Category: Two-Piece Suit
Harry Dean Stanton’s Cream Suit in Cockfighter
Harry Dean Stanton in Cockfighter (1974)
Vitals
Harry Dean Stanton as Jack Burke, country cockfighter
Georgia, Spring 1973
Film: Cockfighter
Release Date: July 30, 1974
Director: Monte Hellman
Wardrobe Credit: Carol Hammond & Patty Shaw
Background
The great character actor Harry Dean Stanton was born 98 years ago tomorrow on July 14, 1926. A familiar face among the supporting cast of classic movies for a career spanning more than a half-century, Stanton also shined in his rare leading roles in Paris, Texas (1984), Repo Man (1984), and Lucky (2017).
One of the lesser-known entries in Stanton’s filmography is Cockfighter, reuniting him with Two-Lane Blacktop director Monte Hellman and his friend and frequent co-star Warren Oates. Released 50 years ago this month, Cockfighter was controversial upon its release for its uncompromising portrayal of the titular bloodsport. Continue reading
Moonraker: Roger Moore’s Cream Suit in Rio
Roger Moore as James Bond in Moonraker (1979)
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Roger Moore as James Bond, suave and sophisticated British MI6 agent
Rio de Janiero, Brazil, February 1979
Film: Moonraker
Release Date: June 26, 1979
Director: Lewis Gilbert
Costume Designer: Jacques Fonteray
Tailor: Angelo Vitucci
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Moonraker launched James Bond into orbit when it premiered 45 years ago today on June 26, 1979 as the fourth of Sir Roger Moore’s seven adventures as the dashing spy.
Before his out-of-this-world journey, 007 trots the globe from California to Italy and ultimately to Brazil, where he landed in Rio de Janiero during the annual Carnival festivities held in February. February is a summer month in Brazil, so Bond dresses for the warmth in a cream linen suit and open-neck brown shirt and matching pocket square as he alights from his plane. Continue reading
A Shot in the Dark: Inspector Clouseau’s Trench Coat and Trilby
Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in A Shot in the Dark (1964). Photo credit: MGM.
Vitals
Peter Sellers as Jacques Clouseau, bumbling Sûreté investigator
Paris, Fall 1963
Film: A Shot in the Dark
Release Date: June 23, 1964
Director: Blake Edwards
Costume Designer: Margaret Furse
Tailor: Douglas Hayward
Background
Tomorrow will commemorate 60 years since the release of A Shot in the Dark, the sequel to The Pink Panther which introduced Peter Sellers as the inept Investigator Clouseau. Sellers’ comedic talent elevated Clouseau to a breakout favorite among audiences of The Pink Panther, which was otherwise meant to be a stylish ensemble comedy centered around David Niven’s dashing jewel thief in pursuit of the eponymous diamond.
After observing how Clouseau resonated with audiences, director Blake Edwards and his co-screenwriter William Peter Blatty adapted Henry Kurnitz’s comic mystery play A Shot in the Dark—itself a Broadway adaptation of Marcel Archard’s L’Idiote—to reprise Sellers’ characterization of Inspector Clouseau. Set in Clouseau’s home turf, the story introduced Clouseau’s long-suffering boss Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom) and martial-artist manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk) who would both reappear in all three subsequent Pink Panther films to be released the following decade.
A Shot in the Dark begins at the country estate of millionaire Benjamin Ballon (George Sanders) outside of Paris, where we observe the household and staff watching, evading, and romancing each other in the shadows… until a gunshot rings out and the head chauffeur is found dead in the bedroom of the alluring maid Maria Gambrelli (Elke Sommer), last seen clutching the victim’s own still-smoking Beretta pistol. Enter Inspector Clouseau onto the scene… stepping out of his car and immediately into the Ballon fountain, perfectly introducing the madcap mystery to follow. Continue reading
Mandalay: Ricardo Cortez’s White Linen Suit and Captain’s Hat
Ricardo Cortez as Tony Evans in Mandalay (1934)
Vitals
Ricardo Cortez as Tony Evans, shady ship’s captain
Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar), Summer 1933
Film: Mandalay
Release Date: February 10, 1934
Director: Michael Curtiz
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
As Memorial Day weekend typically marks the unofficial start of summer style season, many gents are rotating their whites back to the front of their wardrobe. In the spirit of this transition, today’s post takes some perhaps recherché inspiration in the 90-year-old pre-Code drama Mandalay.
Written by Austin Parker and Charles Kenyon from a story by Paul Hervey Fox, Mandalay was one of nearly 200 films directed by Michael Curtiz, who used this as a cinematic playground to pioneer what were then cutting-edge techniques like wipes and opticals. The drama begins in Burma (now Myanmar), where the greedily opportunistic Tony Evans (Ricardo Cortez) essentially trades his charming girlfriend Tanya (Kay Francis) to the unscrupulous local nightclub owner Nick (Warner Oland) in exchange for taking on a job running guns for him. Continue reading
Harvey Keitel’s Tan Plaid Sport Suit in Mean Streets
Harvey Keitel in Mean Streets (1973)
Vitals
Harvey Keitel as Charlie Cappa, conflicted Mafia associate
New York, Fall 1972
Film: Mean Streets
Release Date: October 14, 1973
Director: Martin Scorsese
Wardrobe Credit: Norman Salling
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
To celebrate the prolific Harvey Keitel’s 85th birthday, today’s #MafiaMonday post flashes back to the New York-born actor’s first prominent starring performance as the conflicted and connected Charlie Cappa in Martin Scorsese’s breakout feature, Mean Streets. Continue reading
Titanic: David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy
David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy in Titanic (1997)
Vitals
David Warner as Spicer Lovejoy, sinister bodyguard and ex-policeman
North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912
Film: Titanic
Release Date: December 19, 1997
Director: James Cameron
Costume Designer: Deborah Lynn Scott
Tailor: Dominic Gherardi
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
112 years ago tonight on the night of Sunday, April 14, 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the north Atlantic Ocean. The grand ship making its maiden voyage was under the waves less than three hours later, en route the ocean floor as the disaster claimed the lives of more than 1,500 passengers and crew, leaving around 700 survivors scattered in small open boats awaiting rescue.
From the moment headlines broke across the world the following morning through more than a century later, the Titanic disaster has all from historians and experts to the public at large, its legacy kept alive by scores of books and film productions, including a silent film starring real-life survivor Dorothy Gibson filmed just weeks after the sinking, a handful of Hollywood melodramas, a Nazi propaganda film, and the 1958 drama A Night to Remember, still considered by many the definitive fact-based retelling of the disaster.
The first major color production depicting the Titanic sinking aired on ABC in 1979. Through the Queen Mary standing in for the Titanic bore little resemblance to the actual ship, S.O.S. Titanic is remarkable for almost exclusively featuring dramatis personae representing actual passengers and crew, rather than fictionalized characters or composites. One of these was the sharply observant English schoolteacher Lawrence Beesley, who traveled in second class and survived the sinking to pen one of the first written accounts of the disaster which remains a valuable resource among historians and enthusiasts today. Beesley was portrayed in S.O.S. Titanic by David Warner, a talented and prolific stage and screen actor who died in July 2022 at the age of 80—you can read more in my 2023 post about Warner’s tweed Norfolk suit as Mr. Beesley.
The late, great Mr. Warner didn’t restrict his Titanic screen credits to the late ’70s, as he was cast nearly 20 years later in James Cameron’s epic 1997 blockbuster Titanic, which won a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
David Warner starred as the real-life passenger Lawrence Beesley in S.O.S. Titanic (1979) and the fictional Spicer Lovejoy in Titanic (1997).
Jackie Chan in Rush Hour
Jackie Chan in Rush Hour (1998)
Vitals
Jackie Chan as Yan Naing Lee, athletic Hong Kong Police Force detective
Los Angeles, Fall 1997
Film: Rush Hour
Release Date: September 18, 1998
Director: Brett Ratner
Costume Designer: Sharen Davis
Background
Happy 70th birthday, Jackie Chan! Born April 7, 1954 in Hong Kong, Chan grew to fame for his impressive stunts and his ability to blend such acrobatic fighting with comic timing—a skill exemplified throughout the action-packed 1998 buddy comedy Rush Hour, a DVD that my high school friends must have watched dozens of times.
After a Chinese diplomat’s daughter is kidnapped in Los Angeles, the consul calls on a devoted friend from the Hong Kong Police Force to assist the investigation. Unwilling to accept the foreign detective’s help, the FBI passes Inspector Lee off to the LAPD—specifically the loquacious and foolhardy Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker), who resents being tasked with a babysitting assignment. While the feds follow the investigation by-the-book, Tucker’s unorthodox methods and Lee’s familiarity with those involved give the mismatched pair an advantage as they track down Soo Yung’s kidnappers… much to the FBI’s chagrin. Continue reading
Gene Kelly in It’s Always Fair Weather
Gene Kelly in It’s Always Fair Weather (1955)
Vitals
Gene Kelly as Ted Riley, dancing gambler and World War II veteran
New York City, Fall 1955
Film: It’s Always Fair Weather
Release Date: September 2, 1955
Directed by: Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen
Costume Designer: Helen Rose
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy first day of spring! As fairer weather sets in across the Northern Hemisphere, let’s flash back to the 1950s as the marvelously multi-talented Gene Kelly tap-danced on roller-skates in the MGM musical satire It’s Always Fair Weather.
Oppenheimer: Cillian Murphy’s Brown Suits at Los Alamos
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon.
Vitals
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, theoretical physicist and “father of the atomic bomb”
Los Alamos, New Mexico, Spring 1943 through Summer 1945
Film: Oppenheimer
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Director: Christopher Nolan
Costume Designer: Ellen Mirojnick
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released last summer (on my 34th birthday!), Oppenheimer has been deservedly sweeping accolades this year, including seven BAFTAs, five Golden Globes, and 13 Academy Award nominations ahead of the ceremony this Sunday, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Christopher Nolan, a trio of acting nominations, and Best Costume Design for Ellen Mirojnick.
Adapted by Nolan from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography American Prometheus, this epic cinematic portrait of J. Robert Oppenheimer chronicles the prolific physicist’s career from his 1920s studies in Europe through his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II and the ultimate revocation of his security clearance in the 1950s, depicted as the result of Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss’ petty resentment. Continue reading
30 Rock: Leap Day William
Jack McBrayer as Kenneth Parcell, dressed as Leap Day William, on 30 Rock, Episode 6.09: “Leap Day”
Vitals
Leap Day William, as portrayed by Kenneth Parcell (Jack McBrayer), Jim Carrey, and John Cullum
New York City, February 29, 2012
Series: 30 Rock
Episode: “Leap Day” (Episode 6.09)
Air Date: February 23, 2012
Director: Steve Buscemi
Creator: Tina Fey
Costume Designer: Tom Broecker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy Leap Day! Though the concept of a 366th day in the year dates back for millennia, the quadrennial observance of February 29 had long been ignored by movies and TV shows. Enter the alternate universe of 30 Rock, where Leap Day is a beloved holiday with its own traditions that include eating rhubarb and wearing blue and yellow… lest you be greeted with “poke your eye, pull your hair, you forgot what clothes to wear!” Continue reading
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