Ben Gazzara’s Navy Suit for The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Ben Gazzara in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)

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Ben Gazzara as Cosmo Vitelli, strip club owner and emcee

Los Angeles, Fall 1975

Film: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
Release Date: February 15, 1976
Director: John Cassavetes
Wardrobe Credit: Mary Herne

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

John Cassavetes re-teamed with his friend and frequent collaborator Ben Gazzara for The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, a gritty neo-noir originally released 50 years ago today on February 15, 1976. The original cut ran over two hours, but feedback from audience—and Gazzara himself—resulted in Cassavetes recutting it down to a tighter 108-minute version that was re-released in 1978, maintaining its tone and ambiguously bleak ending.

“My name, if you don’t know it by now, is Cosmo Vitelli, and I own this joint,” Gazzara’s scrappy cabaret owner announces to his audience. “You know, they say everything is sex; sex is everything. Here at the Crazy Horse West, we give you a lot more than that.” Continue reading →

Chuck Norris’ Safari Jacket in The Delta Force

Chuck Norris in The Delta Force (1986)

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Chuck Norris as Scott McCoy, U.S. Army Delta Force commando

Beirut, Summer 1985

Film: The Delta Force
Release Date: February 14, 1986
Director: Menahem Golan
Costume Designer: Tami Mor

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following my latest post about air travel calamities, I’m now turning my focus to Menahem Golem’s action flick The Delta Force—released 40 years ago tomorrow on Valentine’s Day 1986. Inspired by the real-life hijacking of TWA Flight 847 the previous year, The Delta Force capitalized on Chuck Norris’ rising fame by featuring the actor as Scott McCoy, deputy commander of a U.S. Army Delta Force commando unit. Continue reading →

Leslie Nielsen’s Pinstripe Suit as Dr. Rumack in Airplane!

Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack in Airplane! (1980)

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Leslie Nielsen as Dr. Rumack, serious physician

In the air between Los Angeles and Chicago, Spring 1980

Film: Airplane!
Release Date: July 2, 1980
Directed by: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker
Costume Designer: Rosanna Norton

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Born 100 years ago today on February 11, 1926, the legendary Leslie Nielsen finally found the role that unlocked his straight-faced superpower, launching his beloved comedic second act in Hollywood history in Airplane! as Dr. Rumack, a man so serious that irony simply bounces off him.

Dr. Rumack: Can you fly this plane and land it?
Ted: Surely you can’t be serious.
Dr. Rumack: I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

Aside from a lighthearted guest spot on the first season of M*A*S*H, the Canadian-born Nielsen’s comic potential generally sat idle on the runway until the madcap ZAZ crew cast him as the deadpan Dr. Rumack, followed by his enduring role as the bumbling detective Frank Drebin—first in the short-lived TV series Police Squad!, followed by its far more successful film continuation The Naked Gun and its two sequels.

Adapted nearly word-for-word (no, really) from the 1957 drama Zero Hour, Airplane! primarily parodies the disaster subgenre that dominated ’70s cinema like Airport, though it found fodder in everything from From Here to Eternity to Saturday Night Fever. Star-crossed ex-lovers Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty) are our leads, but Nielsen hijacks the movie the moment he’s introduced as the doctor tapped with treating any of the passengers and crew aboard Trans American Flight 209 from LAX to Chicago who made the sorry decision of choosing fish for dinner, prompting a food poisoning epidemic rivaling even the revulsion of an Anita Bryant concert. Continue reading →

Taxi Driver: Travis Bickle’s M-65 Field Jacket

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)

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Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle, disturbed taxi driver and Vietnam War veteran

New York City, Spring to Summer 1976

Film: Taxi Driver
Release Date: February 9, 1976
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Ruth Morley

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Martin Scorsese’s violent meditation on loneliness, Taxi Driver, was released 50 years ago today on February 9, 1976—one day after its New York City premiere. Fresh off of his Academy Award win for The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro received a second career nomination for his portrayal of “God’s lonely man” Travis Bickle, a troubled Marine Corps veteran who combats his insomnia by driving a taxi through the decaying streets of 1970s New York.

After his poorly conceived attempts to woo a sophisticated political campaign volunteer are understandably rejected, Travis refocuses his attention on the pre-teen prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster), whom he attempts to dissuade from her current profession. Meanwhile, Travis’ paranoia grows to the point that he drops just under a thousand dollars on a quartet of handguns that range in power and concealment—his scattered plans ranging from political assassination to a brothel massacre, all the while practicing his heavily armed bravado in his disorganiz-ized home:

Robert De Niro as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976)

“You talkin’ to me?”

Continue reading →

The Good Thief: Nick Nolte’s Black Leather Bomber Jacket

Nick Nolte in The Good Thief (2002)

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Nick Nolte as Bob Montagnet, retired thief and junkie gambler

French Riviera, Spring 2002

Film: The Good Thief
Release Date: February 28, 2003
Director: Neil Jordan
Costume Designer: Penny Rose

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Since Nick Nolte turns 85 tomorrow, today’s post responds to a long-overdue request from BAMF Style reader Steve who has asked to see the actor’s style in The Good Thief, Neil Jordan’s remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1956 French film noir Bob le flembeur. Nolte stars as the titular Bob Mantagnet, a retired thief now living as a junkie gambler in the French Riviera, where he receives the opportunity to pull the proverbial “one last job”—stealing priceless art from the vault of a Monte Carlo casino on the eve of the Monaco Grand Prix. Continue reading →

Mark Frechette’s Revolutionary Rags in Zabriskie Point

Mark Frechette and Daria Halpern in Zabriskie Point (1970)

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Mark Frechette as Mark, revolutionary college dropout and forklift driver

Los Angeles to Death Valley, California, Summer 1968

Film: Zabriskie Point
Release Date: February 5, 1970
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Costume Designer: Ray Summers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Michelangelo Antonioni refocused his existential “Antoni-ennui” lens onto the American campus counterculture for the offbeat drama Zabriskie Point, which premiered 56 years ago today on February 5, 1970, four days before its wider release. Poorly received by critics and audiences upon its release, Zabriskie Point earned a cult following in the decades to follow as newer audiences appreciate the raw style and performances, the deeply human story photographed by cinematographer Alfio Contini against the vast California desert, and a contemporary rock soundtrack featuring Pink Floyd, Jerry Garcia, The Rolling Stones, and The Youngbloods.

“Who the hell is he?” someone asks of our protagonist in the opening scene. Indeed, the moviegoing public may have wondered the same thing. After directing the likes of Alain Delon, Richard Harris, David Hemmings, Marcello Mastroianni, and Monica Vitti, Antonioni anchored Zabriskie Point with non-professional actors Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin in its leading roles. Casting director Sally Dennison discovered Frechette at a bus stop during the 20-year-old carpenter’s shouting match with a man leaning out of a window three stories above them. “He’s twenty, and he hates,” Dennison tersely explained in her recommendation to Antonioni. Continue reading →

Oscar Isaac’s Byronic Black Frock Coat and Red Kerchief as Victor Frankenstein

Oscar Isaac in Frankenstein (2025)

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Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, baron and budding mad scientist

Edinburgh, Scotland, Fall 1855

Film: Frankenstein
Release Date: October 17, 2025
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Costume Designer: Kate Hawley

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“I feel like, if I were around in the 1850s, this is how I would have dressed,” I commented to my wife, who just nodded with her characteristic patience when I say insane things. While she didn’t respond by telling me how much I look like Oscar Isaac (but was definitely thinking it, right? Right??), I was nonetheless intrigued by Kate Hawley’s deservedly Academy Award-nominated costume design in Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 retelling of Frankenstein, adapted from the famous 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, who died 175 years ago this week on February 1, 1851.

Director and screenwriter del Toro updated Shelley’s Romantic era setting to the 1850s, incorporating the medical advancements during the Crimean War into the context around Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments. We are introduced to the adult Frankenstein as he vehemently defends himself to a disciplinary tribunal for the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh:

If we are to behave as immodestly as gods, we must—at the very least—deliver miracles, wouldn’t you say? Ignite a divine spark in these young students’ minds: teach them defiance rather than obedience!

Continue reading →

Gene Hackman’s Leather Jacket in Hoosiers

Gene Hackman in Hoosiers (1986)

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Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, controversial high school basketball coach and Navy veteran

Indiana, Fall 1951

Film: Hoosiers
Release Date: November 14, 1986
Director: David Anspaugh
Costume Designer: Jane Anderson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Welcome to Indiana basketball…

The legendary late actor Gene Hackman was born 96 years ago today on January 30, 1930. On the first anniversary of his birthday since his death last February, today’s post centers around Hackman’s celebrated performance in the 40-year-old sports drama Hoosiers as Norman Dale, hired to coach a small Indiana town’s basketball team whose roster includes names like Merle, Rade, Strap, and Whit—which I think is just great.

Though set in the fictional town of Hickory, Hoosiers was loosely inspired by the true story of the Milan High School basketball team’s victory against Muncie Central High School to win the 1954 state championship. And if you don’t think that’s a big deal, just take it from Norm himself:

I thought everybody in Indiana played basketball.

Continue reading →

The Four Seasons: Alan Alda’s Après-ski Sweater in Winter

Alan Alda in The Four Seasons (1981)

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Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs, married lawyer

Stowe, Vermont, Winter 1980

Film: The Four Seasons
Release Date: May 22, 1981
Director: Alan Alda
Costume Designer: Jane Greenwood

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 90th birthday to Alan Alda, the movie and TV icon born January 28, 1936. Alda rose to prominence through the 1970s playing Army surgeon “Hawkeye” Pierce in the TV adaptation of M*A*S*H—an early style inspiration for yours truly, as I was particularly obsessed with Hawkeye’s rakish pairing of aloha shirts with his G.I.-issue OG-107 fatigue trousers.

In addition to being the only cast member to appear in all 256 episodes, Alda also ignited his talents behind the camera, ultimately writing 17 and directing 32 episodes during the series’ eleven-season run. Even before M*A*S*H ended, Alda penned his screenwriting debut, The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), starring as the eponymous fictional senator. As Alda’s own grandson Jake would summarize in his Letterboxd review: “My grandpa has an affair with a young Meryl Streep… what more can I ask for?”

Two years later, Alda released his directorial debut, The Four Seasons (1981), which he also wrote and—of course—starred in. Alda portrays New York lawyer Jack Burroughs who, along with his wife Kate (Carol Burnett), join two other middle-aged couples for quarterly getaways: one for each of the titular four seasons, and thus framed by Vivaldi’s violin concerti of the same name. Continue reading →

Train Dreams: Joel Edgerton’s Wabash Chore Coat as Robert Grainier

Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier in Train Dreams (2025)

Vitals

Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, laconic logger

Pacific Northwest, Summer 1917 through 1920

Film: Train Dreams
Release Date: January 26, 2025
Director: Clint Bentley
Costume Designer: Malgosia Turzanska

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Train Dreams debuted at Sundance one year ago today but gained wider attention after its official November 2025 release, driving a momentum that led to its four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay for director Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar’s treatment of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name, Best Original Song for Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner’s contribution, and Best Cinematography for Adolpho Veloso’s majestic photography.

“His name was Robert Grainier, and he lived more than 80 years in and around the town of Bonners Ferry, Idaho,” narrates Will Patton as we meet our taciturn protagonist, portrayed by Joel Edgerton. “In his time, he traveled west to within a few dozen miles of the Pacific—so he’d never seen the ocean itself—and as far east as the town of Libby, 40 miles inside Montana.” Continue reading →