Vitals

Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, straight-talking police lieutenant

Los Angeles, Spring 1988

Film: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Release Date: December 2, 1988
Director: David Zucker
Costume Designer: Mary E. Vogt

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

As this year’s  The Naked Gun continues to draw laughs, let’s flashback to 1988 when audiences first saw the bumbling Frank Drebin on the big screen.

After decades in dramatic roles (save for a zany turn in the first season of M*A*S*H), Leslie Nielsen’s comic potential was first appropriately realized when David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker cast the Canadian actor as Dr. Rumack in Airplane!, their 1980 spoof of disaster films.

The movie’s success—and Nielsen’s deadpan delivery—prompted ZAZ to craft a send-up of classic cop shows like M Squad, continuing their usual blend of slapstick, sight gags, and verbal puns. Police Squad! debuted as a mid-season replacement in March 1982, introducing viewers to “Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective-Lieutenant, Police Squad”. Critically acclaimed for its sense of humor far ahead of contemporary programming, Police Squad! was nonetheless canceled by ABC after only six episodes were produced.

Luckily, ZAZ never gave up on Nielsen’s character, co-writing a screenplay with Pat Proft that retooled the formula for a movie that would become arguably one of the funniest comedies of all time, spawning two sequels (which also starred Nielsen as Drebin) and the 2025 continuation with Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin Jr.

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What’d He Wear?

From Police Squad! through all three of Leslie Nielsen’s Naked Gun movies, Frank Drebin frequently wore gabardine suits in drab, neutral tones—similarly styled but with subtle differences such as the jacket pockets and cuff buttons. (A Heritage Auctions listing for one of Nielsen’s screen-worn suits with a Nordberg Nordstrom label is attributed to this movie, though these differences suggest it was featured in one of the sequels instead.) He occasionally varies with navy or gray suits, depending on the occasion, but Drebin’s wardrobe of two-piece suits in conservative colors and cloths underscore how seriously the bumbling detective sees himself.

In The Naked Gun, Drebin wears a dark-gray worsted business suit when he returns from his terrorist-fighting vacation in Beirut, but once he’s back on the job—from a press conference about security for the Queen’s upcoming visit to investigating the attack on his former partner Nordberg (O.J. Simpson)—he slips into his trusty crime-fighting kit of a wool gabardine suit in a warm mushroom-like shade of taupe that shifts between olive-drab and a dusty khaki-gray, fitting tones for a man who wears it like a uniform.

The suit’s single-breasted jacket has notch lapels with gentle swelling around the edges, tapering to a two-button front positioned over Nielsen’s waist. The jacket is shaped with front darts but maintains a roomy fit, reflecting the fuller fashions of the ’80s—particularly off-the-rack tailoring like Drebin’s gab clobber. Lined in a crimson satin-finished Bemberg, the jacket has a single vent and four-button cuffs—as opposed to the two-button cuffs he wore in Police Squad! and the three-button cuffs from The Naked Gun‘s sequels. He keeps the welted breast pocket unadorned, and the patch pockets over the hips are covered with rectangular flaps.

The flat-front trousers have a medium rise to Nielsen’s waist, where he holds them up with a darker brown leather belt that closes through a gold-toned single-prong buckle. They have side pockets, jetted back pockets—with a button-loop closing the back left, and plain-hemmed bottoms with a full break that engulfs the top and backs of his shoes.

Drebin’s dark-brown leather wingtip shoes aren’t the same as the derby-laced “Swiss Army Shoe” that Ted demonstrates, complete with fold-out knives and corkscrews, but the style is similar enough to suggest that most of Police Squad’s detectives typically favor brown brogues. Drebin wears his with black cotton lisle socks, though these are almost always enveloped by his trouser bottoms.

Drebin initially wears an ecru cotton poplin shirt, harmonizing more softly with his grounded gabardine suiting than a plain white shirt would. The shirt has a spread collar, plain button-up front, breast pocket, and squared single cuffs that he initially wears undone until Ted issues him the filigreed gold square cuff links, each of which fire “a single pin-sized dart that knocks out your victim for a few minutes… but does no permanent damage.” Fastened in a four-in-hand knot, his dark-brown tie is arranged with field of mini beige pin-dots woven into the cloth.

He wears this through all of his workday on Arbor Day Eve, right until returning home around midnight only to find Vincent Ludwig’s alluring assistant Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley) in his kitchen making a hot, wet roast while wearing one of Drebin’s own blue shirts. In response, he leaves to “slip into something more comfortable,” naturally returning in a navy worsted suit, striped tie, and pocket square.

Two days later, Drebin’s been called to task by the mayor (Nancy Marchand) after his attempt to covertly surveil Ludwig’s office results in “entering without a search warrant, destroying property, arson, sexual assault with a concrete dildo.” He again wears the drab gabardine suit, this time paired with a light-blue shirt and a striped tie—a reflection of his Police Squad!-era aesthetic.

The tightly woven broadcloth shirt has a clean sheen, styled like his ecru shirt with its spread collar, plain button-up front, breast pocket detailed with a pointed yoke, and squared single cuffs—again fastened with Ted’s gold dart-firing links—with smaller gauntlet buttons.

Drebin’s repp tie features sets of narrow red-and-gold stripes evenly spaced in the classic English “uphill” direction against a deep navy ground.

We also get a look at Drebin’s unique shoulder rig—fashioned with a black leather holster, brown and black leather straps, and the black stretchy wings from a bra connected across the back.

The following day, as Drebin packs up his belongings after the mayor kicks him off of Police Squad (“life isn’t always fair… just think, the next time I shoot someone, I could be arrested”), he wears an identical light-blue shirt with the previous brown dotted tie. He finally abandons the suit and tie in Enrico Pallazzo’s dressing room when he assumes the opera star’s identity to take the field during the Angels game.

This would become his go-to style of dressing through the subsequent sequels, The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994), albeit with a light-blue oxford button-down shirt instead of the non-buttoned collars on his shirts in the first installment of The Naked Gun.

Drebin’s usual wristwatch has a yellow gold-plated case and lighter gold round dial, marked with non-numeric hour indices and strapped around his left wrist on a dark-brown scaled leather bracelet.

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The Gun

Jane: I’ve heard police work’s dangerous.
Frank: It is, that’s why I carry a big gun.
Jane: Aren’t you afraid it might go off accidentally?
Frank: I used to have that problem.
Jane: What did you do about it?
Frank: I just think about baseball.

Drebin clearly leans into the innuendo by referring to his Colt Detective Special as a “big gun”, as this snub-nosed revolver has been prized for its easy concealment by cops and crooks like for much of the 20th century. As one of the most iconic “belly guns” carried by police—especially during the era of film noir and mid-century cop shows that inspired Police Squad! and The Naked Gun—it’s no surprise to see this venerable .38 Special revolver in Drebin’s hands.

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How to Get the Look

The Naked Gun generally establishes what would be Frank Drebin’s iconic outfit—taupe gabardine suit, light-blue shirt, and brown dotted tie—to the extent that his son Frank Jr. would wear the same thing as a toddler in Naked Gun 33⅓, where Drebin’s suit also appears in a police hall of fame, framed alongside Eliot Ness’ pinstripe suit and J. Edgar Hoover’s satin tutu.

• Taupe wool gabardine suit:
  • Single-breasted 2-button jacket with swelled-edge notch lapels, welted breast pocket, flapped patch hip pockets, 4-button cuffs, and single vent
  • Flat-front trousers with belt loops, side pockets, jetted back pockets (with button-loop back-left pocket), and full-break plain-hemmed bottoms
• Light-blue cotton broadcloth shirt with spread collar, plain front, breast pocket with pointed yoke, and squared single cuffs
  • Gold filigreed square cuff links
• Dark-brown pin-dot patterned tie
• Dark-brown leather belt with gold-toned squared single-prong buckle
• Dark-brown calfskin leather wingtip brogues
• Black cotton lisle socks
• Black leather shoulder holster with black sheer bra-wings back-strap
• Gold wristwatch with light gold dial on dark-brown scaled leather strap

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

It’s true what they say: cops and women don’t mix. It’s like eating a spoonful of Drano; sure, it’ll clean you out, but it’ll leave you hollow inside.