Vitals

Robert Redford as Dave Chappellet, U.S. Olympic ski team star

Idaho Springs, Colorado, Summer 1967

Film: Downhill Racer
Release Date: November 6, 1969
Director: Michael Ritchie
Costume Designer: Edith Head (uncredited!)
Wardrobe Credit: Cynthia May

Background

To coincide with the United States celebrating its 250th anniversary today, let’s launch this summer’s Car Week with an all-American star driving an all-American car while sporting all-American denim.

Robert Redford starred in three films released in 1969, arguably a breakthrough year for the late screen icon. His most notable would be the latter role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, though the contemporary sports drama Downhill Racer gave the ambitious future producer/director a taste of production as he wielded some of his newfound influence to recruit both screenwriter James Salter and director Michael Ritchie after Roman Polanski left the project.

Without having read Oakley Hall’s source novel, Salter followed Polanski’s original vision of adapting the High Noon concept on the Olympic slopes; instead of a downed sheriff requiring a replacement, it’s the U.S. national ski team who needs a replacement for its lead skier after an accident. Call in Redford’s arrogant but talented David Chappellet, inspired by elements of real-life skiers Billy Kidd, Spider Sabich, and Buddy Werner.

The latter—who died alongside German medalist Barbi Henneberger during a 1964 avalanche while filming a ski fashion film for Willy Bogner—hailed from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, perhaps informing the fictional Chappellet’s birthplace of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

On his summer break from training with the U.S. Olympic ski team, Chappellet returns to the sleepy town of approximately 2,000, where he visits the laconic father (Walter Stroud) whose dismissive attitude gives us some insight to his son Dave’s self-consumed, transactional view of the world and relationships.

Mr. Chappellet: Well, I just hope you don’t end up askin’ yourself the same question some folks ask me: “what’s he doing it for?”
Dave: Well, I”ll be famous. I’ll be a champion.
Mr. Chappellet: World’s full of ’em.

Contrasting the bright “Bahama yellow” ’68 Porsche that he borrows from the luscious Carole (Camilla Sparv) among the slopes of Wengen, Dave borrows his father’s ’57 Chevy and drives to meet an old girlfriend Lena (Carole Carle), whom he uses exclusively for sex and chewing gum.

Lena: I’m not talking to you.
Dave: Who’s talkin’ about talkin’?

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What’d He Wear?

Dave Chappellet arrives in Idaho Springs, just outside of Denver (where a weather report he hears in the Chevy reports a temperature of 88°F), straight from training in Oregon. He’s still wearing his white cotton team jacket with pride, almost certainly hoping that his aloof father will comment on it. When that doesn’t work, he comes right out and tells him: “I’m on the U.S. ski team, you know?”

The zip-front team training jacket follows a simplified variation of the bomber-style design with its ribbed-knit collar, cuffs, and hem—all banded in a patriotic red, white, and blue against the plain white soft cotton body. The team’s round embroidered emblem is sewn over the left breast. The jacket has simple vertical-entry hand pockets.

Before he takes the Chevy out cruising for Lena, Chappellet grabs a blue selvedge denim Wrangler 24MJ jacket, clearly identifiable by the decorative tobacco-colored “W” stitching sharply zig-zagging over both chest pockets—each covered with a rounded flap that closes through a single brass-finished snap-button; the brand is further identified by a yellow-embroidered black rectangular tab sewn against the seam above the left chest pocket. Wrangler introduced the 24MJ in the mid-1960s, followed by the zip-front 24MJZ as worn by Tom Laughlin as Billy Jack and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In addition to those chest pockets, Wrangler was ahead of fellow “Big Three” denim outfitters Lee and Levi’s by standardizing hand pockets on their denim trucker jackets, represented by the slanted welts against the curved outlines on the lower front quarters. Chappellett’s 24MJ jacket has five Wrangler-branded copper shank buttons up the front—tacked among the characteristic zig-zag stitchwork up the placket—as well as short square-ended tabs on each side of the waist that close through one of two pockets for an adjustable fit. Each cuff closes with a single copper snap-button.

Chappellet continues wearing the blue chambray cotton work-shirt he had on when he arrived, though he takes special care to roll the long sleeves up past his elbows before taking the “old Chev” out. The shirt has a front placket, two flapped chest pockets, and barrel cuffs—all fastened with white plastic buttons.

For most of the sequence at home, Chappellet also wears Wrangler jeans in a mid-dark blue faded selvedge denim. As with the jacket, the brand marks are unmistakable from the jagged “W” stitching across the back pockets to the light-brown leather branded patch sewn along the top of the back-right pocket. Styled with a traditional five-pocket layout and zip-fly, these 13MWZ jeans have been characterized by their long-rise, straight-leg “Cowboy Cut” since their inception in the late 1940s, making them particularly suitable for the rugged Colorado setting and Chappellet’s own cowboy attitude.

He holds the jeans up with a weathered brown leather belt that closes through a large brass-toned square single-prong buckle, coordinating to the well-worn brown napped leather pointed-toe cowboy boots he also wore on the slopes in Switzerland. While this may have been an incongruous look to the Europeans, it fits in among the dusty frontier-born world of Idaho Springs, Colorado.

Despite his lack of enthusiasm toward her, Lena must have had some special skills because Chappellet returns home that night wearing entirely different jeans. Based on the darker indigo wash, arcuate-stitched back pockets, and telltale red tab, Chappellet now wears Levi’s 501 denim.

Downhill Racer was one of the first movies where Robert Redford debuted the etched silver ring on his right hand that he explained to Stephen Galloway for The Hollywood Reporter was “given to me by Hopi Indians in 1966,” and appeared on his right-hand ring finger in almost every film he had done subsequently. A silver rope-chain necklace flashes from under Chappellet’s open chambray shirt following his romp with Lena, which was likely another personal item from Redford’s collection that showed up in most of his movies through the following decade when period-appropriate.

For all we know, the stainless steel watch on Redford’s right wrist was also his own, though it’s hardly as recognizable as the iconic Rolex Submariner he would later wear in The Candidate (1972), All the President’s Men (1976), and The Electric Horseman (1979). This simpler watch has a plain round silver dial with non-numeric baton indices and a steel-finished expanding band.

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The Car

“I see you still got the old Chev’, huh?” Dave asks of his father. The sedan in question is a four-door 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, dressed in a two-tone paint scheme with an adobe beige roof and sierra gold body.

Chevrolet introduced the Bel Air name for the 1950 model year to distinguish two-door sport coupes, though it became its own premium model with a 1953 redesign that added the wide chrome molding across the rear quarters and the curved, one-piece windshield. These changes remained in place even after the 1955 “Hot One” revamp by GM designer Bill Mitchell that became the Bel Air’s legendary second generation that remains symbolic of fabulous fifties automotive design, introducing an Italian-inspired grille and V8 power among other changes. These updates culminated with the 1957 model year that remains one of the most sought-after classic cars among collectors.

The ’57 Bel Air continued to offer a 235 cubic-inch “Blue Flame” inline-six alongside the 265 “Turbo-Fire” and a range of small-block 283 cubic-inch V8 engines, mated to three- and four-speed manual transmissions or the new-for-1957 three-speed Turboglide automatic transmission in addition to the two-speed Powerglide automatic. Body styles included two- and four-door hardtops and wagons, as well as a two-door convertible.

1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

Body Style: 4-door pillared hardtop sedan

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 283 cubic inch (4.6 L) “Turbo Fire” V8 with Rochester twin-barrel carburetor

Power: 185 hp (138 kW; 188 PS) @ 4600 rpm

Torque: 275 lb·ft (373 N·m) @ 2400 rpm

Transmission: 2-speed Powerglide automatic

Wheelbase: 115 inches (2921 mm)

Length: 200 inches (5080 mm)

Width: 73.9 inches (1877 mm)

Height: 59.9 inches (1521 mm)

In the decade since it was produced, the screen-used Bel Air lost some of its badging but still retains the golden “V” emblems on the front and back which indicate one of the 283 V8 engines rather than the straight-six, though we never see the engine itself leaving the actual 283 under the hood likely lost to history. Given the plain “dog dish” hubcaps and Mr. Chappellet’s personality, we can assume that his Bel Air would have the most modest factory V8: the 185-horsepower Turbo-Fire 283 with a Rochester 2-barrel carburetor mated to either the two- or three-speed automatic transmission.

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How to Get the Look

After the returning hometown hero fails to impress in his patriotic red, white, and blue Olympic ski team jacket, Dave Chappellet completes his rugged “Colorado cowboy” image in a Wrangler denim jacket to coordinate with his Wrangler jeans, chambray work-shirt, and well-traveled boots.

• White cotton track jacket with red/white/blue-banded ribbed-knit collar, cuffs, and hem, embroidered U.S. Olympic ski team badge, and vertical-entry hand pockets
• Blue denim Wrangler 24MJ jacket with two chest pockets (with single-snap rounded flaps), slanted-entry hand pockets, five copper front buttons, single-snap cuffs, and adjustable waist tabs
• Blue chambray cotton long-sleeved work-shirt with front placket (with white plastic buttons), two chest pockets, and button cuffs
• Medium-dark blue denim Wrangler 13MWZ “Cowboy Cut” five-pocket jeans
• Brown weathered leather belt with brass squared single-prong buckle
• Brown napped leather pointed-toe cowboy bootts
• Silver rope-chain necklace
• Silver tribal ring
• Steel wristwatch with round silver dial on steel expanding bracelet

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.