Vitals

John Hodiak as Eddie Bendix, smooth gangster and gambler

Nevada, Spring 1947

Film: Desert Fury
Release Date: August 15, 1947
Director: Lewis Allen
Costume Designer: Edith Head

Background

John Hodiak was born 110 years ago today on April 16, 1914 in Pittsburgh. The actor’s first prominent role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s seagoing 1944 drama Lifeboat, followed by a brief but memorable career—consisting largely of war movies and westerns—before his October 1955 death of a heart attack at age 41.

One of Hodiak’s screen credits was the 1947 crime drama Desert Fury, a “color noir” among the likes of Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and Niagara (1953) that maintain the themes, style, and story elements frequently associated with traditional film noir.

Hodiak stars as Eddie Bendix, an enterprising gangster who arrives in the small Nevada mining town of Chickawalla, endeavoring to partner with local casino owner and his former fling Fritzi Haller (Mary Astor). Unfortunately, this is complicated by Eddie’s flirtation with Fritzi’s daughter Paula (Lizabeth Scott), which begins when she encounters Eddie creeping under the bridge where his wife had died years earlier in a fatal accident.

Eddie: You don’t pull your punches, do you?
Paula: I heard you don’t pull yours.
Eddie: You’re alright. Funny kid, but you’re alright.

Paula offers Eddie a ride back to the Halverson ranch, where she stumbles into Eddie’s intimate situationship with Johnny Ryan (Wendell Corey), his loyal partner-in-crime-and-maybe-more.

Paula: When did you meet Johnny?
Eddie: I was your age… maybe a year older. It was in the automat off Times Square about two o’clock in the morning on a Saturday. I was broke, he had a couple of dollars, we got to talking. He ended up paying for my ham and eggs.
Paula: And then?
Eddie: I went home with thim that night. I was locked out, didn’t have a place to stay… we were together from then on.

What’d He Wear?

Eddie arrives in Nevada dressed like the prototypical Guys and Dolls-era gambler-gangster in a broad-shouldered gray chalk-striped double-breasted suit, but costume designer Edith Head quickly transforms him to look more aligned with the desert landscape in his earthy casual attire, anchored by a light tan suede jacket that echoes the tone and texture of the desert sand.

The sporty four-button jacket follows the design of what was known as a “loafer jacket”, characterized by a relaxed, western-informed style that portended the tackier leisure suit trend of the 1970s. Loafer jackets were popular in a range of fabrics to suit each climate, from wool gabardine and rayon to corduroy and suede, like the sueded leather coat that Eddie wears through the middle acts of Desert Fury. The Californian connotation of loafer jackets resulted in their alternative “Hollywood jacket” nomenclature, often a more specific shorthand for lighter-weight loafer jackets in a two-toned colorway.

Eddie’s ventless loafer jacket has chest yokes that slant down toward the center from the armhole, with wide, padded shoulders consistent with the desired male silhouette of the 1940s. The set-in sleeves are finished with two-button cuffs, and there are three outer pockets: two slanted welted pockets on the hips and a welted breast pocket.

The first time we see Eddie wearing the tan suede loafer jacket, he layers it over a flatteringly full-cut sports shirt in a small-scaled brown-and-cream houndstooth check often described as “puppy-tooth”. The shirt has a long-pointed convertible collar that, when worn undone, lays flat like a camp collar. The cream-colored plastic 4-hole buttons fasten up a plain front, with matching buttons on each cuff. The shirt has two side pleats on the back to add roominess through the chest and shoulders, and there are two patch-style chest pockets.

Eddie pairs the brown-and-cream puppy-tooth shirt with tonally coordinated brown slacks. During his romantic evening with Paula that gets interrupted by Johnny, he wears fashionably full-fitting dark-brown flannel double reverse-pleated trousers with a long rise, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups (cuffs).

Earlier, when Paula drives up to the ranch and finds him sunning himself shirtless with Johnny, Eddie wears the same fawn-colored linen long-rise slacks he had been wearing with this shirt the previous evening. These also have cuffed bottoms and side pockets, but they lack back pockets.

Both sets of trousers have belt loops, through which Eddie wears a brown leather belt that closes through a gold-toned squared single-prong buckle.

Later in Desert Fury, Eddie wears another of these puppy-tooth sport shirts, now in a light sage-green colorway. The shirt otherwise follows the same design as the earlier shirt, with its large convertible collar, plain button-up front, and pair of chest pockets, with the same cream plastic 4-hole buttons.

With this green puppy-tooth shirt, Eddie wears another pair of full-fitting flannel slacks, this time in a mid-gray woolen flannel that may have a verdant cast—or I may just be projecting Eddie’s green shirt and the green-upholstered furniture in the ranch’s living room. These double-reverse pleated trousers follow the same design as the brown slacks, with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups.

Eddie always wears dark-brown leather loafers, rotating through different pairs of socks. With the fawn-colored linen slacks, he wears beige socks that have bands of yellow, brown, and sage-green around the top. With the green puppy-tooth shirt and gray trousers, his socks are a dark navy (or black) inside the ranch but then—in a costume-related continuity error—clearly a lighter brown when he sits aside Paula on the rail outside.

Eddie foregoes a shirt while sunbathing but keeps himself stylish in a set of gold-framed aviator sunglasses with rounded arms. This style had been pioneered by Bausch & Lomb a decade earlier with the 1939 launch of the Ray-Ban Aviator frame for the civilian market, evolved from pilot goggles developed for the U.S. military.

Of note: Sheriff Pat Johnson (James Flavin) also wears a tan suede loafer jacket, albeit with more western influence evident in its styling (like those scalloped pocket flaps) and likely made from a heavier-weight cloth.

The Gun

“You carry a gun?” Paula asks as Eddie picks up a compact blued steel pistol that appears to be a Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer, not to be confused with the Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammerless wielded by Johnny during the film’s climax.

Per their nomenclature, both the Pocket Hammer and Pocket Hammerless were launched by Colt in 1903, following generally similar dimensions but the former was visually differentiated by its external hammer that made it look more like a scaled-down M1911; in fact, it was designed to be a compact variant of the Colt M1902 Sporting Model pistol. (Despite its name, the “Hammerless” actually had a shrouded hammer that allowed it to be smoothly carried and drawn from one’s pocket.)

Unlike the Pocket Hammerless, which was one of the most popular handguns of the early 20th century and remains a collector’s favorite today, the recoil-operated Colt Model 1903 Pocket Hammer failed to maintain the same audience due to its underpowered and eventually obsolete .38 ACP cartridge as opposed to the .32 ACP and .380 ACP chamberings of the Pocket Hammerless. Production ended in 1927 with just over 29,000 pistols sold.

“You’re a strange combination,” Eddie observes of Paula, noting that “you can recognize an automatic clip, and you play house like you meant it.” Firearms enthusiasts may recoil at Eddie referring to the pistol’s removable box magazine as a “clip”, demonstrating that this colloquialism is hardly a modern phenomenon given that it was clearly parlance in the mid-1940s when Desert Fury was produced.

How to Get the Look

When not in one of his requisite suits of a 1940s gangster, Eddie Bendix loafs around this small desert town dressed in, well, a loafer jacket and loafers. Though this particular jacket style, the long-collared sport shirt, and the double pleats of his long-rise trousers all date to the outfit to the 1940s… this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

• Light-tan suede four-button loafer jacket with shirt-style collar, slanted chest yokes, welted breast pocket, slanted welted hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
• Earthy puppy-tooth check long-sleeved sport shirt with long-pointed convertible collar, plain button-up front, two chest pockets, button cuffs, and back side pleats
• Tonal double reverse-pleated long-rise trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Brown leather belt with gold-toned squared single-prong buckle
• Brown leather loafers
• Light-brown socks

Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

The Quote

‘Cause I’m not the kind of guy for you. You get your brains knocked out, kid, you’re gonna wish you’d never seen me.