Sweet Smell of Success – Tony Curtis’ Dark Pinstripe Suit
Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Vitals
Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco, unscrupulous publicity agent
New York City, Fall 1956
Film: Sweet Smell of Success
Release Date: June 27, 1957
Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Costume Designer: Mary Grant
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would have been the 100th birthday of prolific actor Tony Curtis.
Born Bernard Schwartz in East Harlem on June 3, 1925, Curtis was inspired by war movies made by his screen heroes Cary Grant and Tyrone Power to join the U.S. Navy, serving aboard a submarine in the Asiatic Fleet through the end of World War II.
Arriving in Hollywood after the war, the rechristened “Anthony Curtis” grew his fandom after memorable bit parts in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949) and Winchester ’73 (1950). His career grew to being one of the biggest stars of the ’50s, including his Academy Award-nominated performance in The Defiant Ones (1958) and iconic cross-dressing role in Some Like It Hot (1959).
While the latter is one of my favorite movies, my favorite Tony Curtis performance is the shameless Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Alexander Mackendrick’s slick and satirical film noir featuring the whip-fast dialogue of Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman’s screenplay and James Wong Howe’s atmospheric cinematography of New York City during the fabulous fifties. Curtis taps his inner Gemini to convincingly portray all aspects of Falco’s cutthroat ambition, from the wily Manhattan publicist to the subservient PR flack desperate to please the powerful columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster).
Hunsecker demands that Falco use his connections to sabotage the relationship between J.J.’s younger sister Susan (Susan Harrison) and jazz musician Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). To achieve this, Falco descends into his network of corrupt cops, columnists, and cigarette girls like the voluptuous Rita (Barbara Nichols), trading favors and empty promises like the cookie full of arsenic that he is.
Sidney matches himself after pulling a deck of Chesterfields from Rita’s tray.
What’d He Wear?
“I must have left my sense of humor in my other suit,” Falco quips during his and Hunsecker’s meeting at 21 Club, where the latter asks him to set up Steve Dallas. Indeed, Falco spends the duration of Sweet Smell of Success rotating between two different suits: a lighter self-striped flannel suit for daytime business and this darker pinstripe suit that he changes into at night.
Though he changes his suits and shirts, he appears to always wear the same dark silk knit tie, patterned with a subtle series of tonal squares.
Likely detailed with white pinstripes against a dark navy or charcoal worsted wool, the conservative fabric is enlivened by unique details such as a single-button jacket with a ticket pocket and self-suspended trousers—all distinguishing it from his earlier suit with its 3/2-roll jacket and belt-looped trousers.
This pinstripe suit jacket has notch lapels which neatly taper to the single-button closure positioned over Tony Curtis’ waist, intersecting with the bottom of his tie and the top of his trousers. The double-vented jacket is tailored with moderately padded shoulders, clean chest drape, and a mildly suppressed waist to follow the body’s natural taper. Slightly roped at the shoulders, the sleeves are finished with slightly spaced two-button cuffs. Falco keeps the welted breast pocket undressed, and the straight flapped hip pockets are supplemented with the aforementioned flapped ticket pocket on the right side.
Falco’s suit walks a tightrope: it’s sharp and aspirational, but not flashy. He dresses like a man who desperately wants to be taken seriously—a hustler in respectable armor. It’s tailored just closely enough to feel modern (for 1957), but not so much that it draws attention away from the real power players—like J.J. Hunsecker, seated with his drink and judgment in almost every frame. The whole fit reinforces the theme of Sweet Smell of Success: appearances matter, but the man inside the suit is cracking under pressure.
Falco’s matching suit trousers are tailored with a long rise to Curtis’ natural waist, where they’re rigged with buckle-tab adjusters on each side. Rather than pleats or a standard flat-front, the front of Falco’s suit trousers have darts, which Matt Spaiser describes for Bond Suits as “essentially a pleat that is sewn shut,” which tend to curve better over a wearer’s hips for higher-rise trousers than a plain flat front.
The curved full-top “frogmouth” front pockets are a fashion-forward detail that would become more prevalent on men’s tailoring through the following decades of the 1960s and ’70s. A short V-shaped “after-dinner notch” is cut into the center-top of the rear waist. The trousers closely follow Curtis’ frame, tapered slightly below the legs down to the turn-ups (cuffs).
A subtle but consistent costume-related continuity error through Sweet Smell of Success cycles Sidney Falco between two nearly identical shirts with this suit. Both shirts are light-colored with barely perceptible hairline-width stripes, spread collars, and wide front plackets. However, the cuffs change between two-button barrel cuffs…
…and single cuffs, fastened with links. For instance, in the scene where Falco first dresses in this suit, his back is to the camera but we see his shirt—shirred at the yoke, but lacking pleats—has two-button cuffs. When we cut to him knotting his tie, he is suddenly wearing single cuffs and spherical black cuff links. He continues rotating between these different cuff styles over both nights that he wears this suit and shirt.
Typically reserved for the formality of full evening dress, single cuffs function the same as double (French) cuffs in that they have buttonholes on each sides to be fastened with links or silk knots. Even Falco’s cuff-links rotate on both nights between these black spheres and small metal discs.
“From now on, the best of everything is good enough for me.”
“Take your topcoat,” Falco’s assistant Sally (Jeff Donnell) urges him, but he retorts “and leave a tip in every hatcheck room in town?” Of course, Falco spends so much of the night on the move that he has no need for the additional warmth an overcoat would provide… at least until he finally crosses a line he said he would never cross, and even his suit isn’t enough armor anymore.
Falco’s voluminous knee-length coat is made from a dark heavy wool, cut in a double-breasted arrangement with welted-edge peak lapels and a full 6×3-button front. Like his suit jacket beneath it, the coat has a welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, and a flapped ticket pocket on the right side. The ends of each set-in sleeve are cuffed.
Falco’s dark leather cap-toe derby shoes are likely black calf, worn with dark dress socks. Barely glimpsed from his left wrist, he also wears a round-cased watch with a light-colored dial and leather band.
How to Get the Look
Tony Curtis as Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Sidney Falco exemplifies dressing to “work hard and play hard” for the mid-20th century, continuing his business well into the evening in a fresh suit made from a businesslike dark pinstripe worsted wool but with uniquely distinguishing details like a jacket with a single button and ticket pocket and darted-front trousers with full-top pockets and side-adjusters.
- Dark pinstripe worsted wool suit:
- Single-button suit jacket with notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets and right-side ticket pocket, spaced 2-button cuffs, and double vents
- Darted-front high-rise trousers with buckle-tab side adjusters, full-top “frogmouth”-style front pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
- Light hairline-striped cotton shirt with spread collar, front placket, and either 2-button barrel cuffs or single cuffs
- Dark tonal square-textured slim tie
- Black calf leather cap-toe derby shoes
- Dark dress socks
- Round-cased wristwatch with a light dial and leather strap
- White cotton boxer shorts
- Dark heavy wool double-breasted knee-length overcoat with welted-edge peak lapels, 6×3-button front, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets and right-side ticket pocket, and set-in sleeves with cuffed ends
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.
Discover more from BAMF Style
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Great movie, love the old black and whites films.
I met Mr. Curtis once when he lived in Henderson, Nevada in the early 2000’s. He had exotic pets and him and his wife brought them to the library I work at for a program. Nice fellow, talked him about his time in the Navy during WW2, I was a paratrooper in the Army in the 1980’s, so he asked me a few question about jumping out of airplanes. Class act all around.