Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)
Vitals
Al Pacino as Frank Serpico, whistle-blowing NYPD plainclothes officer
New York, Winter 1971
Film: Serpico
Release Date: December 5, 1973
Director: Sidney Lumet
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 50 years ago today on December 5, 1973, Serpico chronicles the decade-long law enforcement career of Frank Serpico, a real-life New York Police Department plainclothes officer who exposed widespread corruption in the department, portrayed by Al Pacino in his second Academy Award-nominated performance. (This continues a trend of celebrating Pacino’s cinematic milestones, as readers may recall that this week is also the 40th anniversary of Scarface.)
An idiosyncratic individualist more beatnik than beat cop, Serpico hardly fit the traditional police mold with his idealistic values and hippie lifestyle, often putting him at odds with his colleagues as he refuses to take their bribes. After years of trying, Serpico finally manages to get public attention onto these levels of corruption with a New York Times article published in April 1970 that he celebrates with his fellow honest cops, Bob Blair (Tony Roberts) and Inspector Lombardo (Edward Grover), respective stand-ins for the real-life David Durk and Paul Delise.
Unfortunately, the media attention further ostracizes Serpico within the department to such a degree that, less than a year later on February 3, 1971, he nearly dies after being shot in the face with a .22 during a Brooklyn narcotics bust.
“Guess who got shot? Serpico,” a duty lieutenant informs a colleague at the film’s start. “Think a cop did it?” he gets asked. “I know six cops who’d like to.”
Just as his crooked colleague Tom Keough (Jack Kehoe) had warned him, it wasn’t any of his brother officers who physically pulled the trigger; instead, they failed to intervene to protect him or call in the 10-13 (“officer down”), with some—though never Serpico himself—implying that they may have even set him up.
Serpico is bookended by the “present-day” sequence set on that cold Wednesday morning in early February 1971 as the eponymous officer bleeds out from the .22-caliber wound in his cheek. In addition to Pacino’s acclaimed starring role, Serpico includes a number of the actor’s regular cinematic collaborators, including director Sidney Lumet, costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone, and a supporting cast that includes F. Murray Abraham, Ted Beniades, and Sully Boyar.
What’d He Wear?
In the decade since the relatively clean-cut Frank Serpico joined the NYPD, we watch his appearance evolve with longer hair and facial hair (first a mustache, then a goatee, and ultimately a full beard), as well as plenty of jewelry and hippie-style clothing, even on the job.
On February 3, 1971, Serpico dresses for the job in “the padded army jacket, a leather vest, a heavy black woolen sweater, dungarees, and calf-high boots,” according to Peter Maas’ source book Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System. Aside from the leather vest, costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone represented the same outfit on screen, right down to Serpico’s olive-green Army surplus M-65 field jacket.
“Frank! Why don’t you go up there and check it out?” urges the crooked cop played by F. Murray Abraham. “Why don’t you?” Serpico responds. “I got the wrong clothes.” “I’ll take ya shoppin’,” Serpico retorts before getting out of the car and approaching the building.
Serpico and his fellow officers approach the target’s door.
The real Serpico was indeed a U.S. Army veteran (whose mid-1950s service pre-dated the M-65), but Serpico likely wears this mil-spec field jacket not in tribute to his own service but rather in the same manner that Army clothing was increasingly embraced by Vietnam-protesting counterculture throughout the late 1960s. “The counterculture kid in Army gear could razz the warmongering machine that had endowed the jacket with symbolic power, and he could honor boys destined to die in their boots, and he could also effectively affect a bohemian pose,” wrote Troy Patternson of The New York Times, as cited by Sam Trotman for the Paynter Jacket Co. blog.
The M-65, officially designated as the “Coat, Cold Weather, Man’s Field” (MIL-C-43455J), was approved for U.S. military use in 1965 to replace the M-1951, which was an evolution of the World War II-era M-1943 and its shorter predecessor, the M-1941. Constructed from a 9-ounce olive green (OG-107) cotton sateen cloth, the M-65 maintains the hip-length design of its predecessors and features shoulder straps (epaulets) along with four outer pockets: two chest pockets and two larger hip pockets that each close with a single covered snap on pointed flaps.
The most significant departure from the M-65’s field jacket predecessors is the rounded collar with a built-in protective hood enclosed by a neck zipper. Additionally, an inner drawcord cinches the waist for a snug fit, and the jacket fastens with a large brass zipper covered by a snap-closed front storm flap. Pleats behind each armhole enhance the wearer’s range of movement, especially when layered over heavy uniform elements… or a substantial wool sweater with a holstered Browning pistol.
Still in usage at the time Serpico was set and produced, the classic M-65 concluded its service in 1980 as the U.S. military shifted to standardized camouflage Battle Dress Uniforms (BDU). While the M-65 design persisted in various branch-specific camouflage schemes until the 2000s, it was eventually replaced by the Army Combat Uniform (ACU) and Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniforms.
Serpico’s field jacket appears to have once been issued and worn in service, evident by the remnants of where insignia had been stripped from the coat’s outer shell.
For a warm intermediate layer against the winter chill, Serpico wears a black cardigan sweater with a straight front-zip that could close up the sweater’s funnel neck, allowing for some versatility. Peter Maas’ book specifically describes the real Serpico’s jumper as a thick black woolen turtleneck sweater, which the cardigan technically becomes when he wears it zipped all the way to the neck.
Serpico’s sweater was a fortunate choice, as the zip-up front could be easily removed by surgeons after he’s rushed to the operating room.
Only once the sweater has been unzipped do we see more evidence of the distinctive and oft-flamboyant style that Serpico favors. His white voile undershirt has white lace embroidery around the round neckline and the deep V-shaped three-button placket, suggesting that it’s the same shirt he had previously worn with white trousers when meeting Keough and his fellow cops in the park.
Earlier, Serpico had worn this white voile popover shirt with embroidered detail when meeting fellow cops in the park to discuss his refusal to take payoffs.
In addition to his usual silver hoop earring in the lobe of his right ear, Serpico regularly rotates through an assortment of necklaces. He wears two on the day he gets shot, both specifically mentioned by the real Serpico in his 2017 interview with Doug Poppa for the Baltimore Star-Examiner:
- A silver box-chain necklace with a pendant depicting the Muslim symbol of a star inside a crescent moon
- A gold cable-link necklace from which dangles “a gold Winnie-the Pooh Bear with movable arms and legs” given to him by a Swedish girlfriend, mentioned frequently in Peter Maas’ book as well
“Miss Bennett tried to get the gold Winnie-the-Pooh over his head and when she couldn’t, she snipped the chain,” wrote Peter Maas of the wounded Serpico’s hospital intake. According to Frank himself, his star-shaped earring was inexplicably changed to a plain hoop for Maas’ book.
Serpico’s dark blue denim jeans are of the Navy dungaree-style, with patch-style front and back pockets rather than the five-pocket arrangement popularized by the likes of Lee, Levi’s, and Wrangler.
Through the belt loops of Serpico’s jeans, he wears a dark brown leather belt that he attaches his holstered pistol onto, via a simple tan suede leather IWB holster.
Consistent with the rest of his workwear-inspired aesthetic, Serpico wears heavy-duty work boots with brown leather uppers worn to a hardy patina. These moc-toe boots are derby-laced through seven pairs of brass-finished eyelets and have lugged dark brown leather soles. His socks are plain black.
Serpico keeps a number of rings in his rotation, including a few chunky rings and a gilted ring depicting a fish that he thankfully leaves at home for this particular job as its wiggling tail would’ve further impeded drawing his Hi-Power at that crucial moment. Here, he wears only his usual silver-toned overlap ring on his right index finger, detailed with a square-shaped gem stone shining from each end.
To fight the chill and further fit in in this grungy neighborhood, Serpico wears a dark-brown ribbed-knit beanie cap, a favorite style of his that he had worn in multiple colorways and patterns.
The Gun
After considering himself a “marked man” following his grand jury testimony against officers that take bribes, Serpico visits the famous (and now closed) John Jovino Gun Shop on Grand Street in Little Italy, where he purchases a blued Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol.
“That takes a 14-shot clip… you expectin’ an army?” asks the sales clerk, perhaps conflating the 13-round magazine with the pistol’s overall capacity of 14 rounds when an additional round is chambered.
The screen-used Browning Hi-Power from Serpico, serial #72C67613, as pictured in its 2018 auction listing. (Source: Heritage Auctions)
The Hi-Power revolutionized the handgun market upon its launch in 1935, after a full dozen years in development started by the legendary firearms designer John Browning, who died before the design was realized by his protégé Dieudonne Saive.
Mimicking aspects of Browning’s iconic 1911 design in its single-action trigger and short recoil operation, the Hi-Power diverged from its predecessor due to legal constraints around the 1911 design exclusively owned by Colt. Despite this hurdle, the Hi-Power has rightfully earned its status as a highly regarded pistol since its introduction by the Belgian firm Fabrique Nationale (FN) Herstal in 1935. The Hi-Power’s groundbreaking 13-round capacity of 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition foreshadowed what became known as the “Wonder Nine,” a term more conventionally associated with double-action/single-action (DA/SA) pistols introduced decades later.
Unlike the standard model, Serpico’s blued Hi-Power has target sights—a raised front ramp sight and adjustable rear sight. The 2018 Heritage Auctions listing describes the serial number as 72C67613, which implies a production date of 1972, making it brand-new for the film’s production and technically manufactured a year after Serpico had been shot.
Serpico was over him at once. He whipped out his Browning automatic, cocked it, and pressed it against the base of the plainclothesman’s skull. “Move, you motherfucker,” Serpico said, “and I’ll blow your brains out.”
The man’s body went limp, his face was jammed too tightly against the floor and he could not speak. Serpico kept the gun on him, looking around the room. Everyone was frozen in place, and no one was smirking anymore.
Perhaps 30 seconds passed before one of the other cops in the room coughed nervously and said, “Jesus Christ, is that a forty-five?”
“No, nine-millimeter,” said Serpico.
“Oh, so that’s the new Browning, huh? How many rounds does it hold?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen? What do you need fourteen rounds for?
“How many guys you got in this office?”
“Hey look, we were just joking.”
“Yea, so was I,” Serpico said.
— Peter Maas, Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System
“The night I got shot, I had my Browning in my belt. I had my .38 Special Smith & Wesson snub-nose in my pocket, in my fatigue jacket. I always had my hand in my pocket, if I had to use it,” Serpico recalled in a 2017 interview with Doug Poppa for the Baltimore Post-Examiner.
Books and articles describe Serpico keeping the Browning Hi-Power in his belt, with the film depicting it carried in a tan suede IWB (inside-the-waistband) holster, first at the 5:00 position toward his back before he moves it toward the front, carried AIWB-style for the bust.
Serpico draws his target-sighted Browning Hi-Power during the attempted bust.
“I went into a gun store behind headquarters. Jovino’s, I think it was called, and I bought a fourteen-round Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol,” Serpico shared with Poppa. “I was the first cop in the New York City Police Department to carry a Browning 9mm. You couldn’t carry 9mms back then. They weren’t what you would call an authorized firearm. All we had was the .38 Special.”
The John Jovino Gun Shop opened in 1911 and became a New York City landmark, recognizable for its large wooden exterior sign in the shape of a service revolver. After selling $1 million worth of firearms and accessories annually at its peak, the venerated shop was forced to close during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic after 109 years in business. You can read more about the last days of the John Jovino Gun Shop and its final owner, Charlie Hu, at Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York.
How to Get the Look
Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)
On that consequential early February day in 1971, Frank Serpico dressed for the job, the weather, and his own offbeat personality in an Army field jacket, high-necked black wool sweater, blue jeans, and boots—a functional blend of military garb and classic workwear that Serpico further distinguished with his own unique jewelry.
- Olive-green (OD-107) cotton sateen M-1965 U.S. Army-issue field jacket with rounded collar (with integrated zip-in hood), zip/snap front closure, four flapped pockets (with covered snaps), epaulets/shoulder straps, back shoulder pleats, and drawstring-cinched waist
- Black zip-up cardigan sweater
- White embroidered voile long-sleeved popover shirt with deep three-button placket
- Dark-blue denim dungaree-style jeans with belt loops, patch front pockets, and patch back pockets
- Dark-brown leather belt
- Tan suede IWB holster (for Browning Hi-Power pistol)
- Dark-brown leather moc-toe 7-eyelet derby-laced work boots
- Black socks
- Dark-brown ribbed-knit beanie cap
- Gold cable-link necklace with animal-shaped pendant
- Silver box-chain necklace with star-inside-crescent moon pendant
- Silver overlapping ring with gem-set ends, right index finger
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
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