The Godfather: Moe Greene’s Golden Las Vegas Tailoring
Alex Rocco as Moe Greene in The Godfather (1972)
Vitals
Alex Rocco as Moe Greene, brash mob-connected casino operator
Las Vegas, Summer 1954
Film: The Godfather
Release Date: March 14, 1972
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Do you know who I am? I’m Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders!
Despite his inflated opinion of himself and his importance to the city, Moe Greene actually had little to do with Las Vegas being founded 121 years ago tomorrow on May 15, 1905.
Portrayed by Alex Rocco in The Godfather, the fictional character Moe Greene was inspired by the real-life gangster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who was born nine months later on the last day of February 1906. Something of a celebrity gangster, Siegel’s profligate control over the fledgling Flamingo casino during its first months of operation convinced his Mafia Commission partners that he was likely responsible for skimming millions from the mob, resulting in Bugsy’s assassination.
Siegel was sitting in his girlfriend Virginia Hill’s Beverly Hills living room when he was peppered with .30-caliber rounds from an M1 Carbine, including one that launched his left eye several feet from his socket. This would be reflected in The Godfather when an anonymous hitman corners Greene during a massage and fatally shoots him through the eye—an execution method immortalized as “the Moe Greene special” during the first season of The Sopranos.
But what led to Moe Greene getting the Moe Greene special? In Rocco’s sole but memorable scene in The Godfather, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) travels out to Las Vegas, where his immature older brother Fredo (John Cazale) has been enmeshed in Greene’s operation… though, to Moe’s dismay, Fredo concerns himself more in enmeshing himself between cocktail waitresses “two at a time!” The cold, calm Michael offers to buy Greene out of his money-losing hotel and casino, which insults Greene to the extent that he storms out of the room.
What’d He Wear?
Signaling his deep fixation on wealth, power, and status, Moe Greene’s defining color is gold—not just throughout his own wardrobe, but also those of the nameless lackeys flanking him in matching mustard-toned turtlenecks. His sartorial influence even extends to Fredo, whose bright-yellow blazer and tonally coordinated slacks immediately signal to Michael that his older brother has aligned himself with Greene, prompting the chilling warning: “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again… ever.”
Draped in gold and surrounded by disciples dressed in the same hue, Moe fashions himself into a modern golden calf: an idol of money, ego, and false power in the tradition condemned by Exodus 32.
Moe’s single-breasted sports jacket appears to be cut from a golden-tan raw silk with a subtly slubbed self-stripe that gives the rich, sunlit-textured cloth a dry, luminous quality appropriate to warm-weather luxury dressing. The silhouette follows post-World War II fashions that capitalized on the end of fabric rationing by reincorporating wider details into tailoring. Moe’s jacket has wide shoulders that frame how the summer-weight jacket loosely hangs on Alex Rocco’s frame. Broad lapels were certainly frequent in the late 1940s into ’50s, though the sharply cut notches and full, round bellies of Moe’s welted-edge lapels feel more specific to ’70s tailoring to me. These lapels cut away to a two-button stance just below Rocco’s natural waist.
The sporty patch pockets and half-belted back reinforce the informality informed by the jacket’s shining gold cloth. The breast pocket and both patch pockets have reinforced yokes across the top that add to this effect. The sleeves are finished with three-button cuffs and a single vent extends down from behind the rear half-belt.
Moe doesn’t wear a matching two-piece suit, though his trousers are similarly striped in tan—albeit in a slightly darker, cooler, more taupe-adjacent shade and crafted in a tighter-weave. The nature of the scene prevents us from seeing any more details than the plain-hemmed bottoms, which break over the tops of his briefly seen brown leather lace-up shoes—likely derbies.
Though wearing a jacket and tie, Moe could never be mistaken for a serious businessman like the more somberly tailored Michael and his New York contingent. Nor would he want to be.
Moe’s shirt presents an even deeper shade of yellow, patterned in a duo-tone yellow geometric print. The silky finish may be true silk or rayon, which emerged as the defining fabric for men’s sport shirts during this post-war period through the late 1940s into the ’50s. As we don’t see the cuffs under the jacket sleeves, Moe may wear a short-sleeved shirt—consistent with both the character and the climate. The shirt has two chest pockets and a long point collar that Moe fastens in place with a gold collar clip behind his four-in-hand tie knot. Moe allows his tie to present the most varied color against his neutral gold palette, with bright red and blue swirls against an olive satin silk ground.
Although Moe’s yellow printed shirt shows all the signs of being a more casual sports shirt from its pair of chest pockets to likely short sleeves, it still has a collar structured enough to be worn with a necktie—albeit with the support of a gold collar bar.
Shining from Moe’s left wrist is a wristwatch cased in… not gold, but stainless steel. Never clearly seen, the watch has a round silver dial and a steel multi-link Jubilee-style bracelet to match its case. Designed to commemorate the watchmaker’s 40th anniversary, Rolex introduced the Jubilee bracelet alongside the launch of the Datejust in 1945. While other lower-cost brands like Citizen and Seiko built watches on their own Jubilee-like bracelets over the following decades, seeing this combination in the early ’50s would most likely indicate a Rolex Datejust.
Of course, the defining aspect of Moe Greene’s look across his two brief appearances in The Godfather is his eyewear. He stares down Michael from behind a set of thick, rectangular, tortoise-framed glasses. While this echoes the passionate dressing-downs that Burt Lancaster issued from behind his own browline specs in Sweet Smell of Success, the glasses serve a greater functional purpose later in The Godfather when they trigger the blood oozing from Moe’s eye after he’s fatally shot during a massage.
I’d need glasses with at least Moe Greene’s magnifying strength to be able to more definitively identify his wristwatch from this screenshot… but it seems unlucky to put Moe’s specs on.
How to Get the Look
Alex Rocco as Moe Greene in The Godfather (1972)
His name may be Moe Greene, but gold is the color driving this brash gambler’s bold wardrobe: from his half-belted silk jacket to the collar clip on his yellow sports shirt.
- Golden-tan self-striped raw silk single-breasted 2-button sport jacket with wide notch lapels, patch breast pocket, patch hip pockets, 3-button cuffs, and half-belted back with single vent
- Yellow duo-tone geometric printed rayon short-sleeved sport shirt with point collar and two chest pockets
- Gold collar clip
- Olive satin silk tie with red and blue swirling motif
- Taupe-tan striped flat-front trousers with plain-hemmed bottoms
- Brown leather derby shoes
- Thick tortoise-framed rectangular glasses
- Stainless steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel multi-link Jubilee-style bracelet
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the series and read Mario Puzo’s 1969 novel that started it all.
The Quote
I buy you out, you don’t buy me out.
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