Vitals

John Cazale as Fredo Corleone, insecure mob family sibling

Havana, New Year’s Eve 1958

Film: The Godfather Part II
Release Date: December 12, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy New Year! Ringing in 2024 also celebrates the 50th anniversary of The Godfather, Part II, Francis Ford Coppola’s mob epic that many consider equal or even superior to its masterpiece predecessor.

In the spirit of this weekend’s celebration, let’s travel back to New Year’s Eve 1958 as the weak-willed Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) joins his powerful younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) in Havana to negotiate their family’s casino interests—unaware that all their work will be undone by Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries within 24 hours.

Of course, both Corleones are also tragically unaware that the events of the evening will reveal to Michael that he’s been betrayed by his own brother, whom Michael would bestow with a now-iconic kiss of death at midnight:

What’d He Wear?

Many revelers often dress for New Year celebrations in their winter whites, perhaps symbolizing their bright optimism or blank slates for the coming year. Spending the holiday in tropical Cuba makes wearing white even more appropriate as bleached wardrobes are typically associated with warmer weather. Among the Corleone party ringing in 1959, we see this exemplified with Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin), who wears an off-white dinner jacket with his black tie ensemble while the Corleones escort him through Havana. As one may expect of the neglected Corleone sibling, Fredo adopts a less tasteful approach for New Year’s Eve.

Costume designer Theadora Van Runkle dressed Fredo in the quintessential screen gangster outfit of a white two-piece suit with a black shirt and a high-contrasting tie. Unlike his younger but wiser brother Michael—dressed with sober smartness in his black mohair suit and tie—Fredo wants to assert his gangland associations; he wants to be seen as mobbed-up man about town, the kind of guy who knows exactly where to find the weirdest sex show this side of Obispo.

Fredo’s off-white suit appears to be a light cream-colored gabardine, a tightly woven twill often favored for warm-weather tailoring. Much like the rest of his family and friends, Fredo’s tailor doesn’t seem to show much interest in him, suggested by the jacket’s rather poor fit that results in overly long sleeves and a combination of fashionably padded shoulders and a narrow chest that looks especially awkward on John Cazale’s lean frame. This is hardly a criticism of the costume design or tailoring—quite the opposite, in fact, as it serves to illustrate how out of his depth Fredo is in this environment, particularly when he attempts to participate in any degree of intrigue.

The single-breasted jacket has notch lapels that roll to two clear plastic buttons on the front, which match the two smaller buttons positioned close to the edge of each cuff. The jacket also has a single rear vent, straight hip pockets with wide rectangular flaps, and a welted breast pocket that he generally wears empty—save for the two Cuban cigars sticking out when we first see him.

We see little of the suit’s matching flat-front trousers aside from the slanted front pockets and the belt loops, through which Fredo wears a black leather belt that presumably coordinates to the black leather shoes we only see in an extremely long-distance shot.

Fredo may have been able to salvage the dignity of his outfit by following Michael’s example of a white shirt and black tie, but he instead inverts this safe formula to present the full cartoon gangster image in his black shirt and white-dominant tie.

The shirt’s silky finish and the shape of his long semi-spread collar suggests he may be wearing a rayon sports shirt with its plain front buttoned up to the neck. As I don’t believe we ever see anything but Fredo’s bare wrists under the overly long sleeves of his jacket, it may even be a short-sleeved shirt.

Knotted in a classic four-in-hand, Fredo’s silk Macclesfield tie consists of a black nailhead pattern woven against a white cross-checked ground.

Fredo tonally and seasonally completes the look with his short-brimmed white straw Panama hat, fashioned with a low, round crown (almost like a pork pie hat) and a black triple-pleated puggaree band.

Though we can’t tell from under the long sleeves of his jacket whether he’s wearing a wristwatch, his usual gold rings flash from each hand—an etched pinky ring with a small ruby stone on his right hand and a larger ring with a black-filled square face on his left ring finger.

What to Imbibe

Okay, gentlemen, it’s refill time here. You might try some of those local drinks, you know, Cuba Libre, Piña Colada…

Based on his tall glass filled with cola, lime, and likely a liberal dash of white rum from the bottle of Bacardi Superior, Fredo appears to have selected a Cuba Libre for himself.

“Oh, a Cuba Libre… isn’t that just a fancy name for a rum and Coke?” you ask, and no—you couldn’t be more wrong! Although, technically yes, the hypothetical you is correct in that it’s a rum and Coke… but with added emphasis on the addition of lime.

In his 2005 volume Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink That Conquered the World, Charles A. Coulombe asserts that the Cuba Libre “seems to reflect perfectly the historical elements of the modern world” as “a potent symbol of a changing world order—the marriage of rum, lubricant of the old colonial empires, and Coca-Cola, icon of modern American global capitalism”.

The drink emerged shortly after the Cuban War of Independence, when “Cuba libre!” was a rallying cry for independence. Two years after the United States intervened during the final year of the war in 1898—a period known as the Spanish-American War—bottled Coca-Cola was first imported into Cuba. Bacardi advertising exec Fausto Rodriguez claimed that he observed the combination of rum and Coke being poured out for U.S. soldiers still stationed in the nation in August 1900, while others claim it was invented two years later at the historic El Floridita restaurant in Havana to commemorate the anniversary of Cuban independence.

Regardless of its exact origins (and one imagines it wouldn’t have taken too much brain power to “invent”), the combination remains popular in both its rum-and-Coke and Cuba Libre forms, with many purists citing that the latter is differentiated by the necessity of lime.

While some recipes merely call for two shots of rum and a significant squeeze of fresh lime juice poured into a glass and topped with cola, the IBA stipulates 50mL of white rum, 10mL of lime juice, and 120mL of cola, mixed together in a highball glass and garnished with a lime wedge.

How to Get the Look

After a year that included his black-and-red checked silk dinner jacket for his nephew’s communion and a pink sports coat for his arrival in Havana, it’s only appropriate that Fredo Corleone end 1958 on a bold sartorial note in a white two-piece suit, black sport shirt, and white-dominant tie that—especially with his Panama hat and pair of gold rings—is dripping with gangster steez.

• White gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops and slanted side pockets
• Black rayon short-sleeved sports shirt with large semi-spread collar and plain front
• White silk Macclesfield tie with mini black woven nailhead pattern
• Black leather belt
• Black leather shoes
• White straw Panama hat with round, flat crown and black puggaree band
• Gold pinky ring with ruby stone
• Gold ring with large black-filled square surface

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series, including the masterpiece sequel The Godfather Part II. There will plenty more posts celebrating this great film’s style over the year!

The Quote

Feliz Año Nuevo!