Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Leo’s Brown Leather Jacket

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Vitals

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, washed-up TV actor

Los Angeles, February 1969

Film: Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Release Date: July 26, 2019
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Arianne Phillips

Background

Now that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood has been released on video and streaming services, I wanted to get cracking on the much-requested to cover Arianne Phillips’ fantastic costume design that brought the end of the swinging ’60s to life. Phillips’ costume design is one of ten categories for which Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a contender at the Academy Awards this Sunday, in addition to nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt.

As Pitt’s yellow Aloha shirt and jeans was already the subject of a BAMF Style “preview” post last summer (with a more robust post to come, I assure you!), I wanted to turn my attention to Rick Dalton, the fading star of TV westerns who’s forced to admit at the start of the movie:

It’s official, old buddy. I’m a has-been.

Continue reading →

Tony Soprano’s Red Knit Polo Shirts

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 3.09: "The Telltale Moozadell")

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano on The Sopranos (Episode 3.09: “The Telltale Moozadell”)

Vitals

James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano, New Jersey mob boss

New Jersey, Winter 2000-2002

Series: The Sopranos
Episodes:
– “Nobody Knows Anything” (Episode 1.11, dir. Henry J. Bronchtein, aired 3/21/1999)
– “The Telltale Moozadell” (Episode 3.09, dir. Dan Attias, aired 4/22/2001)
– “Pine Barrens” (Episode 3.11, dir. Steve Buscemi, aired 5/6/2001)
– “Whoever Did This” (Episode 4.09, dir. Tim Van Patten, aired 11/10/2002)
Creator: David Chase
Costume Designer: Juliet Polcsa

Background

Let’s kick off the first 2020 post about James Gandolfini’s expansive wardrobe on The Sopranos by looking ahead this week to Wear Red Day, the American Heart Association’s annual observance on the first Friday of each February that encourages people to wear red to show their support for the awareness of heart disease. Continue reading →

It Started in Naples: Clark Gable’s Taupe Suit

Clark Gable as Mike Hamilton in It Started in Naples (1960)

Clark Gable as Mike Hamilton in It Started in Naples (1960)

Vitals

Clark Gable as Michael Hamilton, Philadelphia lawyer and World War II veteran

Naples to Capri, Italy, Late Summer 1959

Film: It Started in Naples 
Release Date: August 7, 1960
Director: Melville Shavelson
Costume Designer: Orietta Nasalli-Rocca

Background

Screen legend Clark Gable was born 119 years ago today on February 1, 1901, the start of a storied life that included an Academy Award for It Happened One Night (1934), acclaimed performances in iconic movies like Gone with the Wind (1939) and Mogambo (1953), and decorated service with the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. While The Misfits (1961) co-starring Marilyn Monroe was Gable’s final film to be theatrically released, It Started in Naples was his final performance released during his lifetime. Continue reading →

Magnum, P.I.: Green Star Orchid Aloha Shirt

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum in a promotional shot for Magnum, P.I.

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum in a promotional shot for Magnum, P.I.

Vitals

Tom Selleck as Thomas Magnum, private investigator and former Navy SEAL

Hawaii, Spring 1980 to Summer 1981

Series: Magnum, P.I.
Episodes:
– “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii, Part 1″ (Episode 1.01, dir. Roger Young, aired 12/11/1980)
– “The Ugliest Dog in Hawaii” (Episode 1.08, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 1/29/1981)
– “Thicker Than Blood” (Episode 1.12, dir. Lawrence Doheny, aired 2/26/1981)
– “Billy Joe Bob” (Episode 2.01, dir. Ray Austin, aired 10/8/1981)
– “The Taking of Dick McWilliams” (Episode 2.10, dir. Winrich Kolbe, aired 12/1/1981
– “The Arrow That Is Not Aimed” (Episode 3.14, dir. James Frawley, aired 1/27/1983)
Creator: Donald P. Bellisario & Glen Larson
Costume Designer: Charles Waldo (credited with first season only)
Costume Supervisor: James Gilmore

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 75th birthday of Tom Selleck, who starred for eight seasons as the titular private eye, er, “investigator” on Magnum, P.I. Continue reading →

Paul Newman’s Glenurquhart Plaid Suit in The Color of Money

Paul Newman as "Fast Eddie" Felson in The Color of Money (1986)

Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson in The Color of Money (1986)

Vitals

Paul Newman as “Fast Eddie” Felson, liquor salesman and former pool hustler

Chicago, Spring 1986

Film: The Color of Money
Release Date: October 17, 1986
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

Background

Today would have been the 95th birthday of Paul Newman, the acclaimed actor, philanthropist, entrepreneur and motorsports enthusiast. Over his legendary career that spanned more than half a century, Newman’s sole Academy Award for acting recognized his performance in The Color of Money (1986), in which he reprised the role of “Fast Eddie” Felson that he had originated on screen in The Hustler (1961). Continue reading →

Django Reinhardt: Cream Suit on Stage

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt in Django (2017)

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt in Django (2017)

Vitals

Reda Kateb as Django Reinhardt, gypsy jazz guitar virtuoso

Paris, Summer 1943

Film: Django
Release Date: April 26, 2017
Director: Étienne Comar
Costume Designer: Pascaline Chavanne

Background

My interest in Django Reinhardt’s music began in the spring of 2004, when 14-year-old me eagerly purchased Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, a computer game that was essentially the Grand Theft Auto series with a Prohibition-era twist and a dash of Scorsese-ese inspiration. Set in 1930s New Jersey, the game was scored by period music including familiar favorites by Duke Ellington and a style that was all new to me, the rhythmic, guitar-driven gypsy jazz pioneered by Django Reinhardt. Continue reading →

Gun Crazy: John Dall’s Tweed Jacket

John Dall as Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (1950)

John Dall as Bart Tare in Gun Crazy (1950)

Vitals

John Dall as Bart Tare, armed robber on the run

San Lorenzo Valley, California, Fall 1949, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, Spring 1950

Film: Gun Crazy
(also released as Deadly is the Female)
Release Date: January 20, 1950
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Costume Designer: Norma Koch (credited with Peggy Cummins’ costumes only)

Background

Fifteen years after armed robbers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were ambushed and killed on a rural Louisiana road, one of the first attempts to adapt their story for the silver screen arrived in theaters. Sure, there had been Fritz Lang’s sympathetic melodrama You Only Live Once (1937) and the FBI-endorsed propaganda Persons in Hiding (1939), but Gun Crazy—released exactly 70 years ago today—most effectively latched onto the intrigue of a gun-toting couple on the run, and, “more than any other, emphasizes the powerful attraction of weaponry in the growing legend of Bonnie and Clyde,” according to John Treherne, author of The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde.

Gun Crazy‘s telling original title of Deadly is the Female reflects the narrative leaning into the noir-esque premise of a dominating femme fatale, an expert in firearms who seduces her lovestruck fella into a life of crime… an inverse of the generally accepted reality of the relationship between violent manipulator Clyde Barrow and the vulnerable and troubled Bonnie Parker.

A year after his chilling turn as the calculating, Loeb-like murderer in Hitchcock’s Rope, John Dall stars as the malleable Bart Tare, who finds himself fatefully—and fatally—drawn to the voluptuous carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), “the darling of London, England,” though it’s a toss-up whether it’s her tight pants, knowing wink, or dueling pistols that sink the hook into the already doomed Bart. Continue reading →

Cary Grant’s Final Screen Tuxedo in That Touch of Mink

Cary Grant and Doris Day in That Touch of Mink (1962)

Cary Grant and Doris Day in That Touch of Mink (1962)

Vitals

Cary Grant as Philip Shayne, smooth, sophisticated, and suave investment executive and “perfect gentleman”

Bermuda, Spring 1962

Film: That Touch of Mink
Release Date: June 14, 1962
Director: Delbert Mann
Tailor: Cardinal Clothes (credited “for Cary Grant’s suits”)

Background

To commemorate the birthday of Cary Grant, born on this day in 1904, let’s celebrate the debonair actor who was seemingly born to wear a tuxedo. After three decades of a well-tailored career, the erstwhile Archie Leach sported his final on-screen dinner suit in the romantic comedy That Touch of Mink released in 1962, the same year as the first James Bond movie was released, thus heralding the transfer of the definitive screen dinner suit-wearer to 007. Continue reading →

Cagney’s Chalkstripe Suit in The Public Enemy

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)

James Cagney as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)

Vitals

James Cagney as Tom Powers, dangerous gangster and bootlegger

Chicago, Spring 1922

Film: The Public Enemy
Release Date: April 23, 1931
Director: William A. Wellman
Costume Designer: Edward Stevenson
Wardrobe Credit: Earl Luick

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One hundred years ago at midnight tonight, on January 17, 1920, the Volstead Act went into effect, beginning a 13-year prohibition of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States… and kicking off what Herbert Asbury referred to in his informal history of the Chicago underworld as “the saturnalia of crime and corruption which has been called ‘a noble experiment’,” due to the resulting surge in organized crime that effectively gave rise to the modern gangster.

As moving pictures evolved as a popular medium in the waning years of Prohibition, so too did the gangster movie. Warner Brothers took the lead, exposing audiences to snarling violent hoodlums based on the real-life criminals who bloodied the streets of New York and Chicago. It was in the 1931 hit The Public Enemy that James Cagney made his star-making turn as the psychopathic gangster Tom Powers.

Continue reading →

Wild Card: Jason Statham’s Black Leather Jacket

Jason Statham as Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

Jason Statham as Nick Wild in Wild Card (2015)

Vitals

Jason Statham as Nick Wild, bodyguard-for-hire

Las Vegas, Christmas 2013

Film: Wild Card
Release Date: January 14, 2015
Director: Simon West
Costume Designer: Lizz Wolf

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Following a request I received via my Instagram account last November, today’s post explores the Jason Statham action thriller Wild Card, coincidentally released five years ago today. The movie was a remake of the 1986 movie Heat starring Burt Reynolds and adapted by William Goldman from his own novel, not to be confused with Michael Mann’s heist epic released nine years later.

Despite Wild Card‘s less than stellar reviews and box office returns, it was an interesting experience, watching a familiar and eclectic cast through a movie that took a surprisingly understated approach for an era where action movies tend to rely on excessive CGI and explosive value, weaving through various genres and plot directions with our taciturn protagonist. Continue reading →