacket that has five colors in it… and making it work!

Likely acquired from Western Costume Co. like most of Beatty’s costumes in Bugsy, this two-button sport jacket is elegantly cut in accordance with mid-1940s trends, the shoulders straight and padded out to the roped sleeveheads while the body of the jacket is fitted with darts and fitted around the mid-section with a ventless back. The patch pockets on the left breast and hips dress it down further, and the sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs.

Bugsy maintains composure despite his relationship, his desert dreams, and his status in the mob crumbling all around him. “No problem!”

The Los Angeles Look

As Bugsy establishes himself in Hollywood, he also realigns his criminal associations, partnering with the volatile Mickey Cohen rather than the old-school Jack Dragna. His turbulent relationship with Virginia has been settling into something resembling domesticity… at least as domestic as a mobster and his ashtray-flinging moll can get, scarfing down scampi over accusations of assignations with matadors, musicians, and mafiosi.

Bugsy the born-and-bred New Yorker happily leaves the sartorial trappings of the Big Apple behind to embrace life in the land of leisure, appointing his everyday looks with a colorful day cravat worn inside his shirt, perhaps serving the practical purpose of catching the sweat from his neck (and thus preserving his silk shirt collar) while certainly affecting a cunningly continental appearance. With this particular outfit, he wears a burgundy foulard silk cravat patterned in an alternating arrangement of elaborate beige circles and blue squares.

Our “would-be smoothie” doesn’t do his reputation any favors when wearing his foulard silk day cravat for negotiations with Mickey Cohen, but the two force an alliance despite a difference in styles.

Bugsy calls out the sage check present in his jacket by favoring shirts in shades of green, beginning with this rich teal silk sports shirt. The broad collar has a loop extension from the left to connect with a button under the right collar leaf. There are two chest pockets, each covered by a non-buttoning flap with the left flap monogrammed “Ben” in a low-contrast green thread, a subtle reminder that he prefers his given name to the entomological moniker he earned on the streets.

The shirt fastens with large mixed green urea two-hole buttons up the plain “French placket”, and each cuff closes with a single button. Edge-stitching is present along the collar and pocket flaps.

Don’t want to ruin that nice silk shirt by sticking on a name tag? Just have your first name embroidered on the left breast and, voila!, you’ll be ready to go for that next class reunion, convention, etc.

Bugsy’s wool trousers are also a shade of green, albeit a darker forest green. These trousers are detailed with double forward-facing pleats on each side, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs). He wears a dark brown leather belt with a gold-toned enclosed square buckle that appears to be engraved, likely monogrammed.

A casual outfit calls for a casual shoe, so Bugsy leaves those calf leather oxfords in the bottom of his closet and struts around Los Angeles in a pair of rich chocolate brown suede lace-ups—likely derbies—with hard black leather soles, worn with dark brown socks.

What drives me crazy about this scene is that Beatty still has a mouthful of scampi, as he’s still shoveling it in in between kisses with Bening before they collapse onto the floor together. That’s how we know Bugsy’s as bugs as they say he is.

Bugsy arrives in Los Angeles with a pair of monobrowline sunglasses that would be his go-to shades for the first half of the film, styled with tortoise frames and a gold-toned chassis with exposed rims around the bottom of each lens.

Browline eyewear is often associated with retro fashion thanks to its mid-century popularity among everyone from LBJ and Malcolm X to Vince Lombardi and Colonel Sanders. Indeed, the real Bugsy Siegel—who was killed in June 1947—may have lived to see Shuron Ltd. launching the Ronsir in 1947 as the first true browline frame, but it’s not likely that he would have been wearing these glasses two years earlier upon arriving from New York.

Even less likely would be that Bugsy’s yet-to-be-designed browline glasses would have sunglass lenses, as it wasn’t until the ’80s when these would be mass-produced, popularized in the wake of Bruce Willis sporting a pair of tinted Ronsirs on Moonlighting. Ray-Ban capitalized on the situation, introducing sunglass lenses for its Clubmaster (which Tim Roth would bring to the screen in Reservoir Dogs) and the Wayfarer Max, a monobrowline fusion that blended the browline sensibilities with the solid top half of the Wayfarer’s more contiguous frame.

A true fashion plate wears sunglasses that wouldn’t even be designed until 40 years after he’s died.

While one could argue that seeing postwar-era browline glasses in scenes set across 1945 and 1946 is forgivable, Bugsy wearing sunglasses that wouldn’t be developed for another four decades suggests a more substantial anachronism.

A Tie at the Train Station

Bugsy’s romance with Virginia heats up to the degree that he’s resolved to return to New York—on his daughter’s birthday, of all occasions—to ask his wife for a divorce. (Spoiler: it’s going to take a little more time than this!) As he sits with Mickey Cohen at Union Station, Bugsy sartorially signals that he’s headed back east into the cold world of commerce by buttoning the loop-collar on his silk sports shirt up to the neck and tying on a Deco-printed silk tie of irregular gray-and-navy squares bouncing against a scarlet red ground. Like his similar green shirt from the earlier outfit, this eggshell-white silk shirt has two pockets and subtly contrasting edge-stitching.

It’s a transitional look, as Bugsy hasn’t yet returned to the fully wrapped confines of his gray double-breasted suits and dress shirts that he wears in New York, but he’s bringing a more businesslike touch to his colorful West Coast appearance.

With his new ally Mickey Cohen, Bugsy discusses his erstwhile friend Harry Greenberg’s much-publicized decision to turn on the mob.

Bugsy condenses much of the action into a two-year period between early 1945 and Christmas 1946, though the real Siegel had actually arrived in southern California in the late ’30s. The end of World War II informs much of the movie’s chronology, with the frequently seen prop newspapers usually adding support; for instance, the earlier-described scene of Bugsy arguing first with Virginia and then with Jack Dragna has a newspaper clearly dated Friday, March 9, 1945. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it continuity error, the newspaper seen several scenes later as Mickey and Bugsy discuss Harry Greenberg’s betrayal is dated March 30, 1944, almost an entire year before the scene was set.

Buttoned Up in the Mojave Desert

A year later, Bugsy Siegel’s world has considerably changed. He’s finally divorced from the long-suffering Esta, Harry Greenberg is dead, and he’s moved his center of operations from L.A. to Vegas, where he’s overseeing development of the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. While Bugsy fusses with the placement of the swimming pool and signage of his desert oasis, Mickey Cohen has a few concerns about how Virginia is managing the millions they’re being lent by the Mafia. He shares his suspicions with Bugsy, who’ll hear nothing of it, even after Virginia resumes her hobby of throwing heavy home decor at his face.

The blazing sun of the Mojave Desert in mid-afternoon has Bugsy removing his jacket as he takes a hands-on approach to hotel management. He wears another green shirt, this time in a light mint shade and uniquely detailed with wide gray nailhead-textured piping along the front edge of the collar, the plain front, and the top of each of the two set-in chest pockets.

Bugsy dismisses Mickey’s well-founded suspicions regarding Virginia.

Bugsy wears the shirt with all four tonal indented plastic four-hole buttons fastened up the front as well as the loop collar that secures the top of the shirt at the neck. The sleeves are finished with a pointed tab that also closes through a single mint-hued button.

Midway through Bugsy, our eponymous gangster debuted a second pair of sunglasses that are more consistent with the time period. Indeed, aviator sunglasses had debuted a decade earlier with American Optical’s development of D-1 flight glasses for the U.S. Army Air Corps, soon superseded by the more comfortable AN6531. At least a half-dozen contractors put out their own AN6531 models through World War II, by which time Bausch & Lomb had already introduced the metal-framed Ray-Ban Aviator for the civilian market as well as the Shooter and Outdoorsman variants with their reinforced brow bars.

Beatty’s screen-worn matte silver-framed aviator sunglasses with unique reinforced brow bar may not be exactly the type that was available in the mid-1940s, but they’re at least consistent with a widely offered style from the era… not to mention that the shape of the lenses suggest a somewhat bug-eyed appearance in accordance with Mr. Siegel’s resented nickname.

Almost, almost…

His dark green wool pleated trousers and dark brown leather belt appear to be the same as when we first saw this outfit in Los Angeles, though his tan suede ankle-high shoes appear to be desert boots, possibly thee same ones he wore with his gingham-checked sports coat when he first “discovered” the future site of the Flamingo in the desert.

…got it! Way to go!

Like the browline glasses earlier, desert boots may be flirting with anachronism as Clarks would formally introduced them to the world at the 1949 Chicago World’s Fair, though Jake Gallagher reported for GQ that Nathan Clark had actually encountered a prototype of this crepe-soled boot eight years earlier when deployed in Burma.

Bugsy’s Jewelry

Before The Sopranos established pinky rings as the preferred affectation of the American gangster, gents wore their rings on their little fingers to signify wealth and class. While Bugsy Siegel was undoubtedly a mobster (ass the below screenshot illustrates), his decision to adorn his left pinky with a gold ring was likely driven more by mid-century attitudes regarding accessories than a wish to signify his involvement in any criminal organization.

On his left wrist, he wears a gold tank watch with a black square dial on a black leather strap.

Bugsy’s gold watch and pinky ring shine as he loads a .38 Special, blood flowing from his eyebrow.

The real Ben Siegel dressed his hands simialrly, including an ornately monogrammed gold signet ring on his pinky and an 18-karat gold Bulova wristwatch.

The Gun

Bugsy is a rarity among the gangster genre in that it features considerably little gunplay; in fact, I pitched it as a romance where the leading character just happens to be associated with the mob when my girlfriend and I were looking for something to watch on movie night. (She liked it!)

That said, Ben Siegel finds his dangerous line of work considerably easier with a rod handy, whether it’s mergers and acquisitions or murders and executions. Like many a movie gangster in this era, he relies on a trusty Colt Detective Special in .38 Special.

Bugsy once again pulls out his Colt Detective Special to intimidate Jack Dragna.

Colt introduced the Detective Special in 1927 alongside the full-size Colt Official Police service revolver, intending the snub-nosed Detective Special to serve as a powerful and easily concealed “belly gun” by plainclothes policemen, as its name implies. Of course, it wasn’t just detectives who needed to conceal their firepower and America’s criminal populace quickly took to the six-round revolver with its two-inch barrel.

The Detective Special certainly wasn’t the first of its kind as easily concealed revolvers date back to derringers and the British Bulldog types as used by Charles Guiteau to assassinate President James Garfield in 1881, but the Detective Special blended the best of every element—concealment, capacity, and caliber—into a reliable, mass-produced package that would be a favored gat among gumshoes and gangsters for decades to follow.

How to Get the Look

Warren Beatty as Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel in Bugsy (1991)

Far removed from the businesslike world of the New York mob, Bugsy embraces the warmth and leisure of his western hubs in mid-century L.A. and Vegas with green sport shirts and trousers anchored by a colorfully checked houndstooth jacket, suede shoes, and the occasional day cravat.

• Black-and-cream houndstooth (with scarlet-red overcheck and sage-green and cornflower-blue accent checks) wool single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Green silk sports shirt with loop collar, plain “French placket” front, two chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Burgundy foulard silk day cravat
• Forest green wool double forward-pleated trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Dark brown leather belt with monogram-engraved gold square enclosed buckle
• Brown suede lace-up shoes (either dark derbies or tan desert boots)
• Dark brown socks
• Retro-styled sunglasses (either tortoise-framed monobrowlines or matte silver aviators)
• Gold tank watch with black square dial on black leather strap
• Gold pinky ring with dark stone

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The post Bugsy’s Houndstooth Sports Coat appeared first on BAMF Style.

Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936)

Vitals

Humphrey Bogart as “Duke” Mantee, violent desperado and “the last great apostle of rugged individualism”

Black Mesa, Arizona, January 1936

Film: The Petrified Forest
Release Date: February 6, 1936
Director: Archie Mayo
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (uncredited)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This is Duke Mantee, the world-famous killer, and he’s hungry…

Indeed, Humphrey Bogart was hungry. The 36-year-old actor had spent more than a dozen years honing his craft on the stage and had spent the last five going nowhere as a $750-a-week bit player for the Fox Film Corporation.

It wasn’t until a decade after his debut that Hollywood would start opening the front door for the New York-born actor, starring in Raoul Walsh’s crime flick High Sierra as a tough bank robber clearly modeled after real-life outlaw John Dillinger. It’s only fitting that this character be Bogie’s shot at the big time that he should have earned years earlier as yet another Dillinger surrogate, Duke Mantee.

Despite their looks and public personas, Bogart and Dillinger were polar opposites, beginning as far back as their childhoods with Bogie born on Christmas 1899 as the first of three children to a stylish New York family while Dillinger would be the younger of two children born to a lower-class Indianapolis family on June 22, 1903. Both would serve in the U.S. Navy during their youth, Bogie reportedly a model sailor who enlisted shortly before World War I ended while Dillinger was dishonorably discharged after deserting his post on the USS Utah. Within a year, Dillinger was in prison for assaulting a local grocery during a robbery, and his nearly ten-year stint would harden him into the notorious criminal who would dominate headlines with his violent bank robberies and daring escapes, including the “wooden gun” jailbreak from the Crown Point, Indiana lockup on March 3, 1934, 87 years ago today.

Dillinger was shot and killed by federal agents in front of Chicago’s Biograph Theatre during the summer of 1934, having just watched Clark Gable, William Powell, and Bogie’s one-time co-star Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama. At the time, Bogart was still just a bit-part actor struggling to be seen in the background of pre-Code movies like Three on a Match, Body and Soul, and Bette Davis debut Bad Sister. The occasional leading role came his way, though never enough material for Bogie to truly showcase his talents. Dismayed by Hollywood, he turned back to Broadway, where the late Dillinger inadvertently carved the path for Humphrey Bogart’s eventual superstardom.

Dillinger vs. Duke. The brooding outlaw in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat while in custody in January 1934 may have inspired the appearance of Bogie’s sneering Duke Mantee.

Robert E. Sherwood made no secret of the fact that John Dillinger served as his model for the character of Duke Mantee, the snarling agent of chaos driving the plot of his latest play, set in a remote diner in the Arizona desert. When The Petrified Forest opened on Broadway in 1935, a year after Dillinger’s death, it was small-time screen actor Humphrey Bogart who received prime notices as the surprisingly complex Mantee. Bogie, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth after learning his resemblance to Dillinger helped win him the role, began researching the recently killed gangster’s mannerisms and incorporating them into the part.

As tends to be the case with successful plays, The Petrified Forest was soon headed to the silver screen with Warner Brothers hoping to cast Little Caesar himself, Edward G. Robinson, in the Mantee role. However, Leslie Howard refused to reprise his own role from the play without Bogart as Mantee. As Howard was one of the most bankable stars of the decade, Warners caved, Bogie delivered, and… a star was born.

Bogart remained grateful to Leslie Howard for the rest of his life. When his and Lauren Bacall’s daughter was born in 1952, they named the child Leslie Howard Bogart in the actor’s honor. (Unfortunately, Howard would not live to see this tribute as he was killed when his BOAC flight was shot down by German fighters in June 1943.)

Humphrey Bogart equals his superb interpretation in the theatre of the gangster character.

— The New York American

Despite Bogart’s well-received performance (arguably driven by his own passionate desperation), it was Leslie Howard and Bette Davis who headlined The Petrified Forest‘s cinematic release in February 1936, playing the would-be lovers whose paths intersect at her family’s barbecue joint in that section of northeastern Arizona desert known as the Petrified Forest. The star-crossed couple’s fate are inextricably tied to Duke Mantee as he motors toward them, speeding westward on Route 66 in a hijacked Cadillac after making his escape from “that gangster massa-cree in Oklahoma City yesterday,” as decried by the linemen idling at the cafe. Given the “ripped from the headlines” nature of Sherwood’s narrative, this undoubtedly references the Kansas City Massacre of June 1933 that left several lawmen and one fugitive dead.

Such barbarity sours the public against Mantee, aside from the old-timer “Gramp” (Charley Grapewin) who cheers on the dangerous desperado and excitedly shows his mugshot in the newspaper to his own son, Jason (Porter Hall), as he loads his revolver for that evening’s meeting of the Black Horse Vigilantes. “He’s ain’t no gangster,” defends Gramp. “He’s a real, old-time desper-ay-do… gangsters is foreigners and he’s an American!” Gramps may be changing his patriotic tune once the all-American Mantee arrives with his gun-toting gang and holds the place hostage.

They really didn’t have a headshot of Bogie handy to use to make that prop newspaper?

The Petrified Forest provided Humphrey Bogart with his first breakout role and the one that should have shot him to stardom, had he not been pressed down by Jack Warner’s tyrannical boot into playing smarmy bastards for another half-decade until breaking free with the iconic trio of High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca that catapulted him not only onto the map but far beyond it, eventually to be chosen by the American Film Institute as the greatest male star of classic American cinema

What’d He Wear?

“Like most of the talent, he had to provide his own wardrobe, and not surprisingly he settled on the outfit he had assembled for Broadway—the shirt, vest, and well-cut trousers that had characterized the gangster John Dillinger,” wrote A.M. Sperber and Eric Lax in their definitive biography Bogart.

Duke Mantee’s waistcoat and trousers are shown to be part of a full three-piece suit, made from a dark pinstripe worsted wool cloth that has been colorized to a dark navy blue, though I don’t believe any record exists describing the actual color.

You gotta get that dirt off your shoulder.

The soon-to-be-discarded single-breasted suit jacket has broad notch lapels and a two-button front. The ventless jacket has padded shoulders that build up the chest, shaped with front darts for a more suppressed waist that clings to Bogart’s leaner frame.

His henchmen may need long guns to intimidate, but all Duke Mantee needs is his no-nonsense grimace and a swaggering stance to take control of a situation.

Rather than a traditional poplin or twill dress shirt, Duke wears a rugged flannel work shirt with a long point collar, open at the neck to let the collar points fall on top of the waistocat. Fastened up a wide front placket, the shirt also has two chest pockets—each covered by a single-button square flap—and mitred barrel cuffs with a two-button closure. As with the suit, the shirt’s color is likely lost to history though likely possibilities would be across the blue, gray, or tan spectrum.

Duke tipples the Apache. Note the details of his work shirt, including the squared pocket flaps and the mitred two-button cuffs.

The smirking outlaw in an open-neck shirt and dark waistcoat became a crucial part of John Dillinger’s laidback image when he was photographed resting his elbow on the shoulder of the district attorney who pledged to have Dillinger executed.

Once Duke Mantee disposes of his suit jacket, he spends the majority of his screen (and stage) time prowling the corners of the Petrified Forest BBQ in his shirt sleeves and snug waistcoat, worn with just the bottom three of six buttons closed so that he could carry his revolver inside it, likely with the end of the barrel tucked into his trousers for additional support. The waistcoat is fastened tighter via the adjustable strap across the bottom of the back, and the front is additionally detailed with four jetted pockets.

The Petrified Forest marked the first of six films in which Bogart would appear with Canadian-born actor Joe Sawyer, a familiar (but often uncredited) face throughout Hollywood’s golden era.

The suit’s flat front trousers rise appropriately high enough to Bogart’s natural waist, where he appears to hold them up with a narrow dark leather belt. The unsightly bulge of the buckle prevents many a sartorial purist from endorsing belts with waistcoats, though we should remember that Duke Mantee is a fugitive rather than a fashion plate; not only would a belt keep his trousers fitting should he be unable to find sustenance from a remote dessert diner, but they also provide better grip for any various weapons carried in his waistband.

The trousers have side pockets, jetted back pockets, and cuffed bottoms.

Duke takes command of the patrons and staff at the Petrified Forest BBQ.

The full break of Duke Mantee’s trousers nearly envelops his shoes, a pair of dark leather wingtip brogues. The contrast against his dark suit suggests that the shoes may be a dark brown leather, though this could also be an effect that plenty of desert dust would have on black leather.

Without context, this production photo from the 1955 Producers’ Showcase adaptation of The Petrified Forest may lead one to think Bogie didn’t care much for the way Henry Fonda was talking to Lauren Bacall!

During Memorial Day weekend 1955, The Petrified Forest was revived for a live televised episode of NBC’s monthly Producers’ Showcase. By this time, Bogart was an Academy Award-winning star with an iconic filmography and a celebrated marriage to Lauren Bacall. To paraphrase one of his own characters, Bogie’s life had evolved into the stuff that dreams are made of. Personally and professionally, he was in a much better place than he had been twenty years earlier, though his health was deteriorating after a lifetime of heavy smoking and drinking.

Bogart was hesitant about television, both as a medium and in the context of his own attempt at a live performance. “Suppose I had laryngitis, suppose I just wasn’t feeling up to par. I turn in a bad job and the critics rap me,” he explained in a November 1955 interview with the New York Herald-Tribune. “I just don’t like the idea of a one-shot. As for a regular weekly series, I’d sooner dig ditches.”

Still, the show went on, this time with Humphrey Bogart top-billed—rather than fifth-billed, as he had been in 1936—and starring alongside Bacall and their friend Henry Fonda, filling the late Leslie Howard’s tweeds as the traveling intellectual Alan Squier. His costume reflected much of what he had worn twenty years earlier, the a dark waistcoat and matching suit trousers worn with a lighter-weight chambray work shirt and an added shoulder holster for Duke’s death-dealing gat.

The Guns

Duke Mantee carries a blued .38-caliber Colt revolver tucked inside his waistcoat, evidently with the tip of the weapon’s four-inch barrel inside his trouser waistband. Especially when Duke draws his weapon, we see plenty of evidence that it’s a Colt, particularly the lack of an ejector rod lug and the shape of the cylinder release. IMFDB identifies the revolver as the Colt Official Police, a full-size service revolver introduced in 1927 as an evolution of the earlier Colt Army Special.

Based on the smaller frame and the walnut grip pattern, I suspect Duke’s revolver is actually a Colt Police Positive. Colt introduced the Police Positive in 1907, adding a variant that handled the venerable .38 Special cartridge the following year.

Despite his screen presence, Humphrey Bogart was not a large man, recorded between 5’8″ and 5’9″ tall and never weighing more than 150 pounds. To keep his characters from being overpowered by the size of their sidearms, he often preferred to wield smaller-sized handguns on screen. The smaller frame of the Police Positive would suit this purpose while also more easily carried inside Duke’s vest. (This carry method is a curious deviation from the Broadway play, in which Bogie wore a shoulder holster.)

“I guess we’re all a lot of saps, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was da champion! Did you tink I was kiddin’ when I said I’d be glad to knock you off?”

Joseph Breen’s martinets at the Motion Picture Association didn’t look too kindly on Paul Muni and pals mowing down their enemies with tommy guns in movies like Scarface so, as the infamous Production Code was more rigidly enforced from 1934 onward, criminals were “discouraged” from carrying modern weaponry on screen that would allow them to out-gun pursuing law enforcement. Thus, the Thompson submachine guns, semi-automatic shotguns, and Browning Automatic Rifles that the real-life Dillinger gang favored were kept in storage while Duke Mantee and his fictional contemporaries armed themselves for battle with cowboy-approved Winchester repeating rifles and double-barreled shotguns.

Upon learning the diner is surrounded by police, Duke grabs one of the former, a full-length Winchester Model 1892 lever-action rifle.

John Browning had developed the Model 1892 as a lighter version of the powerful Model 1886 rifle, chambered for handgun rounds and thus supplementing the venerable Winchester Model 1873, which had served the same purpose prior. The Model 1892 was available in a range of calibers also found in six-shooters like the Colt Single Action Army, thus allowing shooters to only need to carry one type of ammunition that would service both revolver and rifle. The Model 1892 was introduced for the .32-20, .38-40, and .44-40 Winchester centerfire rounds, with the powerful .44-40 WCF emerging as the best-selling option. Winchester would manufacture more than a million rifles during the production timeline that ended in 1945 after more than half a century, also introducing small-game and varmint rounds like the .25-20 WCF and .218 Bee.

“You know, this is an impressive spectacle, Gabrielle. The United States of America versus Duke Mantee!” Alan observes while Duke battles with the police outside.

What to Imbibe

An advertisement for Apache Beer as clipped from a Casa Grande Dispatch newspaper dated June 14, 1935, just a few months before production of The Petrified Forest. (Source: Newspapers.com)

“Join us in a glass of beer?” Duke offers, raising a glass filled with Apache Beer, the same brand advertised on signs throughout the Petrified Forest BBQ.

While Warner Brothers often chose the safe route of featuring false product labels—consider the “Kentucky Hill” bourbon that Bogie himself would swill in Casablanca and Key Largo—Apache Beer was not only a real beer but indeed a regional favorite that adds a verisimilitude to the drama set in an Arizona desert diner.

Apache Beer was introduced by the Phoenix-based Arizona Brewing Company on June 3, 1934, expanding within a year to distribute not only in Arizona but parts of New Mexico and Texas and eventually southern California. Advertisements of the era touted Apache as “the most popular beer in Arizona” but were able to back their claim by citing having the top beer sales in the state only a year after its introduction.

The brewery gained a reputation for innovation, offering not only draught beer but bottles and even a short-lived run in cans. The management team was regularly touring American beer hubs like Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Louis for intel on how to keep Apache Beer competitive, new brands such as Elder Brau were added to the mix, and the rising demandt meant constant expansions. As the decade came to a close, Arizona Brewing Company was looking at a bright future.

World War II meant massive changes for Arizona Brewing Company as its brewmaster (and eventual president) joined the Navy, the still-new Elder Brau was discontinued in the wake of anti-German sentiments, and bankruptcy dealt a crippling blow to the already struggling brewery. New leadership worked to get the brewery back on its feet, despite additional challenges of government quotas on grain and reduced skills in a workforce impacted by the war. By January 1943, almost all Arizona Brewing Company brands—including Apache Beer—were discontinued in favor of aligning behind the new A-1 Beer product.

Arizona Brewing Company would survive the war, rising and falling over the next two decades but perhaps never again reaching the pre-war popularity of the Apache brand. In October 1964, the brewery was sold to the Carling Brewing Company of Cleveland. (You can read more about Apache and the Arizona Brewing Company in this comprehensive article by Ed Sipos for American Breweriana Journal, excerpted by BeerHistory.com.)

As Apache Beer hasn’t existed in nearly eighty years, you can still channel Arizona’s finest by trying one of these summer brews deemed the top ten from the Sunset State by Georgann Yara for the Arizona Republic in 2019.

Humphrey Bogart as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936)

How to Get the Look

Just as John Dillinger took over a score of midwestern banks, Humphrey Bogart took over the screen when Duke Mantee strode into the Petrified Forest BBQ, soon peeling off his suit jacket as he commands the room in shirt-sleeves and a snug-fitting waistcoat keeping his deadly .38 in place.

• Dark pinstripe worsted wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels and welted breast pocket, hip pockets, and ventless back
  • Single-breasted 6-button waistcoat with four jetted pockets, notched bottom, and adjustable back strap
  • Flat front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Flannel work shirt with long point collar, wide front placket, two chest pockets (with single-button flaps), and two-button cuffs
• Dark leather belt
• Dark brown leather wingtip brogues
• Dark socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

I spent most of my time since I grew up in jail… it looks like I’ll spend the rest of my life dead.

The post Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest appeared first on BAMF Style.

Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998)

Vitals

Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, laidback stoner and bowler

Los Angeles, Fall 1991

Film: The Big Lebowski
Release Date: March 6, 1998
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Mary Zophres

Background

To commemorate the day that The Big Lebowski was released in 1998, March 6 is considered the high holy day of Dudeism, an “ancient” religious philosophy that touts itself as “the slowest-growing religion in the world” and inspired by the easygoing, non-judgmental attitude of The Dude himself.

We meet The Dude during a late-night Ralph’s run to pick up some much-needed half-and-half for his beloved White Russians, dressed in a soft robe, plaid shorts, sandals and sunglasses, a laidback loungewear ensemble emblematic of the unofficial wardrobe of Dudeists.

At the check-out counter, he dates a 69-cent check for September 11, 1991, though his stolen glance at then-President George H.W. Bush making his famous declaration that “this aggression will not stand” which was part of a speech delivered more than a year earlier on August 5, 1990.

Either way, we can assume he’s post-dating the check to some degree as, just a few days later, The Dude’s mild-mannered landlord reminds him that it’s almost the tenth of the month to which The Dude calmly responds “far out” before realizing this is a gentle reminder that his rent is in arrears.

What’d He Wear?

We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of when many countries around the world began implementing lockdowns and stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and more time at home with nowhere to go had yours truly sartorially shifting from suits, ties, and sport jackets to sweatpants, track suits, and—yes—the most comfortable bathrobes I own. (One year and zero haircuts later, it’s hard not to look in the mirror and see The Dude staring back from my reflection.)

The Big Lebowski recognizes the power of costumes as communication when we first meet The Dude, trudging up the dairy aisle at Ralph’s in a bathrobe and sunglasses. The image may evoke Jerry Seinfeld’s admonishment that “You know the message you’re sending out to the world with these sweatpants? You’re telling the world, ‘I give up. I can’t compete in normal society. I’m miserable, so I might as well be comfortable.”

However, The Dude is hardly miserable, nor has he given up. I propose that, instead, we see a man choosing to live life completely on his own terms. He may not share our typical motivations, but when he cares about something—obtaining a decent rug, saving a woman who may be missing her toe, and shopping for White Russian ingredients—you can’t argue that The Dude doesn’t give it his all.

The introduction of an icon… I won’t say a hero, because what’s a hero?

The Dude’s iconic rosy beige bathrobe is made from a soft ribbed cotton. Oversized as the set-in sleeves falling off his shoulders suggests, the robe extends down to his knees and can be tied around the waist with a self-belt sash. A large patch pocket is positioned on each hip just below the belt.

A few officially licensed replica robes have been made available over the years (via Amazon and Walmart). The actual screen-worn robe has been auctioned several times in the decades since The Big Lebowski‘s release, occasionally with the T-shirt and shorts as well (see Julien’s Live, Invaluable, and iCollector) before finding its current home—as of October 2019—at the Los Angeles County Museum on Fire.

Quality testing.

Jeff Bridges’ screen-worn costume from The Big Lebowski as auctioned by Julien’s Live in 2011.

That white cotton V-neck undershirt has seen better days, but that doesn’t stop The Dude from cycling through it (or others like it) with other outfits like his faded green hoodie or that famous Cowichan cardigan.

The Dude’s knee-length flat front shorts are patterned in a navy and green plaid, a variation of the classic Black Watch tartan. These same shorts later reappear toward the end when he, Walter (John Goodman), and Donny (Steve Buscemi) encounter the trio of nihilists in the bowling alley parking lot.

While they don’t get any screen time here, it’s probably safe to assume (and hope) that The Dude is wearing his usual white cotton Munsingwear briefs under his plaid shorts.

The priciest part of The Dude’s attire would likely be his sunglasses, which have been identified across the internet as the Vuarnet VL1307 model with matte tortoise plastic square frames and brown polarized lenses. Given their value, it’s no surprise that The Dude fishes them out of his toilet after he’s been ignominiously dunked by Lebowski’s henchmen.

Recognizing the significance of The Dude sporting their frames, Vuarnet reintroduced them as the Legend 03, proudly touted as “The Dude’s sunglasses”. If you’re not looking to drop $260 on a pair of new Vuarnets, you can occasionally find similar pairs on Amazon or eBay. If the brand matters less than the retro-inspired frame, alternatives include Electric California’s “Dude” model (for $160) or the JIM HALO polarized aviator (for under $20!)

“Obviously you’re not a golfer.”

This opening scene marks the sole appearance of The Dude wearing dark brown leather sandals, as his preferred open-toed footwear through the rest of The Big Lebowski would be the clear PVC jellies pulled from Jeff Bridges’ own closet. These slide sandals have double straps over the instep, connected in the center like these modern sandals from Dockers and Jerusalem Sandals.

Particularly apropos the latter recommendation above, these resemble the colloquial “Jesus sandals”, perhaps chosen here to present The Dude as a Christ-like figure, the kind of messiah who would be “takin’ it easy for all us sinners.”

A few scenes and a new rug later, The Dude’s back in his cotton robe, pulled tight so we don’t know what—if anything—he’s wearing under it, save for his white Otomix martial arts training shoes that he appropriately wears for practicing his tai chi. Detailed with black side trim (three short stripes bristling out perpendicularly from the end of a longer stripe, almost resembling a toothbrush), these trainers have just a single set of eyelets to tie the white laces at the top of each tongue.

Otomix was established in 1988, so The Dude’s shoes would have still been relatively new “in the early nineties, just about the time of our conflict with Sad’m and the Eye-rackies,” and have evolved to the current Original Lite kicking shoes still available in spring 2021, via Amazon and Otomix.

The robe appears next worn not by The Dude but by Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), who dramatically drops it at her feet to reveal herself to—and ultimately, uh, “seduce”—The Dude.

Go Big or Go Home

The Dude seems to have stopped actively “updating” hiss life around the early-to-mid 1970s. Consider that almost all of the music he listens to was recorded during the half-dozen year span between 1966 and ’72, his much-abused Ford Gran Torino sedan was manufactured in 1973, and his beloved White Russian was a revolutionary cocktail in the mid-’60s before cocktail culture faded away the following decade. Even Walter Sobchak, a gun-toting paranoiac in the John Milius mold, is the one to correct The Dude’s outdated racial terminology.

Loosely inspired by the Coens’ friend and colleague Jeff Dowd, The Dude shares Dowd’s history of participation in the Seattle Liberation Front—or Seattle Seven, with “six other guys”—which had disbanded by late 1971. Given the indictments and dissolution of the group, this could have been a precipitous factor in The Dude withdrawing from active participation in society.

We can also consider The Dude’s likely age. Jeff Bridges was born in November 1949 and thus would have been 47 when The Big Lebowski was produced over the early months of 1997. Assigning his same age to his character and shifting the timeline back six or seven years, The Dude would have turned 30 around 1974, an age when adults are expected to truly own their lives, or in the parlance of our times, be Adulting.

However, this was never the life for The Dude to follow. His philosophy more rooted in the free-loving, laidback hippie culture of the late ’60s, The Dude was likely disillusioned by the corruption and paranoia of the Watergate era, and he’d hardly find any value in the rat race of competitive capitalism celebrated in Reagan’s America throughout the ’80s. Assuming he had a steady—if not exactly vast—income as the unspoken heir to the Rubik’s cube, The Dude may have made a conscious, subconscious, or unconscious decision to simply “abide” from the mid-’70s onward, avoiding provocation by spending his days at leisure with the help of bowling, Creedence tapes, and the occasional intoxicating substance.

Of course, all of this is thrown into disarray when someone pees on his rug.

Yes, yes, it tied the room together.

The Dude’s Venice, California pad is an exercise in messy minimalism, the exact opposite of The Big Lebowski in his opulent manor with the only overlap being both Lebowskis’ laudable taste in Persian rugs. The Dude doesn’t mind the modesty of his dwellings, keeping a humble home of few but proud possessions, including a fading rug that, as his friends are quick to note, really ties the room together.

For The Rug Seller, Adina Campbell explored the rugs of The Big Lebowski in depth. Though the Dude’s peed-upon rug is only fleetingly seen at the start of the movie, she suggests this ivory-colored rug may be a traditional Tabriz, named for the storied rug-weaving center in the capital city of Iran’s East Azarbaijan Province.

Learning that his rug was collateral damage in a case of mistaken identification, The Dude seeks satisfaction from millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), taking it upon himself to annex a fresh rug from The Big Lebowski’s Pasadena mansion. Campbell identifies this more clearly seen second rug as a lower-grade variation of a classic Kasbah rug, “characterized by their red fields, blue borders, stylized flowers (known as palmettes) and medallions.”

Continuing the home decorating tips from The Dude, we see that—either by design, or informed by budget limitations—he keeps his furniture minimal and function-oriented, with a formica table here, an unused desk there, and a bamboo-framed couch in the corner, all with scattered takeout containers, bowling books, and Creedence tapes illustrated a laidback, leisurely existence.

While Captain Beefheart’s bluesy “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles” percolates from a tucked-away turntable, The Dude stations himself at the living room’s focal point, a bamboo-built bar overseen by an oversized poster of Nixon rolling in the basement bowling alley he had installed in the White House, overseeing The Dude’s domain like a corrupt T.J. Eckleburg. (Curiously, F. Scott Fitzgerald detailed the self-promoting oculist’s eyes as “blue and gigantic” with retinas a yard high, a more literal measurement of a subject’s blue eyes than the “blue million miles” of Don Van Vliet’s unnamed muse.)

Nixon keeps watch as The Dude pulls from his collection of two Kahlúa bottles, two vodka bottles, and a small army of mini-Smirnoffs should things get desperate.

The tiki-themed bar cabinet may seem compact for a notorious imbiber like The Dude, but he keeps it well-stocked with his favorites and doesn’t bother with frivolities. No sticky old bottles of blue curaçao or prized eighteen-year single malts, just the Smirnoff and Kahlúa he needs for his signature drink. Which leads us to…

What to Imbibe

Even those who haven’t seen The Big Lebowski are aware of The Dude’s penchant for White Russians, the chilly concoctions born of Cold War-era cocktail culture. The Dude mixes his prized “Caucasians” with Smirnoff “Red Label” 80-proof vodka, Kahlúa coffee liqueur, and—when he can afford the 69-cent check—half-and-half creamer from Ralph’s.

“Far out.”

The origins of the drink date back to 1949, that murky era after World War II but before Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt, when the simple combination of vodka darkened by coffee liqueur was declared a Black Russian. An enterprising drinker (or, as The Sopranos may suggest, an alcoholic who wouldn’t allow digestive distress to interrupt their drinking) added cream somewhere along the way and the White Russian appeared in the November 21, 1965 issue of the Oakland Tribune that stipulated single ounces of vodka, cream, and Coffee Southern liqueur.

More than 30 years and nine on-screen White Russians later, the Coens brought the drink back into public consciousness as The Dude’s cocktail of choice, enjoyed to the degree that he doesn’t even seem to bother stocking his home bar with ingredients that wouldn’t make his beloved Caucasians.

Jeff Bridges as “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski (1998)

How to Get the Look

This year, the “high holy day” of Dudeism falls on a Saturday, providing all the excuse you need to spend the day sporting laidback loungewear.

• Rosy beige ribbed cotton knee-length bathrobe with hip pockets and sash
• White cotton V-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Navy-and-green tartan plaid flat front shorts
• Dark brown leather cross-strap slide sandals
• Vuarnet VL1307 sunglasses with matte tortoise plastic square frames, “saddle nose” bridge with molded plastic pads, and brown polarized 58mm lenses

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie, which is one of my all-time favorites. Sit back in your comfiest robe, smoke ’em if you got ’em, and enjoy a White Russian.

The Quote

At least I’m housebroken!

The post The Big Lebowski: The Dude’s Robe appeared first on BAMF Style.