Vitals

Alain Delon as Dino Barran, discharged French Army doctor

Marseilles, France, December 1963

Film: Farewell, Friend
(French title: Adieu l’ami)
Release Date: August 14, 1968
Director: Jean Herman
Costume Designer: Tanine Autré

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Last year, the world said adieu to French screen and style icon Alain Delon, who was born 90 years ago tomorrow on November 8, 1935. Among his prolific filmography that includes Plein Soleil (1960), L’Eclisse (1962), The Leopard (1963), Le Samouraï (1967), and La Piscine (1969), one of Delon’s less-remembered films is the 1968 French-Italian heist caper Adieu l’ami—which translates to Farewell, Friend (also re-released as Honor Among Thieves). The film established Charles Bronson’s stardom in Europe, though it wouldn’t be released in the United States for another five years.

Garrulous French Foreign Legion sergeant Franz Propp (Bronson) makes the acquaintance of a regular Army doctor, Lt. Dino Barran (Delon), as the group disembarks in Marseilles in mid-December 1963, when “the war in Algeria has long been over”. Propp spies a holstered revolver in Barran’s bag and propositions the lieutenant to join him for some shady work in the Congo, but Barran refuses… far more inclined to succumb to the alluring Isabelle Moreau (Olga Georges-Picot) recruiting him into a scheme which would purportedly return bonds into her company’s safe in Paris while the staff is out celebrating Christmas.

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What’d He Wear?

Lieutenant Barran changes out of his Army uniform into comfortable and casual civvies. His blouson-style jacket has a beige polyester shell, finished with matching ribbed wool shawl collar and cuffs. The silver-toned straight fly is covered by a storm flap that closes with a single tan button at the top and bottom, and the slanted hand pockets have welted entries. Yoke seams extend across the chest and back, shaped with a single shallow point on each side of the front and three across the back.

Barron keeps his layering simple under the jacket, wearing only a thick navy-blue wool turtleneck. The sweater has a plain-woven body, though the roll-neck, cuffs, and hem are all widely ribbed.

Barran’s gray wool trousers are tailored with front darts, a then-fashionable alternative to traditional flat-front or pleats, which are effectively pleats sewn shut to maintain the trouser curve over the hips. These are the same straight-leg trousers he later wears with a white button-down collar shirt and black knitted tie while working in Paris, styled with front pockets, back pockets with scalloped single-button flaps, and plain-hemmed bottoms.

His black leather cap-toe oxford shoes are excessively dressy for this casual outfit but would harmonize more with the charcoal suit he wears for the actual heist.

Barran elevates the outfit with some of Alain Delon’s own personal accessories. His sleek black-framed Vuarnet 06 sunglasses with their subtle “cat-eye” shape would reappear the following year in La Piscine, while his stainless dive watch is the Enicar Sherpa Ultradive Super Compressor that Delon frequently wore in real life. Farewell, Friend was one of the few screen appearances for Delon’s Swiss-made Ultradive, perhaps chosen to align with his character’s military pedigree; Delon himself may have picked up the watch during his service with the French Navy’s Fusiliers marins during the 1950s.

Identified at the Enicar 101 blog as an earlier model with the iconic “double lollipop” configuration boasting crowns at 2 and 4 o’clock, Delon’s 40mm-cased Ultradive has a black dial marked with luminous baton-style hour indices and a date window at 3 o’clock, ringed with a white internal “diver’s bezel” with Arabic numeral indices at each ten-minute interval. The “Super Compressor” nomenclature refers to the watch’s patented O-ring case sealing that maintained water resistance to 200-meter depths. Delon keeps the watch strapped to his left wrist on a flat steel bracelet.

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The Car

Barran takes the wheel of Isabelle’s rented sedan, a white 1963 Citroën DS 19. Introduced in 1955, the Citroën DS was a revolutionary French automobile known for its futuristic design and advanced technology, including hydropneumatic self-leveling suspension, power steering, and four-speed semi-automatic transmission. On the other hand, the 1911cc OHV straight-four engine derived from the 11CV Traction Avant model was more than a decade old by the DS 19’s introduction, though an aluminum cross-flow head with hemispherical combustion chambers increased output from the 11CV’s 60 horsepower up to 75 horsepower.

The DS 19’s external styling queues hardly changed throughout its twenty-year timeline. The 1963 model present for much of the movie fits the setting, though a slightly anachronistic 1965 model is occasionally swapped in—as indicated by the parallel windshield wipers observed by an IMCDB commenter.

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The Gun

Much of the plot centers around the revolver that Barran brings home as a war souvenir and describes as “a Smith & Wesson .45,” accurately categorizing his Smith & Wesson M1917.

The M1917 was a rapid response to United States government demands during World War I for a handgun that could be quickly converted to fire the .45 ACP ammunition also used in the new M1911 service pistol. To accommodate the rimless rounds not typically used in revolvers, both Colt and Smith & Wesson modified existing revolver designs to use the half-moon clips designed by Joseph Wesson expressly for this purpose. Each company’s design otherwise reflected the characteristics of its respective manufacturer: Colt retained the New Service’s crescent-shaped front sight and free-hanging ejector rod, while Smith & Wesson carried over the .44 Hand Ejector’s rounded front sight and under-barrel ejector rod lug.

Both companies produced just over 150,000 M1917 revolvers each and were widely issued to the American Expeditionary Force, though experts like Elmer Keith considered Smith & Wesson’s M1917 to be the better-made revolver.

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How to Get the Look

Dino Barran’s plain beige zip-front jacket, navy turtleneck, and gray slacks are a simple and timeless ensemble for transitional seasons like the autumn, accentuated by Alain Delon’s subtly stylish accessories from Vuarnet sunglasses to a distinctive dive watch.

• Beige polyester waist-length blouson jacket with ribbed wool shawl collar, set-in sleeves with ribbed wool cuffs, straight-zip front with storm fly, slanted welted hand pockets, and gently pointed front and back yokes
• Navy wool turtleneck sweater
• Gray wool darted-front straight-leg trousers with front pockets, single-button scallop-flapped back pockets, and plain-hemmed botoms
• Black leather cap-toe oxford shoes
• Black-framed “cat-eye”-shaped sunglasses
  • Vuarnet 06
• Stainless steel mechanical dive watch with white-ringed black dial, 3 o’clock date window, “double lollipop” crowns, and flat steel bracelet
  • Enicar Sherpa Ultradive Super Compressor

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.