Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947)
Vitals
Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo, psychopathic mob hitman
New York City, Spring 1947
Film: Kiss of Death
Release Date: August 13, 1947
Director: Henry Hathaway
Wardrobe Director: Charles Le Maire
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Born 110 years ago today on December 26, 1914, Richard Widmark made his explosive and Academy Award-nominated screen debut in Henry Hathaway’s 1947 noir thriller Kiss of Death, filmed on location that spring in New York City and the surrounding area. Though Hathaway had fought Darryl F. Zanuck on casting Widmark, the director and actor developed a mutual respect for the other that would lead to five additional cinematic collaborations and Widmark serving as pallbearer during Hathaway’s 1985 funeral.
After a Christmas Eve jewelry heist gone wrong, Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) shares a jail cell with the sadistic Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark), a psychopathic criminal “picked up just for shovelin’ a guy’s ears off his head…. traffic ticket stuff.” Refusing to name his accomplices, Nick is sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing, handcuffed on the train to Tommy who remembers that it’s his birthday… making this an especially appropriate post for today!
Three years into his sentence, Nick learns that his wife has committed suicide and finally agrees to continue working from the city jail as a police informant for assistant district attorney Louis D’Angelo (Brian Donlevy), under the guise that he’s being held for a previous robbery committed by a fellow gangster, Pete Rizzo. To lend credence to the gambit, Nick suggests to his crooked lawyer Earl Howser (Taylor Holmes) that Rizzo ratted him out, unknowingly prompting Howser to call on Tommy’s’s deadly services to eliminate the squealer.
Arguably the most iconic sequence of the movie—if not among the entire film noir era—follows Tommy to the Rizzo apartment, where he is greeted only by the crook’s mother (an uncredited Mildred Dunnock). Upon realizing that Rizzo “took a powder”, a sneering Tommy exacts his revenge by pushing the wheelchair-bound Mrs. Rizzo crashing down the stairs of her apartment building to her death.
Nick provides enough helpful information that he’s granted an early parole, albeit with his services retained by the district attorney’s office… eventually squaring him off against his old jailhouse chum, the dangerously volatile Tommy Udo.
What’d He Wear?
Almost like a video game NPC, Tommy Udo never changes his clothing throughout Kiss of Death, even as the action spans over the course of the more than three years. It’s likely that the swaggering young crook simply likes the sleek image he projects in his dark double-breasted suit with a dark shirt and lighter tie that inverts the then-conventional sartorial formula of a white shirt and darker tie. (In fact, life would end up imitating art when real-life gangster “Crazy Joe” Gallo styled himself after Richard Widmark’s portrayal of Udo during his rise through the Mafia in mid-century New York.)
Udo’s dark wool suit looks pitch black on screen, though close-ups and set photography reveal a very subtle and low-contrasting pinstripe in the cloth. The double-breasted suit jacket closes with a 6×2-button front—which Widmark always wears with the top button fastened, covering the waistband of his pleated trousers—and the peak lapels typically found on double-breasted garments, here with a buttonhole through each side. This ventless jacket also has four-button cuffs, straight jetted hip pockets, and a welted breast pocket that Udo keeps unadorned.
The tailoring is typical of the era, with padded shoulders and a fashionably full cut, though the shoulders and width look considerably restrained compared to Victor Mature’s wider-shouldered and roomier suits. The suit’s resulting silhouette—layered in black and wrapped close against Widmark’s lean 5’10” frame—transforms Udo into a dangerous panther on the prowl.
The most unorthodox—and visually villainous—aspect of Udo’s wardrobe is his dark shirt, which also appears black in Norbert Brodine’s black-and-white cinematography. The subtle sheen suggests this shirting could be silk or a silk blend. The shirt sleeves are too short for Widmark’s arms, with the buttoned barrel cuffs often engulfed by the jacket sleeves, and a safety-style collar pin keeps the long spearpoint collar fastened behind the knot of his medium-colored matte silk tie.
This inversion of the typical white shirt/dark tie formula illustrates Udo’s brash rejection of sartorial decorum. To paraphrase Robert De Niro’s character in Casino, Tommy Udo “enjoyed being a gangster, and he didn’t give a damn who knew it,” and he illustrates this by making sure his suits won’t have him mistaken for a legitimate businessman.
“Rip the other eye! Come on, tear it out of his head!”
The always-buttoned double-breasted jacket, pinned shirt collar, and even the shirt’s shortened sleeve length visually restrain Widmark, emphasizing his live-wire performance as Udo’s clothing attempts to restrain the violent, untamed force within him.
Even inside, Udo often wears his dark felt snap-brim fedora. The low crown in relation to its wide brim recalls a porkpie hat, though the subtle pinch differentiates it as a fedora. While fedoras were conventionally worn at the time with only the front of the brim snapped down, Udo keeps his entire brim snapped down for a more gauche appearance that again helps differentiate him from civilians. The black grosgrain band around the base of the crown collects around the left side with overlapping folds, rather than the traditional bow. The edge of the brim is also finished in grosgrain, albeit a lighter color to match the color of the felt.
Note the very subtle pinstripe of Udo’s suit, barely perceptible in many other shots.
For the early scene when he pays his sinister visit to Mrs. Rizzo, Udo wears the same overcoat he had years earlier during his birthday ride to prison. Likely a light shade of camel or possibly gray, this gabardine knee-length coat has a single-breasted, five-button fly front that he always wears totally open, keeping the ulster collar flat against his chest. The coat also has vertical welted side pocket and a single back vent. The raglan sleeves are finished with short pointed half-tabs on each cuff that close through a single button.
Udo’s trousers are finished with turn-ups (cuffs) that break over the tops of his derby shoes. Based on the shade of leather, these are likely black. These semi-brogue derbies have a cap-toe and five-eyelet open lacing. He initially wears black socks that maintain continuity between his trousers and shoes, though he wears lighter hosiery during the finale.
What to Imbibe
“Champagne, lots of bottles… we’re celebratin’!” Tommy orders as he sits down with Nick and his own mink-coated date at Cafe 66, where he brags to Nick about his latest arrest. The waiter returns to serve “Mr. Udo” and his guests a bottle of Chateau Martin sparkling wine, which proudly touts itself as an “American champagne,” made and bottled by the Eastern Wine Corporation of New York City.
The Gun
“What’s the matter, big man, you turned yellow? You used to do your own shooting,” chides Nick outside of Luigi’s as one of Tommy’s henchman aims a M1911A1 pistol out the backseat of Tommy’s grand Lincoln sedan. As Nick anticipated, Tommy jumps at the bait, growling “gimme that gun!” as he grabs the pistol and fires four .45-caliber rounds at a defenseless Nick.
“Ya squirt!”
It’s interesting to see an M1911A1 so prominently used for a movie of this period as this firearm had been infamous in the film industry for its unreliability when firing .45-caliber blanks, to the degree that most “prop” handguns were revolvers or smaller-caliber pistols. On some occasions where filmmakers wanted their characters to fire 1911-style pistols on screen, revolvers like the Colt Detective Special were actually mocked up with a false frame in the hopes of resembling a 1911, as notably seen in the hands of gangsters throughout the 1959 quasi-propaganda drama The FBI Story.
How to Get the Look
Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947)
Richard Widmark’s animalistic debut performance as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death was so potent that even real-life gangsters copied his style of dark suits, dark silk shirts, and contrasting light-colored ties, an inversion of the conventional formula that’s now established as a quintessentially mobbed-up look.
- Black subtle-pinstripe wool double-breasted suit:
- Double-breasted 6×2-button jacket with peak lapels, welted breast pocket, straight jetted hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and ventless back
- Pleated trousers with turn-ups/cuffs
- Black silk shirt with pinned spearpoint collar and button cuffs
- Medium-colored matte silk tie
- Black leather semi-brogue cap-toe 5-eyelet derby shoes
- Black socks
- <COAT>
- Dark felt fedora with low crown, black grosgrain band, and wide grosgrain-edged snap-brim
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
Victor Mature delivers an arguably career-best performance, though it’s still overshadowed by Richard Widmark’s sensational debut. I’d long been meaning to watch this, further prompted by a suggested from an Instagram follower on a post I had made for Widmark’s birthday six years ago. (Sorry about the delay!)
The Quote
I wouldn’t give you the skin off a grape.
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