Warren Oates in Cockfighter (1974)
Vitals
Warren Oates as Frank Mansfield, voluntarily mute cockfighter
Georgia, Spring 1973
Film: Cockfighter
Release Date: July 30, 1974
Director: Monte Hellman
Wardrobe Credit: Carol Hammond & Patty Shaw
Background
Fifty years ago today on July 30, 1974, the locally filmed B-movie Cockfighter premiered in Roswell, Georgia.
“King of Cult” producer and director Roger Corman had spied Charles Willeford’s novel of the same name in an airport bookstore and had read no more than the title and the back cover before buying the adaptation rights, explaining to his editor that “with a title like this, if we can’t sell it, we’re in big trouble.” Unfortunately… they couldn’t sell it.
Perhaps dismayed that Hellman took a more philosophical than exploitative approach, Corman tried every trick at his disposal to grow an audience. After hiring Joe Dante to recut the film, he rotated through alternate titles like Born to Kill, Gamblin’ Man, and Wild Drifter, until eventually accepting a rare defeat, citing Cockfighter as the only New World Pictures release to lose money, despite its already meager $400,000 budget.
Like many other Corman films, Cockfighter found a cult following in the decades after its release, certainly in part to the talent involved. Working from a screenplay that Willeford adapted from his own novel, Monte Hellman was hired to direct as his first feature since Two-Lane Blacktop. Hellman assembled a cast that included Two-Lane Blacktop alumna Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, and Oates’ friend and frequent co-star Harry Dean Stanton (the subject of my first Cockfighter post), as well as ’50s screen idol Troy Donahue, character actors Robert Earl Jones and Richard B. Shull, and a young Ed Begley Jr. in one of his first prominent roles.
Three years after Hellman directed him to magnificence as “GTO” in Two-Lane Blacktop, Oates delivered one of his arguably career-best performances as Frank Mansfield, a determined gambler who vows to remain mute until he can be awarded Southern Conference Cockfighter of the Year. As Frank increases the stakes by betting everything he owns along the way, we see the lengths to which he goes to build up the odds against his gamecock Sandspur, such as disfiguring the beak to appear cracked.
What’d He Wear?
Contrasting the flashier suits and kerchiefs that Stanton wears as his friendly rival Jack Burke, Frank Mansfield’s wardrobe is generally rooted in classic workwear with a country-and-western flair like chambray shirts and snap-front shirts, worn with the same hardy hat, jacket, boots, and jeans.
One piece that Frank repeats from his closet is a black long-sleeved shirt, detailed with contrasting white double-stitched seams along the edges—framing the fashionably long point collar, the button-up front placket, the two-button squared barrel cuffs, and the shoulder seams.
Frank’s simple black shirt, straw hat, and jeans reflect his more reserved personality when compared to Jack Burke in his off-white corduroy suit, colorfully striped shirt, and coordinated satin neckerchief.
Frank regularly wears a light natural straw cowboy hat, detailed with a narrow dark-brown ribbon around the base of the crown and knotted on the left side. The ridged cattleman’s-style crown is perforated with all-around ventilation holes through the center of the hat to allow cool air to pass through, and the wide brim is gently curved up.
Comparable modern Stetsons would be the 100X straw Griffin and the 10X straw Lobo, each crafted with a 4 1/8″ crown and 4 1/4″-wide brim.
Frank tucks the shirt into his usual dark-blue denim Lee Rider boot-cut jeans, identifiable by the branded black patch sewn along the top of the back-right pocket as well as the signature “lazy S” stitch across both back pockets. These zip-fly jeans follow the usual five-pocket configuration with two curved pockets in the front plus a coin/watch pocket inset inside the right pocket. He holds them up with a dark-brown leather belt that closes through a large silver-toned western-shaped single-prong buckle, though the belt is decorated with three rows of grommets across the back where two domed silver studs are mounted.
The jeans’ boot-cut legs allow for Frank’s dark russet-brown leather pointed-toe cowboy boots that coordinate with the western-inspired aesthetic.
During one of the cockfights, Frank wears the shirt with a different set of blue jeans, uniquely styled with the old-fashioned cinch-back that Levi’s had removed from its iconic 501® jeans during World War II. In addition to the cinch-back, these jeans also have wide belt loops, front pockets with scooped curved entries, and set-in back pockets.
Frank often wears a brown corduroy barn coat, styled with toggle buttons and squared patch-style hip pockets covered by slightly pointed single-button flaps. Lined in a dense taupe-brown fur that extends onto the collar and revers, the thigh-length coat features brown leather accents ranging from the collar trim and buttonhole reinforcements to patches over the elbows and the front of each shoulder.
This being the ’70s, even a relatively practical dresser like Frank Mansfield isn’t immune to the allure of the safari suit, perhaps driven to such sartorial drama after losing his mobile home, Cadillac, and girlfriend all to Jack Burke after Sandspur suffers a particularly bad loss.
His eyes shielded behind large gold-framed aviator sunglasses, Frank returns to the Mansfield family farm outside Decatur before working his way back into the Southern Conference, dressed with uncharacteristic flash in a khaki safari suit and red neckerchief.
The safari suit consists of a matching hip-length jacket and flat-front trousers with full, flared bottoms. The shirt-jacket has a fashionably large point collar, shoulder straps (epaulets) that fasten down with a single silver snap at each pointed end over the sleeve-head, and two-snap cuffs. The front is pleated like a Levi’s Type II denim jacket with its double sets of center-facing pleats flanking six silver-toned snaps up the front placket. The two chest pockets and two slightly larger hip pockets are all detailed with inverted box-pleats and covered with a single-snap flap. The back also features an inverted box-pleat down the center, aligned with a vent below the half-belt.
A curiosity of Frank’s costume is the yellow bracelet he wears around his left wrist, which appears to be made from a rubber or PVC material but adjusted through silver-toned hardware.
How to Get the Look
Warren Oates in Cockfighter (1974)
- Black contrast-stitched long-sleeved shirt with long point collar, front placket, and 2-button squared cuffs
- Brown corduroy thigh-length barn coat with brown leather-trimmed collar, toggle-button front, brown leather chest and elbow patches, and patch hip pockets (with pointed single-button flaps)
- Dark-blue denim Lee Rider boot-cut jeans with belt loops, zip-fly, and five-pocket layout
- Dark-brown leather belt with large silver-toned western-shaped single-prong buckle, three rows of grommets, and 2 silver domed decorative back studs
- Dark russet-brown leather pointed-toe cowboy boots
- Light natural straw cowboy hat with all-around ventilated cattleman’s-style crown, narrow dark-brown grosgrain ribbon, and wide brim
- Yellow PVC bracelet with silver adjusters
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Piss on her and the horse she rode in on.
The post Cockfighter: Warren Oates’ Black Shirt and Lee Jeans appeared first on BAMF Style.