Breathless: Richard Gere’s Rockabilly Shirt and Plaid Trousers

Richard Gere in Breathless (1983)

Vitals

Richard Gere as Jesse Lujack, swaggering drifter

Los Angeles, Summer 1982

Film: Breathless
Release Date: May 13, 1983
Director: Jim McBride
Costume Designer: J. Allen Highfill

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 75th birthday to Richard Gere! To celebrate this prolific actor’s August 31, 1949, today’s post looks at one of my unexpectedly favorite performances from the prolific actor.

Jim McBride’s 1983 remake of Breathless flips the nationalities of the French crook and his American girlfriend in the 1960 French New Wave classic, starring Gere as the cocky ne’er-do-well Jesse Lujack who shacks up with Monica Poiccard (Valérie Kaprisky), a French UCLA student he had met once during a weekend trip to Las Vegas.

Co-written by McBride and L.M. Kit Carson, the screenplay begins on a hot Thursday night in Vegas, where Jesse steals a Porsche to drive across the Mojave Desert to visit Monica in L.A. Along the way, he discovers a pistol in the Porsche’s glove compartment, inadvertently using it to kill a policeman who stops him for reckless driving.

Wanted for murder by the time he reaches the City of Angels on Saturday morning, the self-described “jinxed” Jesse outfits himself with some secondhand clothes and a progression of stolen cars in his ongoing attempts to evade the law while trying to woo Monica into joining him in escaping south into Mexico.

I think maybe I was rollin’ dice when I shoulda been rollin’ you.

In addition to the lovely Monica, Jesse’s obsessive interest include Silver Surfer comic books and rockabilly music, specifically “rock ‘n roll’s first great wild man” Jerry Lee Lewis, whose 1958 single “Breathless”—and a contemporary re-recording by punk rock band X—prominently feature in the film.

What’d He Wear?

“What are you trying to do, disguise yourself as an asshole?” Jesse’s friend Barrutti (Garry Goodrow) asks him after seeing Jesse’s clothing. He had worn a distinctive bright blue western suit and red ruffled shirt on the road from Vegas that he ditches after reuniting with Monica in L.A., but he’s still hardly dressing to lay low in his brash rockabilly-inspired getup.

You may criticize Jesse’s taste in clothes, but you gotta appreciate when they can make someone feel as confident as this.

Echoing sporty rockabilly styles of the late 1950s, Jesse’s “new” shirt appears to be made from raw silk as demonstrated by the fabric’s imperfect slubs and subtle sheen.

The body of this short-sleeved shirt is plain white, contrasted by an all-black section that includes the camp collar and extends down along both sides of the six-button front. A beige stripe follows the outline of these black front panels straight down from the shoulder seam to the waistband.

The straight-cut waist hem is split into a black strip around the front but left white on the back, with a short vent between these sections that closes with a short white square-ended tab that extends back from the black portion to close through a single black button that matches those up the plain front.

Apropos the cultural stereotypes of ’50s rebels, the shirt’s only pocket is a patch pocket on the left sleeve that’s just big enough to store Jesse’s decks of Camel cigarettes. Jesse initially wears this shirt open over a plain white cotton crew-neck undershirt, yet another sartorial symbol of ’50s counterculture as illustrated by James Dean’s white tee-clad protagonist in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). He discards this T-shirt for his second day in L.A., wearing the silk shirt both partially and fully open over his bare chest.

Jesse’s tartan trousers are specifically what prompt Berruti to disparage his costume, asking “where did you get those pants? What are you trying to do, disguise yourself as an asshole?” These low-rise trousers are predominantly a green-and-beige tartan plaid, overchecked in black and red. Despite their chaotic pattern and execution, these plaid pants actually coordinate with the rest of Jesse’s attire, with the black and beige tones calling out the similar colors in his shirt.

The flat-front trousers are styled with belt loops, jetted back pockets, and vertical-entry side pockets. Wide black strips like the the galon on formal trousers cover the side seams from the bottom of the side pocket opening down to the plain-hemmed bottoms.

The only pieces that Jesse continues wearing from his outfit during the drive from Vegas are his belt and boots, both made of black leather with silver accents. The narrow black leather belt is fully studded with silver rectangular studs around it, and it closes through a wide silver-toned rectangular single-prong buckle.

Jesse’s first move after strutting onto the sidewalk in his new duds is to use his pocketknife to pry the steel caps off the heels and toes of his black ostrich-skin boots, giving the caps to a passing boy. Though they have the ornately stitched calf-high shafts of cowboy boots, these may be Gere’s personal “gaucho boots” that he described to Maura Moynihan and Andy Warhol for Interview in October 1983, five months after Breathless was released.

After Moynihan suggested that she had spied him wearing “the most incredible pair of cowboy boots” at Susan Sarandon’s going-away party, Gere corrected her by clarifying that he had been wearing “gaucho boots from Brazil… When you say cowboy boots I think of Texas: Tony Lama boots. But these are handmade boots from the gauchos.”

I love the character detail of Jesse deciding these steel toe-caps need to go, as if they matched better with his blue western suit and red ruffled shirt but not with his sport shirt and plaid pants.

“How many times have I told you that style counts?” Berrutti asks Jesse when they encounter each other at a party. “Now, I’m gonna give you this jacket,” Berrutti offers, pulling off his sports coat and handing it over. Luckily for Jesse, the gray bouclé jacket harmonizes with his retro-informed rockabilly vibe.

The ventless jacket has wide, padded shoulders and a roomy fit. The notch lapels roll to a very low-positioned single-button closure, which Gere wears open and often with the collar turned up. The front of the jacket is paneled in a black fabric that extends from the shoulders down to the hem, contrasted by the patch pockets over the left breast and hips that are made from the same gray bouclé as the rest of the jacket. The sleeves are roped at the shoulders and finished with a single vestigial black button at each cuff.

After using it as a blanket while sleeping in the back of Jesse’s stolen Cadillac, Monica wears the jacket when Jesse sends her into town to buy a newspaper and a nutritious breakfast of Ding Dongs and a banana.

If the jacket looked big on Jesse, it looks absolutely gargantuan on Monica.

The Cars

Having abandoned the stolen Porsche 356B that’s now linked to the patrolman’s shooting, Jesse steals a handful of cars over his weekend in L.A., beginning with a pink 1963 MG MGB roadster. The model dates to only the second year of the MGB’s production, though the engine remained the same 1.8 L BMC B-series straight-four engine throughout its 18-year run, mated to a four-speed manual transmission.

On Saturday, Jesse finds that the police have surrounded his MGB so he abandons it to the tune of Link Wray’s “Jack the Ripper” and steals an aqua-teal 1957 Ford Thunderbird. According to IMCDB, this was one of the red Thunderbirds from the TV series Vega$ starring Robert Urich, repainted for its use in Breathless.

Ford launched the Thunderbird for the 1955 model year, and this European-inspired convertible was the marque’s first two-seater since 1938. 1957 was the last model year for the original design before Ford redesigned the Thunderbird as a four-seater for ’58. The original 292 cubic-inch “Y-block” V8 engine remained standard for ’57, though there were now a range of optional 312 V8 engines that offered 245, 270, 300, and 345 horsepower.

After Jesse fails to sell the ’57 Thunderbird for the $1,200 he owed to the crooked Birnbaum (Art Metrano), he steals a beat-up copper 1970 Buick Electra 225 four-door sedan, which he uses to knock out the detective harassing Monica.

In 1959, Buick reimagined the full-size Roadmaster as the Electra and Electra 225, the latter designation referring to its approximate 225-inch length that also earned its street nickname of “deuce and a quarter”. 1970 was the final year for the third generation of Electra, which was introduced in 1965, with the major update for the ’70 Electra being the sole available engine’s increased displacement from 430 to 455 cubic inches. This 455 V8 generated 370 horsepower and was exclusively mated to GM’s three-speed Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission.

At 225.8 inches long, the 1970 was also a full inch longer than the previous model year and the only model from the third generation to truly earn its “225” badge. The Electra was redesigned for a fourth generation in 1971, a series that extended the length each year until it was well over 230 inches long by the mid-’70s.

Though it was 12 years old, the Buick Electra sedan is still one of the newer cars we see Jesse steal—and the one in the worst condition at the time he pinches it.

Jesse and Monica steal a black 1976 Chevrolet LUV pickup truck to make their escape from the cops in a parking garage to the tune of the Pretenders. When Jesse has Monica pick out the next car he’ll steal, she spies a cherry-red ’59 Cadillac much to his delight. “Eldorado!” he exclaims.

Indeed, the fifth and final automobile we see Jesse steal in L.A. is a red 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz. With iconic tail fins rigged with dual bullet taillights and towering 45 inches over the stern of these luxurious landships, Chuck Jordan’s redesign for Cadillac’s fourth-generation Eldorado epitomized why 1959 has been celebrated as “the year of the fin” in automotive design, representing a peak in the era’s penchant for lavish and optimistic styling cues.

Also drawn out to 225 inches long like the aforementioned Electra, all 1959 Eldorados were powered by the same 345-horsepower, 390 cubic-inch Cadillac OHV V8 mated to GM’s four-speed Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission.

The Gun

After ditching the stainless Colt M1911A1 pistol he used to shoot the policeman on the road from Vegas, Jesse remains unarmed through his time in L.A. until the final sequence, when Berrutti—realizing that Jesse won’t leave town without Monica—grumbles “this is all I can do for you now” and hands him a Beretta Cheetah, which Jesse considers for a moment before tossing it back in Berrutti’s Cobra.

Berrutti tosses it back out of the car, but it merely lands on the pavement. As the police close in on Jesse, he runs to the fallen pistol, sings a bar from his hero about how Monica leaves him “breathless!”, leaps down to grab the gat, and—CUT TO END CREDITS.

Beretta launched the compact Series 81 models of blowback-operated semi-automatic pistols in 1976, eventually expanding into more than a dozen iterations differing based on caliber, capacity, barrel length, and trigger operation. The series was eventually nicknamed the “Cheetah”, consistent with the Beretta models nicknamed after big cats like the later Bobcat, Cougar, Jaguar, and Tomcat models. A .32-caliber Beretta Model 81 had a more prominent starring role in another 1983 crime film, Scarface, as the preferred sidearm carried by Tony Montana (Al Pacino).

At the time that Breathless was produced in the summer of 1982, the “Cheetah” lineup included the Model 81 (.32 ACP with a double-stack magazine), Model 82 (.32 ACP with a single-stack magazine), Model 84 (.380 ACP with a double-stack magazine), Model 85 (.380 ACP with a single-stack magazine), and Model 83 (.380 ACP with a single-stack magazine but a four-inch barrel that’s 0.2 inches longer than the others.) Beretta had also launched the .22-caliber Model 87 and Model 87 Target, though these single-action pistols are arguably not the double-action pistol that Jesse and Berrutti handle in Breathless.

Berrutti’s Beretta is likely either a Model 81 or Model 84, based on the wider grips that suggest a double-stack magazine to carry either 12 or 13 rounds of .32 ACP or .380 ACP ammunition, respectively. The grooved front and back straps suggests that it’s either a Model 81B or Model 84B—an improvement to the base model introduced in 1980 (the “B” standing for “Brevettato”)—while the number of slide serrations don’t extend forward enough to be one of the BB versions introduced in 1982. The quick glimpse we get of the bore as it flies through the air suggests a 9mm diameter rather than 7.65mm, so my best guess would be that the pistol is a Beretta Model 84B “Cheetah”.

How to Get the Look

Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky in Breathless (1983)

Jesse Lujack blends his affinity for 1950s rockabilly style with a then-contemporary early ’80s punk sensibility as he swaggers through L.A. in his retro sport shirt, bold plaid pants, and silver-studded belt and ostrich boots.

• White raw silk short-sleeved sport shirt with black loop-style camp collar and six-button front, beige border stripe, left-sleeve cigarette pocket, and straight waist hem (with single-button side tabs)
• White cotton crew-neck short-sleeved undershirt
• Gray bouclé (with black front panels) single-button sport jacket with notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, decorative 1-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Green-and-beige (with black-and-red overcheck) tartan plaid flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets, black side-seam galon, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Silver-studded narrow black leather belt with silver-toned rectangular single-prong buckle
• Black ostrich leather cowboy boots

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

The future? I heard about it—never seen it. Sounds like bullshit to me.