Vitals

Geoffrey Lewis as Harry Pierpont, even-tempered bank robber

Across the Midwest, Fall 1933 to Spring 1934

Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of character actor Geoffrey Lewis, born July 31, 1935. A familiar face across decades of movies and television, Lewis had one of his earliest prominent screen roles among the supporting cast of John Milius’ bullet-riddled 1973 directorial debut Dillinger, chronicling the life and crimes of the titular Depression-era bank robber.

Lewis co-starred as Harry Pierpont, a real-life associate of Dillinger’s known for his loyalty, cool head, and quiet leadership within the gang. Born in Muncie in 1902, the real “Pete” Pierpont first made a name for himself with Indiana law enforcement during the early 1920s through a spree of escalating crimes and bank heists. He was eventually captured and sentenced to both the Indiana State Reformatory and Indiana State Prison, where he crossed paths with a younger inmate named John Dillinger, then serving a 10–20 year stretch for mugging a grocer. Pierpont took the eager Dillinger under his wing, teaching him the tricks of the trade.

When Dillinger was paroled, he used his new skills to fund the prison break that freed Pierpont and several fellow convicts. Though the seasoned Pierpont was the gang’s natural leader, law enforcement—and the press—intended to sow internal discord by framing it as the “Dillinger Gang”, but the publicity-shy Pierpont quietly accepted this label.

Milius’ Dillinger begins around this point in the fall of 1933 as Pierpont, Dillinger (Warren Oates), and their raiders storm through several banks across the Midwest from Greencastle, Indiana and Racine, Wisconsin to East Chicago, Indiana, where Dillinger is believed to have killed patrolman William O’Malley during a robbery. The death increased scrutiny on the gang, who was captured in Tucson, Arizona shortly after the new year.

While the real Pierpont would remain in custody until his death in the electric chair four days after his 32nd birthday on October 17, 1934, the movie allows Lewis’ Pierpont to escape the roundup—with a kiss to his patient moll Mary (Ann Ault)—and rejoin the gang after Dillinger’s infamous “wooden gun” jailbreak.

Though the film takes some liberties with Pierpont’s fate, Lewis plays him true to reality as a reliable and responsible presence within the gang—a trusted second-in-command who remains clear-eyed about Dillinger’s impulsiveness, particularly when it comes to women. In fact, Milius’ script has Pierpont deliver the ominous foreshadowing that “one of these days, a broad’s gonna let him down…a broad always does!”

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What’d He Wear?

Like the rest of the gang, Pierpont cycles through several suits over the course of Dillinger, though his signature look across several pivotal scenes is a multi-striped charcoal suit worn consistently with a lighter gray odd vest. (For the uninitiated, we’re not judging Pierpont’s choice of waistcoat; “odd” in this context simply means it doesn’t match the rest of his suit.)

Pierpont’s suit is cut from a striking multi-tonal worsted wool that blends bar stripes with alternating panels of deep navy and muted rust against a charcoal ground. The broad vertical stripes, rendered in a consistent slate-gray, contrast with shadowy hairline pinstripes subtly embedded within the rust-toned sections. The richly textured effect evokes the off-kilter elegance of Depression-era suiting as reimagined through the lens of low-budget ’70s cinema.

1970s tailoring often referenced the hourglass silhouette of ’30s menswear, reflected here in Pierpont’s suit jacket: wide, padded shoulders, a suppressed waist, and a ventless flared skirt. While 1930s tailors often favored broader lapels—as seen in my previous post detailing William Powell’s exquisite tailoring—the squared notch lapels on Pierpont’s jacket are more consistent with the ’70s, especially given their elongated taper down to the two-button stance positioned over Geoffrey Lewis’ waist. The wider, squared flaps over the straight hip pockets further hint at the suit’s likely 1970s origin. Unlike the similarly dressed Purvis, Pierpont keeps his welted breast pocket unadorned. The sleeves are finished with two-button cuffs.

Pierpont layers the suit with a soft gray waistcoat that keeps a tonal harmony with his charcoal-forward suit and gray hat. The tailored vest features a five-button single-breasted front with a shallow notch bottom.

The suit’s matching flat-front trousers have side pockets, two button-through back pockets, and a straight cut through the legs down to the bottoms—finished with turn-ups (cuffs) that break high over his black leather derby shoes, showing plenty of Pierpont’s black socks, especially when joining the gang in their desperate, bullet-riddled getaways.

In a welcome period-accurate detail, Pierpont uses black suspenders (braces) rather than a belt, connecting to buttons sewn inside the waistband. Belts were becoming more common by the 1930s, but suspenders remained the traditional option—especially with a waistcoat, as they reliably keep trousers at a consistent height throughout the day… though that may not be a top priority when scrambling from a G-man ambush in the North Woods.

Pierpont consistently wears plain white broadcloth shirts, styled with a long-pointed spread collar—another ’70s-meets-’30s detail that nods to the spearpoints of the Depression era, albeit with more disco-era flair. (Again, the dapper Mr. Powell’s collars provide an excellent reference point.) The shirt features a plain button-up front without a stitched placket and squared single-button cuffs.

During the East Chicago bank robbery where he debuts this suit and vest combination, Pierpont wears a natty blue tri-toned silk tie with a repeating print of inverted squares that alternate between pale-blue and a rich mid-blue—each detailed with a center dot in the opposing shade. He also initially wears a gray felt fedora with a black grosgrain band and shorter, self-edged brim.

The gang is shown to don flat straw boaters as something as a uniform for their robberies, even when several years out of date (as these hats fell out of popularity by the end of the roaring ’20s) and when out of season (as this summer headgear wouldn’t be seen with the men’s heavy overcoats during fall and winter bank jobs.) Some of the men’s straw hats have striped bands, though Dillinger, Floyd, and Pierpont each prefer simpler natural straw boaters with solid-colored grosgrain bands—specifically black for Pierpont.

Pierpont wears another blue-on-blue patterned silk tie when he reprises the suit for the Mason City bank robbery, though in a simpler configuration of sky-blue polka dots against a bold royal blue ground.

After Dillinger rebuilds the gang with more notorious pros like “Pretty Boy” Floyd (Steve Kanaly) and “Baby Face” Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss) in the spring of 1934, the gang is also better prepared for the increased firepower of law enforcement out to get them. For that bullet-laden bank job in Mason City, nearly each bandit is outfitted with a black bulletproof vest, which protects Pierpont when he’s the first to step out of the bank and immediately takes rifle fire in the chest. “It’s bulletproof, you bastards!” he vengefully shouts when returning fire with his BAR.

The next morning, the recovering gang is ambushed by FBI agents at their Little Bohemia hideout in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. Pierpont is either still wearing or quickly pulls back on the black bulletproof vest, shown to be hastily strapped over the same gray odd waistcoat he favors with this striped suit. While some of the gang wears bulletproof vests styled with a button-up front to look more intentional with a suit, Pierpont’s body armor is more tactical—even for the 1930s—in a pullover style design of black square-quilted cloth over a metal lining, fastened with two sets of buttons over each shoulder and eight-eyelet lace-up sides that he doesn’t take the time to fasten while escaping Little Bohemia.

Interwar-era body armor consisted of anything from heavy layers of cotton padding and cloth to early tactical gear like the Dunrite Bulletproof Vest made by the Chicago-based Detective Publishing Company, crafted with a sturdy yet presentable wool shell over 15 pounds of metal lining.

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The Guns

Considering that John Milius wrote the screenplay for Magnum Force, later directed Red Dawn, and partially inspired John Goodman’s 1911-wielding Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, it’s no surprise that he ensured a variety of period guns would be represented in his directorial debut, which he also cited as an opportunity “to show how good I could do a gunfight.” As a fellow firearms enthusiast in real life, Geoffrey Lewis likely cycles through the most diverse assortment of these weapons in his portrayal of Harry Pierpont.

Winchester Model 1897 Riot Shotgun

During the East Chicago robbery, Pierpont arms himself with a Winchester Model 1897 Riot shotgun—a brutal, close-quarters firearm that perfectly suits the chaos of the gang’s violent heists. Introduced just before the turn of the 20th century, the Model 1897 was the first truly successful pump-action shotgun to be mass-produced, with more than one million units manufactured over its 60-year run.

Winchester offered the ’97 in both 12-gauge and 16-gauge, across several configurations—including full-length Standard and Trap models, as well as the shorter-barreled Riot and Trench variants; the latter, with 20-inch barrels and chambered only in 12-gauge, were designed specifically for military and law enforcement use.

Regardless of grade, all Model 1897s shared the same core design: an external hammer, a five-shell tubular magazine under the barrel, and a lack of trigger disconnect, which enabled the notorious “slam-fire” capability—where holding down the trigger while pumping the action would rapidly discharge each shell as the bolt returned to battery.

Browning Automatic Rifle

The gang’s firepower increases as Dillinger builds his “super gang” in the early months of 1934, with both Pierpont and Homer Van Meter adopting the fierce Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) during the bloody bank robbery in Mason City, Iowa—which more closely resembles the actual gang’s heist in South Bend, Indiana, later that year.

The U.S. military designated the BAR as the M1918 when it was adopted during the final months of World War I, used through World War II as a portable light machine gun firing the same standard .30-06 Springfield from the Army’s service rifles at a formidable rate of up to 650 rounds per minute. This also made it a favorite of Depression-era desperadoes, specifically Clyde Barrow, who routinely stole them from armories and adopted them for his ruthless combat against rural policemen.

Milius would not repeat the groundbreaking 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde‘s neglect of the BAR and featured in prominently across the latter half of Dillinger, in the hands of not just Pierpont and Van Meter but also Dillinger’s girlfriend Billie Frechette (Michelle Phillips), who lays down .30-06 cover fire as her beloved Johnnie escapes from Little Bohemia.

Thompson M1921AC Submachine Gun

Understandably, both sides of the law make considerable use of the Thompson M1921AC, the iconic submachine gun immortalized as “the gun that made the twenties roar.” Intended as a World War I trench sweeper but developed too late for wartime usage, the “Tommy gun”—named for its designer, Brigadier General John T. Thompson—finally entered production in the early 1920s. After growing notorious during Chicago’s Beer Wars, the Thompson continued to be a favorite of motorized bandits during the Great Depression who appreciated the blend of portability and power, spitting dozens of .45 ACP rounds from its box or drum magazines in a handheld package that weighed just over 10 pounds when unloaded.

Dillinger exclusively features the M1921AC with its Cutts Compensator muzzle brake that extended the barrel from 10½ inches to 12, while steadying the weapon under a heavy rate of fire. However, Milius’ gunmen use Tommy guns with both 20-round box magazines and the distinctive 50-round drum magazines. And while some maintain their full walnut stocks, others have the stocks removed—just like the real Dillinger gang did to make their Tommy guns easier to conceal under overcoats.

Following the violence of the roaring ’20s and Depression-era crime wave, the Thompson amended its reputation when it was updated and simplified for U.S. service during World War II. The wartime M1928A1, M1, and M1A1 Thompsons removed the distinctively angled foregrips and almost exclusively fed from more reliable box magazines, extended to feed up to 30 rounds of the same .45 ACP ammunition as in servicemen’s M1911A1 pistols.

Smith & Wesson .38 Revolvers

Though the film’s Pierpont occasionally wields a 9mm Star Model B pistol—doubling for the era-correct M1911 in .45 ACP and .38 Super, both used by the real Pierpont—he also cycles through a few Smith & Wesson revolvers during the Little Bohemia gunfight. During a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shot when he runs down onto the first floor, he fires a revolver which appears to have a shrouded ejector rod, suggesting a Smith & Wesson .38/44—later renamed the Model 20.

Introduced in 1930, the powerful Smith & Wesson .38/44 was a traditional double-/single-action (DA/SA) revolver designed to fire high-pressure .38 Special rounds in the large N-frame originally built for .44-caliber guns—hence its “.38/44” appellation—and was favored by law enforcement to penetrate contemporary criminals’ car bodies and body armor, paving the way for the .357 Magnum that was developed just after the “Public Enemies” era ended.

Later in the scene, Pierpont continues to return fire with what is more clearly a Smith & Wesson “Military & Police” revolver, based on the frame size, simplified ejector rod, and half-moon front sight. Chambered for the .38 Special round, this DA/SA service revolver dominated the law enforcement market for much of the 20th century before American police generally switched to semi-automatic handguns, though it was favored among cops, crooks, and civilians alike for its reliability. When Smith & Wesson began numbering its models in the 1950s, the Military & Police revolver was rechristened as the Model 10.

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How to Get the Look

Dillinger‘s limited million-dollar budget made the most of its “1970s-does-’30s” costume design, adapting contemporary tailoring like Harry Pierpont’s multi-striped two-piece suit with period-informed details such as straw boaters, suspenders, and a contrasting gray waistcoat—though the latter’s stylish flair is eventually eclipsed by the hard-nosed utility of the bulletproof vests he straps on as the gang’s heists grow bolder and bloodier.

• Charcoal multi-striped worsted wool suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with wide notch lapels, welted breast pocket, straight flapped hip pockets, 2-button cuffs, and ventless back
  • Flat-front straight-leg trousers with belt loops, side pockets, button-through back pockets, and turn-ups/cuffs
• Gray single-breasted 5-button waistcoat
• White cotton shirt with long-pointed spread collar, plain front, and squared button cuffs
• Blue patterned silk ties
• Black suspenders
• Black leather derby shoes
• Black cotton lisle socks
• Straw boater with black grosgrain band

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

Go on, get outta here. I got a bank to rob.