Vitals

Marlon Brando as Valentine “Snakeskin” Xavier, guitar-playing drifter seeking redemption

Mississippi Delta, January 1959

Film: The Fugitive Kind
Release Date: April 14, 1960
Director: Sidney Lumet
Costume Designer: Frank L. Thompson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

For National Snake Day on July 16th, let’s celebrate the famous snakeskin jacket that Marlon Brando wore as Valentine “Val” Xavier in The Fugitive Kind, adapted from Tennessee Williams’ 1957 play Orpheus Descending—itself a modern retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

The Fugitive Kind begins as Val explains his destructive actions at a New Year’s Eve party to a New Orleans court, vowing never to return to the city. With little to his name except a vintage Kay guitar he was given by Leadbelly himself, Val chugs his old Plymouth clunker across the state line into the Mississippi Delta, where his search for a dry place to sleep on his 30th birthday leads him to a small-town sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s trusting wife Vee (Maureen Stapleton) kindly offers him room in the lockup and, once she senses that he’s sincerely seeking to turn over a new leaf, she helps him find work at the local mercantile store run by the unhappily married Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani). But Val can only run so far from his past, as the vivacious young troublemaker Carol Cutrere (Joanne Woodward) speeds back into his life, remembering him and his iconic jacket from that fateful Big Easy bacchanal.

Though set in the fictional Two River County, standing in for Mississippi’s actual Coahoma County, The Fugitive Kind was actually filmed in New York’s Hudson Valley so that director Sidney Lumet wouldn’t need to stray far from New York City. Made at the same time that Brando helmed his sole directorial effort, One-Eyed Jacks (1961), The Fugitive Kind propelled Brando to a new level of stardom as the first actor to be paid $1 million for a single film.

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What’d He Wear?

The off-camera New Orleans judge declares that Valentine “Val” Xavier—that’s Xavier with an X, not an S—is also known as “Snakeskin,” prompting our hero to adjust the snakeskin jacket slung over his shoulder that gave the man his nickname.

Lady Torrance: What are you doing with a snakeskin jacket?
Valentine Xavier: It used to be a trademark. I used to be an entertainer in New Orleans.
Lady Torrance: It feels warm, alright.
Valentine Xavier: Probably warmth from my body.

Aside from merely looking cool, the snakeskin jacket serves a narrative purpose by representing the mythical Eurydice’s lethal serpent on our modern Orpheus, Val Xavier. In an era before multiple costumes were the norm even for non-action movies, costume designer Frank L. Thompson was challenged to craft at least two nearly identical jackets for Marlon Brando to wear on screen, featuring the skins of snakes native to Mississippi. According to Brian Hannan in The Magnificent 60s blog, Thompson zeroed in on rattlers and pythons, eventually choosing the latter.

The jacket was tailored genuine python skin in a variegated mix of tobacco-brown, cream, and charcoal tones, its large irregular scales lending a louche excess synonymous with 1950s rockabilly fashion. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Brando wearing this jacket starts the whole thing again,” stated Thompson in The Fugitive Kind‘s press material of a potential snakeskin revival.

Val’s waist-length jackets were cut simply, with no evident fastenings aside from two pairs of straps—one pair hanging from mid-chest and another just above the waist hem—that connect through D-ring buckles on the left side. The cuffs are plain-hemmed, and the only pocket is covertly stitched along the inner left side of the lower chest.

Under the jacket, Val wears a black softly knitted long-sleeved polo shirt with a three-button top placket that he always wears with at least the top button undone. Despite the dark color, a jealous Lady manages to see the remnants of lipstick against the shirt’s black cloth after his night out.

Val’s black flat-front trousers are prone to wrinkling, suggesting cotton or a lightweight wool, with belt loops that go unused. He makes up for the jacket and shirt’s lack of pockets by supplementing the trousers’ curved front pockets with another set of open-top cargo pockets positioned over each thigh. In lieu of back pockets, a V-shaped yoke as found on riding trousers is stitched over the seat.

The trousers have plain-hemmed bottoms over the tops of his slip-on ankle-high Chelsea boots, made with dark leather uppers and dark elastic side gussets—likely also black, to match his shirt and trousers. He also wears plain black socks.

“Can I see your wristwatch?” Carol asks, reaching for Val’s snakeskin sleeve, then adds for the benefit of Mrs. Talbot and the shopkeepers: “Well, that’s alright, I saw it already. It is my cousin Bertie’s Rolex chronometer!” This might be one of the earliest specific mentions of Rolex on screen, pre-dating even the appearance of 007’s famous Submariner by two years. I believe it was added for the screen adaptation as it doesn’t appear in Tennessee Williams’ original 1957 stage play. Contemporary color photography reveals a yellow-gold case in addition to a plexiglass-covered white dial and dark leather band seen on screen. Later, Val himself describes it:

Well, you take this Rolex chronometer—tells the time of the day and the days of the week and the month and all the crazy moon phases. I never stole nothin’ before I stole this, and when I stole it, I knew it was time to get off the party.

The latter detail would suggest one of the Rolex Triple Calendar Moonphase watches made prior to this: the 38mm “Padellone” ref. 8171 or the 36mm Oyster Perpetual ref. 6062—introduced in 1949 and 1950, respectively, but both discontinued in 1953. Both watches are distinguished by their moon-phase register at 6 o’clock, below separate windows noting the day of the week and month just below the 12 o’clock position, plus the days of the month printed in blue around the outer ring. Given the rounder, non-Oyster shape and flatter crown on Brando’s screen-worn watch case, I suspect Val’s, er, Bertie’s Rolex to be the ref. 8171 on a smooth black or dark brown leather strap.

The following decade, Brando would more prominently return to Rolex watches with a gold Datejust in Last Tango in Paris (1972) and a GMT Master with its bezel removed as the megalomaniac Colonel Kurtz in Apocalpyse Now (1979).

When working as a clerk in the Torrance mercantile shop, Val swaps out his snakeskin jacket for a more conventional dark worsted suit, white shirt, and tie, which he explains Lady gave him to look more presentable at work. “You are in danger here, Snakeskin,” Carol observes of the suit, adding that, “You’ve taken off the jacket that said ‘I’m wild, I’m alone,’ and you’ve put on the nice blue uniform of a convict!”

Even if The Fugitive Kind is overshadowed in Brando’s oeuvre next to the likes of On the Waterfront, The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now, Val’s snakeskin jacket maintained a steady influence on pop culture, inspiring Jim Morrison’s stage outfits and Nicolas Cage’s wardrobe in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990).

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The Cars

Val arrives in Two River County all but pushing his dilapidated 1940 Plymouth De Luxe Club Coupe. Mated to a three-speed manual transmission, the stock engine was a 201.3-cubic inch L-head straight-six with a single Carter D6 carburetor, generating 84 horsepower… or zero for poor Val, trudging his into this small Mississippi town nearly two decades after his P-10 coupe was new.

After Sheriff Talbot (R.G. Armstrong) informs Carol that she’s not allowed to drive in the county, Val volunteers to drive her in her dirty 1958 Jaguar XK150 S roadster, which she describes as “the fastest thing on wheels in Two River County”.

Jaguar introduced the XK150 fixed head coupé (FHC) and drophead coupé (DHC) during the previous model year as successor to the XK140. In addition to the base model and the typical SE trim line for exports, the new-for-1958 XK 150 S featured three two-inch SU HD8 carburetors and a straight-port cylinder head that boosted the 3442cc DOHC straight-six engine up to 250 brake horsepower, exclusively mated to a five-speed manual transmission. A 3.8-liter straight-six option was added for 1959 and 1960, but Carol’s much-abused ’58 roadster would have only been available with the 3.4-liter engine.

Production ended after Jaguar manufactured 9,382 XK150 vehicles, succeeded for the 1961 model year by the iconic E-Type grand tourer—known as the “XK-E” in North America.

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How to Get the Look

Val Xavier wisely kept the rest of his outfit subdued when anchoring it all to a flashy snakeskin jacket, relying on the dark neutrality of a black shirt, trousers, and boots… in addition to that purloined Rolex moon-phase watch.

• Brown, cream, and charcoal python-skin waist-length jacket with shirt-style collar, double D-ring chest straps, double D-ring waist straps, and plain cuffs
• Black soft-knit long-sleeved polo shirt with 3-button top placket
• Black flat-front trousers with belt loops, slanted front pockets, open-top thigh pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black leather Chelsea boots
• Black socks
• Rolex Triple Calendar ref. 8171 “Padellone” automatic chronometer with yellow-gold 38mm case, round white dial with day/month windows and moon-phase complication, and dark leather strap

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the movie.

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The Quote

I just wanna live, I don’t care if they know I’m alive or not.