Charles Bronson in The Mechanic (1972)
Vitals
Charles Bronson as Arthur Bishop, disciplined but depressed contract killer
Los Angeles, Fall 1972
Film: The Mechanic
Release Date: November 17, 1972
Director: Michael Winner
Costume Designer: Lambert Marks
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Action star and Army veteran Charles Bronson was born 103 years ago today on November 3, 1921. Born and raised in the Allegheny Mountains of western Pennsylvania where he mined coal before joining the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, Bronson brought his tough guy bona fides to supporting roles in 1960s war films and westerns like The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).
Bronson emerged as the world’s top box-office star by the early 1970s during collaborations with director Michael Winner that included Chato’s Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972), The Stone Killer (1973), and Death Wish (1974). Their sophomore collaboration, The Mechanic, may be my favorite of this group. Conceptualized and written by Lewis John Carlino, the story centers around the skilled but anxiety-ridden assassin Arthur Bishop, whose personal and professional comfort is disrupted after hiring a hotheaded protégé.
True to Carlino’s nuanced original vision, the first sixteen minutes of The Mechanic are devoid of dialogue as we follow the solitary Arthur through the motions of one of his artistic assassinations. He walks through the cold streets of late autumn in Los Angeles to a bare, one-room apartment, where he constructs a camera attached to a Questar telescope and begins surveilling his target’s home from across the street. Arthur eventually breaks into the man’s dingy flat, where he compromises the stove, replaces the bags of his target’s preferred Spice Islands English Breakfast tea, and oozes plastic explosive inside the cover of a book pulled from the shelf.
Sure enough, the target’s first action upon returning home later is to turn on his stove and prepare his usual Spice Islands English Breakfast tea before settling in for a nap that would never end. Across the street, Arthur patiently waits until after dark to construct his air rifle, take aim, and shoot the explosie-laden book which—as soon as it ignites—interacts with the manipulated stove to erupt the old man’s apartment into a deadly inferno.
What’d He Wear?
Arthur Bishop is introduced wearing a khaki N-1 deck jacket, authorized by the U.S. Navy during World War II as a working replacement for the pea coat that supplemented the N-1 uniform system of helmet and coveralls.
The N-1 jacket’s Bedford cord-style “jungle cloth” cotton shell was originally navy-blue before the familiar khaki shade was issued beginning in 1945. Designed to keep wearers warm and dry against the elements sailors face at sea, these heavy waist-length coats are also insulated in a thickly piled alpaca wool fleece that shows on the collar, which can be turned up and secured with a throat latch for added protection. The front has a double-layered closure, with a straight-zip covered by an extended fly for the button-up front. Mil-spec N-1 jackets featured six drab plastic buttons up the front, though Charles Bronson’s screen-worn jacket in The Mechanic only features five—similar to the N-1 jacket that his The Dirty Dozen co-star Lee Marvin wore five years earlier in Point Blank—suggesting the N1-2 jackets manufactured for civilians from the 1950s onward.
The set-in sleeves are left plain at the ends, which cover the ribbed knitted wool cuffs gripping each wrist. A welted-entry hand pocket is slanted at mid-torso on each side of the jacket, and an internal drawcord cinches the waist.
Maintaining his theme of naval workwear, Arthur wears a blue chambray cotton shirt that was popularized as part of the U.S. Navy’s working uniform from the early 20th century onward. He rotates between a few chambray shirts over the course of The Mechanic in varying shades of blue and with differing pocket and shoulder designs. As he keeps the N-1 fastened up to mid-chest, we can see little of this particular shirt aside from its blue-and-white chambray fabric and the white plastic buttons up the front placket and fastening the barrel cuffs.
Arthur often wears corduroy trousers, and the rust-brown needlecord pants he wears through this scene provide an excellent textural harmony with the workwear comprising his upper half. As I explored for Primer, corduroy is a centuries-old fabric that originated among European hunters who appreciated its blend of durability and comfort provided by its characteristic wales. Thinly tufted corduroy like Arthur’s trousers is often described as “pinwale” for the narrow wales’ resemblance to the width of a pin.
Likely held up by a belt that remains covered by his jacket, Arthur’s pinwale corduroy trousers are styled like jeans with curved front pockets and patch back pockets. The straight fit closely follows the silhouette of Bronson’s legs down to the slightly flared plain-hemmed bottoms.
Rather than the similarly colored calf-high boots he would later wear, Arthur’s shoes are russet-brown leather derbies with a squared toe. Though the details of the shoes are never clearly seen beyond the soles, several shots show the derby-style open lacing and the low silhouette that reveals his black socks breaking the lines from trouser to shoe.
Precision matters to a disciplined professional like Arthur, so he relies on trusted tool-oriented watches as he carries out his mission. For most of The Mechanic, he wears a stainless steel Heuer Autavia GMT Chronograph.
Heuer revived the Autavia name from its 1930s-era dashboard timers to christen its new line of chronographs introduced in 1962, powered by a 17-jewel automativ movement and characterized by rotating bezels that encircled black dials with white sub-registers. Within five years, Heuer introduced the Autavia GMT, marketed toward international pilots who could take advantage of the 24-hour dvisions of its bezel and the additional red hand to count 24-hour increments.
Arthur’s Autavia GMT is the 41mm ref. 2446C with a blue-and-red “Pepsi bezel” that encircles the round black dial, itself detailed with three white sub-registers aligned at the 3, 6, and 9 o’clock positions. He straps it to his left wrist with a custom steel link bracelet rather than Heuer’s stock leather or “rice-grain” steel bracelets.
Though Heuer touted the Autavia’s water resistance in contemporary advertising, Arthur demonstrates his respect for reserving each tool for their proper usage by instead strapping on a Rolex Submariner when diving in Italy.
How to Get the Look
Charles Bronson in The Mechanic (1972)
Arthur Bishop takes inspiration from classic U.S. Navy workwear for his first scene in The Mechanic, sporting a khaki N-1 deck jacket and blue chambray work shirt with his usual corduroy trousers.
- Khaki “jungle cloth” Bedford-cord cotton N1-2 civilian deck jacket with alpaca fleece-lined collar, button-fly/zip-up front, slanted hand pockets, and inset knit cuffs
- Blue chambray cotton long-sleeved work shirt
- Rust-brown pinwale corduroy cotton jeans
- Russet-brown leather squared-toe derby shoes
- Black socks
- Heuer Autavia GMT ref. 2446C chronograph watch with stainless steel 41mm case, rotating blue-and-red “Pepsi bezel”, round black dial with three white sub-registers, and steel link bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The post The Mechanic: Charles Bronson’s Deck Jacket appeared first on BAMF Style.