Ray Milland in Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Vitals
Ray Milland as Harry Baldwin, California family man-turned-survivalist
Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spring 1962
Film: Panic in Year Zero!
(also released as End of the World)
Release Date: July 5, 1962
Director: Ray Milland
Wardrobe Credit: Marjorie Corso
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
In addition to his prolific acting career that won him the Academy Award for his performance in The Lost Weekend (1945), Welsh star Ray Milland also directed a handful of films and television episodes. His penultimate directorial effort was Panic in Year Zero!, a survival thriller written by John Morton and Jay Simms that underscored contemporary apocalyptic anxieties during the atomic age.
Every footpath will be crawling with men saying “no matter what, I’m going to live,” and that’s what I’m saying too. My family must survive!
Milland also starred in his film as Harry Baldwin, the resourceful patriarch of a well-to-do family from southern California leading a fishing trip to the Sierra Nevada mountains with his wife Ann (Jean Hagen) and their teenage children Rick (Frankie Avalon) and Karen (Mary Mitchel).
Shortly after the Baldwins hit the road one early morning in March, their journey is interrupted by a thermonuclear explosion that destroys Los Angeles—part of a massive targeted attack that also decimated major cities across the world from New York City and Chicago to London, Paris, and Rome. As they gradually understand the scope of the situation, the family’s vacation transforms into a struggle to survive amidst the quickly decaying morality of a society driven to desperation.
Look, sweetheart—two and two doesn’t make four anymore. At the moment, it adds up to exactly nothing. For the next few weeks, survival is gonna have to be on an individual basis.
Featuring a jazzy original score by Les Baxter, Panic in Year Zero! was released by American International Pictures in July 1962—a mere three months before the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly realized the film’s situation.
What’d He Wear?
The nature of the Baldwin family’s intended weekend in the mountains meant Harry was already dressed for action—by 1962 family man standards, at least—rather than the well-tailored suits more typical of Ray Milland’s debonair screen image by this time.
Although the Camelot era of JFK’s presidency is often cited with effectively ceasing the expectation that American men would wear business hats, the moralistic Harry retains his sense of decorum and tops his dressed-down fishing attire with a light-colored felt fedora, self-edged and styled with a low pinched crown and a wide band of dark grosgrain.
Harry wears a sporty corduroy jacket in a style reminiscent of the loafer jackets that were common leisurewear through the 1940s (as featured in my latest post from the ’47 “color noir” Desert Fury), though the tufted corduroy cotton cloth suggests a context more appropriate for rugged outdoors pursuits. Though Gilbert Warrenton’s black-and-white photography prevents identifying the color (and few, if any, color photography from the production can be easily sourced), I would be willing to bet that Harry’s jacket is made from a dark earthy shade somewhere between olive-green and brown.
The narrow ulster-style collar tapers to mid-chest and the top of four dark woven leather shank buttons, of which Harry typically fastens only the center two. A horizontal yoke cuts straight across higher on Harry’s chest, above a single inverted pleat positioned over each chest panel. These pleats are vertically aligned with the straight on-seam set-in openings for the hand pockets at hip level.
The ventless back of the jacket echoes the front, with a horizontal yoke straight across the top and two inverted pleats, which are larger than the front pleats and positioned slightly closer to the center of the jacket’s back. All of these pleats would expand Harry’s range of movement in the jacket, helpful whether casting his fishing line or setting a highway on fire to allow his family caravan to pass through unimpeded.
The jacket’s sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with two vestigial cuff-buttons.
Buck Mason Craftsman Corduroy Sportsman Jacket in "golden walnut" ($198, Buck Mason)
Sortie Corduroy French Work Jacket in brown (Musinsa, $152)
Todd Snyder Italian Corduroy Chore Coat in chocolate ($124, Todd Snyder)
Universal Works Cotton-Corduroy Chore Jacket in green ($295, MR PORTER)
Harry wears a light-colored cotton work shirt, probably in a shade of khaki similar to World War II-era service uniform shirts. Though likely not military surplus (and nothing suggests that Harry was a veteran, especially given his initial unfamiliarity with an M1911A1 service pistol), the shirt follows a similar design with its pair of patch-style chest pockets each covered by a gently pointed single-button flap, single-button cuffs, and front placket—all with four-hole buttons made from a slightly darker shade of plastic than the shirting.
Harry’s cotton trousers are likely also a light shade of tan, as servicemen’s khakis had grown increasingly popular in the decades following World War II to the point where many commercial retailers were now selling their own variations of this G.I.-issue style. Harry’s flat-front slacks have side pockets and jetted back pockets, with a button-through closure on the left-back pocket. The trousers have a comfortably full fit straight through the legs, down to the turn-ups (cuffs).
The waist is rigged with five standard belt loops and two extended-width belt loops—one on each side of the waistband. Harry’s dark edge-stitched leather belt closes through a squared single-prong buckle.
Almost certainly made from a shade of dark-brown leather, Harry’s plain-toe work boots are derby-laced through seven sets of metal eyelets that extend to the top of the ankle-high uppers.
Ray Milland likely wore one of his personal wristwatches, a cushion-cased watch with a light-colored dial marked with identical non-numeric hour indices secured to a dark edge-stitched leather strap.
The Car
Throughout Panic in Year Zero!, Harry transports the Baldwin family in their brand-new light-colored 1962 Mercury Monterey four-door hardtop sedan.
Little can be discerned about the car other than its three-speed “Merc-O-Matic” automatic transmission mounted on the steering column, but we can assume that Harry—or, by extension, the film’s production team—would have opted for a model with enough power and torque to tow the family’s also-new Kenskill Model 17 1/2 trailer.
Mercury offered the 1962 Monterey with five engine options: a 232 “Mileage Maker” inline-six and 292-, 352-, 390-, and 406-cubic inch V8. As the 406 V8 was only mated to a four-speed manual transmission, Harry’s Monterey was likely another big block V8, possibly the 390 Marauder that generated 300 horsepower and 579 N·m (427 lb·ft) of torque.
The Gun
One of the Baldwin family’s last planned stops brings them to a small town where he spends $190.03 ($1,965.31 in 2024 currency) on groceries—and that’s before the grocer becomes aware of the global situation that leads many others to price-gouge. On Harry’s request, the grocery calls the local hardware store owner Ed Johnson (Richard Garland) to open his store, negotiating a 5% fee for himself on what the big spender like Harry intends to purchase. Indeed, Harry’s bill includes gas cans, rope, a shovel, and axe, two long guns, and a handgun—all for only $427.66, which Ed generously evens out to $420 ($4,343.69 in 2024 currency).
The handgun in question is a standard M1911A1 service pistol, of which Ed inexplicably boasts “this .45’s magnesium—light as a feather,” as it wouldn’t be until 2016 when Ultimate Arms would develop the first magnesium-framed 1911, the Magna T5. It’s possible that the screenwriters intended for Ed to be referring to a Colt Commander, built on an aluminum frame that made it considerably lighter than its steel-framed counterparts… but the handgun wielded by Ray Milland is clearly a full-sized mil-spec M1911A1 Government model, at the time exclusively manufactured with a steel frame that brought its weight (when unloaded) to around 39 ounces, hardly “light as a feather”. (This wouldn’t be the only firearms-related error in a 1962 film, as Sean Connery’s James Bond would be issued his first “Walther PPK” in Dr. No though the filmmakers only had access to a slightly larger-framed Walther PP and, in one instance, a radically different FN Browning Model 1910.)
Consistent with its name, the John Browning-designed semi-automatic pistol was first approved for the U.S. military in 1911 and entered service the following year. The single-action pistol operates with a short-recoil action and, in its most classic variation, fed from seven-round magazines of .45 ACP ammunition. The design was improved in the mid-1920s with the M1911A1, visually differentiated by its shorter hammer, longer trigger spur, and arched mainspring housing.
When responsible store owner Ed resists giving Harry his handgun the same day (without a background check), Harry loads and cocks the .45, holding it on Ed until he lets him go… though he still pays for everything, of course.
Harry also outfits his family with a rifle and a shotgun, entrusting his son Rick with both at different times though Harry would frequently carry the Remington Model 870 Wingmaster shotgun himself after the Baldwins establish their hideout at Shibes Meadow.
Still one of the most popular shotguns ever produced with more than 11 million manufactured, the Model 870 was first produced in 1951, designed by John Pedersen as the fourth evolution of Remington pump-action shotguns dating back to the John Browning-designed Remington Model 17.
Due to the variations in finishes, furniture, barrel length, caliber, and stocks, hundreds of Model 870 variations have been available over the last seven decades. Harry equips himself with a 28″-barreled 12-gauge Model 870 “Wingmaster” in the classic configuration of polished blued steel and a satin-finished walnut stock and slide, indeed the kind of full-length sporting shotgun one would expect to find in a small-town sporting goods store in the early 1960s.
Respectively armed with shotgun and rifle, Harry and Rick prepare to storm the farm house terrorized by a trio of violent hoodlums.
How to Get the Look
Ray Milland in Panic in Year Zero! (1962)
Clothing technology has increased—and expected sartorial decorum has decreased—since Panic in Year Zero! was made during the hottest years of the Cold War, so serious survivalists probably wouldn’t be taking to the mountains dressed as stylishly as Ray Milland’s Harry Baldwin in his sporty corduroy jacket and fedora, but Harry presents a handsome template for imbuing class and comfort into your rugged weekender style.
- Dark-brown corduroy loafer jacket with narrow ulster collar, four woven leather buttons, horizontal front and back yokes, inverted front and back pleats, vertical on-seam hand pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
- Khaki cotton work shirt with point collar, front placket, two patch-style chest pockets (with single-button pointed flaps), and single-button cuffs
- Khaki cotton flat-front trousers with variating belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-through left-back pocket), and turn-ups/cuffs
- Dark edge-stitched leather belt with squared single-prong buckle
- Dark-brown leather plain-toe 7-eyelet derby-laced work boots
- Mid-colored felt self-edged fedora with dark grosgrain band
- Cushion-cased wristwatch with round light-colored dial (with non-numeric hour indices) on dark edge-stitched leather strap
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
When civilization gets civilized again, I’ll rejoin.
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