Ricardo Cortez as Tony Evans in Mandalay (1934)
Vitals
Ricardo Cortez as Tony Evans, shady ship’s captain
Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), Summer 1933
Film: Mandalay
Release Date: February 10, 1934
Director: Michael Curtiz
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
As Memorial Day weekend typically marks the unofficial start of summer style season, many gents are rotating their whites back to the front of their wardrobe. In the spirit of this transition, today’s post takes some perhaps recherché inspiration in the 90-year-old pre-Code drama Mandalay.
Written by Austin Parker and Charles Kenyon from a story by Paul Hervey Fox, Mandalay was one of nearly 200 films directed by Michael Curtiz, who used this as a cinematic playground to pioneer what were then cutting-edge techniques like wipes and opticals. The drama begins in Burma (now Myanmar), where the greedily opportunistic Tony Evans (Ricardo Cortez) essentially trades his charming girlfriend Tanya (Kay Francis) to the unscrupulous local nightclub owner Nick (Warner Oland) in exchange for taking on a job running guns for him.
Hmm… a shady adventurer taking his extravagant—if naïve—girlfriend named Tanya into an exotic city for, unbeknownst to her, one last night of fun before abandoning her to a tragic fate in the hands of a flamboyant man that results in deadly shipboard drama? Does this sound like the second season of The White Lotus to anyone else? (Interestingly, the film’s Dutch title was Den Hvide Lotus, which of course translates to “The White Lotus” in English… though I’d need Mike White himself to confirm if this is a mere coincidence.)
Mandalay was released in the Netherlands as Der Hvide Lotus.
It’s while working in this “hook shop”, as producer Hal Wallis described it in a memo, that Tanya reimagines herself as the notorious prostitute “Spot White” and uses her increasingly worldly wiles to finance a journey to freedom hundreds of miles up the Irrawaddy River in Mandalay.
What’d He Wear?
We meet Tony Evans on the docks at Rangoon, dressed for duty in a white linen suit over a dark polo shirt—a surprisingly modern look for the 1930s.
Tony signifies his profession with his peaked captain’s hat, consisting of a soft white cotton crown, a black napped band detailed with a gilt chinstrap, and a shining black patent leather visor. A badge affixed the front of the crown depicts two gilt branches flanking a square flag blazoned with a large round-colored center boasting a darker saltire.
Modern sartorial shorthand may describe Tony’s collared pullover sports shirt as a “polo shirt”, but this appellation for the relatively new style was still decades away; at this time, “polo shirts” still generally referred to shirts with the button-down collar pioneered by Brooks Brothers at the turn of the century, while these collared pullover shirts were more commonly associated with the tennis shirts that René Lacoste debuted in the late 1920s. (Even though the colloquialism wouldn’t be determined until Ralph Lauren marketed these shirts as part of his new Polo menswear line in the 1970s, I’ll use the “polo shirt” shorthand for ease.)
Tony’s dark cotton short-sleeved shirt lacks the traditional button-up placket, though looking closely at the collar reveals three sets of eyelets on each side of the neckline, presumably for a lace-up placket. Tony foregoes the laces and keeps the top of his shirt fully open like a V-shaped “Johnny collar”, showing the coin-shaped pendant he wears on a thin necklace high under his neck.
The texture and context of Tony’s white suit suggests that it is made from linen or a linen blend, prone to wrinkling—and often attractively so—at the exchange of offering breezy, cool-wearing comfort in Rangoon’s tropical climate. (At first, I wondered if Tony was tailored in the washable blend of mohair and cotton that the Goodall Worsted Company marketed as “Palm Beach” cloth during this era, but my friend and fellow menswear enthusiast Ethan Wong pointed out that the wrinkling was more suggestive of linen. You can read more about white tailoring and Palm Beach cloth at his blog, A Little Bit of Rest.)
The single-breasted suit jacket has notch lapels with sporty swelled edges, tapering to the two white buttons on the front. Likely ventless like his other suits, the jacket has a welted breast pocket and patch pockets over the hips, each covered with a rectangular flap. The sleeves are each finished with two vestigial white buttons and a narrow turnback cuff.
Tony’s white linen suit trousers rise high to Ricardo Cortez’s natural waist, cut roomily straight through the legs to the bottoms finished with turn-ups (cuffs). These flat-front trousers have narrow-welted back pockets and side pockets—with the open-face pocket-watch in his right-hand pocket connected to a chain attached to the foremost belt loop on that side.
He holds up these trousers with a plain smooth leather belt that closes through a squared single-prong buckle, pulled slightly off to the left side of his waist. Especially compared to the darker shirt, the comparatively lighter shade of belt leather suggests brown. His shoes are the same white leather oxfords that he wears with his other suits throughout Mandalay, attached to white outsoles.
That evening, he dresses in another white suit—this one double-breasted—with a white shirt, black tie, and optimo-crown Panama hat to take Tanya into Rangoon, where he abandons her to work as a “hostess” at Nick’s club, the Oriental Garden. He also begins wearing his pocket-watch on a braided cord looped through the buttonhole of his jacket’s left lapel, with the watch dropped into the nearby breast pocket.
You simply can’t trust a man who would so willingly fumble Kay Francis.
Later, when Tony and Tanya reunite on the S.S. Sirohi sailing north up the Irrawaddy River to Mandalay, he wears a similar single-breasted white or off-white suit as he did in these initial scenes, though the material is heavier than linen. Additionally, though the two-button jacket and flat-front trousers align with the style he wore in Rangoon, they lack the characteristic cuffs on the trouser bottoms and jacket sleeves as well as the swelled-edge lapels and pocket flaps seen on the Rangoon suit.
Tony dresses up this suit with white silk long-sleeved shirt, black silk tie, and white pith helmet in the style known as the “Bombay Bowler” for its fashionability among colonial businessmen in India and surrounding southeast Asian countries.
Cortez wore his sailing gear for several photographs to promote Mandalay, occasionally as worn in the film but also in various combinations such as swapping out the peaked cap for a Panama hat or dressing up the linen suit with a white shirt and dark tie.
Note the jacket’s distinctive turnback cuffs in this promotional photo where Ricardo Cortez dresses up the suit and cap with Tony’s white shirt and tie.
How to Get the Look
Ricardo Cortez as Tony Evans in Mandalay (1934)
Tony’s white linen suit with an open-neck polo shirt is a surprisingly modern look for the 1930s, accessorized for the sea with his peaked captain’s hat.
- White linen suit:
- Single-breasted 2-button jacket with swelled-edge notch lapels, welted breast pocket, patch hip pockets with rectangular flaps, 3-button turnback cuffs, and ventless back
- Flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, narrow-welted back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- Dark cotton short-sleeved polo shirt with “Johnny collar”-style V-neck lace-up placket
- Dark-brown leather belt with square-toned single-prong buckle
- White leather oxford shoes with white outsoles
- Captain’s peaked cap with white cotton crown, black band with gilt chinstrap, black patent leather visor, and nautical badge
- Thin necklace with coin-shaped pendant
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie, occasionally available for streaming but also included in the “Forbidden Hollywood, Vol. 6” pre-Code DVD set. And don’t brag about Topeka.
The Quote
There’s nothing more uncertain than the life of a man like me.
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