The Panic in Needle Park: Al Pacino’s Deck Jacket and Layers
Al Pacino and Kitty Winn in The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
Vitals
Al Pacino as Bobby, desperate drug addict
New York City, Fall 1970
Film: The Panic in Needle Park
Release Date: July 13, 1971
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Costume Designer: Jo Ynocencio
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
On Al Pacino’s 85th birthday, let’s look back at the Manhattan-born actor’s first leading screen role that launched his prolific career.
Born April 25, 1940, Pacino studied acting through the ’60s at the HB Studio and Actors Studio, which led to a handful of acclaimed stage roles. His manager, Martin Bregman, then helped him land what would become his breakout film performance as hustler and heroin addict Bobby in The Panic in Needle Park, directed by Bregman’s fellow client Jerry Schatzberg, a photographer who had just completed his directorial debut Puzzle of a Downfall Child.
“I had made my theater bones playing these types of street characters, so I was grateful to have that choice for a first film,” Pacino later recalled in his 2024 memoir Sonny Boy. “The Panic in Needle Park turned out to be a showcase for me. It’s still lauded today, and Jerry Schatzberg did such a magnificent job.”
Written by John Didion and John Gregory Dunne, The Panic in Needle Park centers around Bobby and his girlfriend Helen (Kitty Winn), navigating their worsening heroin addictions among a network of fellow junkies whose presence in a section of New York’s Upper West Side resulted in the titular “Needle Park” nickname.
Though given the restrictive “X” rating—if not outwardly banned—in several countries, The Panic in Needle Park received generally favorable reviews, particularly in praise of the lead performances. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 24th Cannes Film Festival, where Winn’s performance was honored with the Best Actress Award. Pacino also benefited from Schatzberg sending a 20-minute cut of his performance to Francis Ford Coppola, who used it to validate his choice of the intense young actor for The Godfather. The footage helped Paramount execs look beyond their initial reluctance, proving that Pacino had the goods to make cinema history as Michael Corleone.
What’d He Wear?
Bobby maintains a limited wardrobe of streetwear, cultivated to keep its scrappy wearer protected against the elements for a lifestyle where he may not always know if he’ll have a bed for the night. His primary outerwear is an M-43 “deck hook jacket” issued by the U.S. Navy during the waning years of World War II, between the issuance of earlier zip-up jackets and the fur-collared N-1.
After front zippers were determined to be tactically inferior due to saltwater corrosion and difficult fastening, the Navy took inspiration from firefighting garments to improve the design with metal hook-closures up the front that could be operated even with heavy gloves. The front fastens with a series of six blackened metal hooks up the right side, which secure through matching metal eyelets up a storm flap on the left side.
Most WWII-era USN deck jackets were produced with shells of rugged “jungle cloth”, a heavy-duty Bedford cord cotton designed to resist wind and water. The standing collar, cuffs, and hem were knitted from a wool that tonally matches the rest of the fabric, which is all a very dark shade of navy-blue on Bobby’s jacket. Lined in wool with a rayon interlining, these jackets also feature side pockets that ranged by contract from “D”-shaped patch pockets to simple straight-entry set-in pockets like on Bobby’s jacket.
Bobby’s jacket is personalized with gray-painted stencils in the center of the back. “E.J. FLEMING” is stenciled in small, neat text above a stylized “ED”, suggesting that he purchased the jacket secondhand after it had been issued to a sailor named Ed Fleming.
Later to co-star with Pacino in all three Godfather movies as Al Neri, Richard Bright appeared in The Panic in Needle Park as Bobby’s more formally dressed burglar brother, Hank.
Bobby’s rotation of cotton crew-neck T-shirts includes a navy short-sleeved T-shirt and a brown long-sleeved T-shirt, which he wears both on their own and layered together—with the navy short-sleeved shirt over the brown long-sleeved shirt.
In cooler weather, Bobby pulls on additional layers between his T-shirts and jacket, such as a dark slate-blue cotton hooded sweatshirt with a matching drawstring that pulls the hood tighter.
He also wears a lightweight olive cable-knit pullover sweater with a ribbed shawl-collar and no buttons to close.
The warmest of Bobby’s intermediate layers is a black ribbed turtleneck.
Under his T-shirts, Bobby occasionally wears a long off-white waffle-knit thermal cotton long-sleeved undershirt.
Bobby’s regular pants are dark-indigo blue denim jeans that have a slightly flared boot-cut leg design. His chukka boots are made from a taupe-brown sueded leather, which have been weathered and worn to a smooth, dirty patina over the toes. These plain-toe boots are derby-laced through three sets of brass-finished eyelets. He typically wears them with plain black socks.
Bobby’s gloves are knitted from a coarse taupe wool with brown sueded nubuck leather patches over the palms and fingers, which improve the wearer’s grip and the gloves’ durability.
Bobby’s drug of choice may be heroin, but we do see him occasionally enjoying Coke.
Bobby also occasionally wears a narrow bandana-style kerchief tied around his head like a headband, with the knot tucked behind his ear. The kerchief appears to be cotton, printed with a subtle gold-on-black paisley or abstract motif, folded lengthwise into a thin strip and wrapped snugly around his forehead—when not pulled over the top of his head like a babushka. The style adds a sense of bohemian practicality to his streetwise look, keeping his hair out of his eyes while underscoring the downtown counterculture energy of early ’70s New York.
The closest that Bobby ever comes to dressing up is when he wears a brown, black, and blue tartan plaid flannel shirt with a narrow burgundy striped tie. The long-sleeved shirt has a plain button-up front, tucked into jeans crafted from a darker blue denim than his usual and held up with a black leather belt that closes through a silver-toned single-prong buckle.
Pacino later reteamed with director Jerry Schatzberg and costume designer Jo Ynocencio in Scarecrow (1973), again starring as a scrappy street-dweller clad in Navy surplus gear.
How to Get the Look
Al Pacino in The Panic in Needle Park (1971)
Layer up like Bobby with a weathered WWII-era Navy deck hook jacket over mixed crew-neck tees, hoodies, and thermals, worn with flared jeans, sueded chukka boots, rugged wool gloves, and a printed kerchief tied as a headband for downtown ’70s edge.
- Dark-navy jungle-cloth corded cotton USN M-43 deck jacket with knitted standing collar, cuffs, and hem, 6 front-closure hooks, and set-in side pockets
- Navy cotton crew-neck short-sleeved T-shirt
- Brown cotton crew-neck long-sleeved T-shirt
- Dark slate-blue cotton hoodie
- Dark indigo-blue denim boot-cut jeans
- Taupe-brown suede leather 3-eyelet plain-toe chukka boots
- Black socks
- Yellow-and-black printed bandana-style kerchief
- Taupe woolen gloves with brown sueded palm patches
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
I was the Babe Ruth of West 81st Street. That’s right! I hit that ball, I hit the ball on the roof one time, right. I went up to get it. There was this crap game going on, right. I won $79 before my next turn at bat. I’m the greatest!
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