John Hannah’s Norfolk Suits as Lusitania Passenger Ian Holbourn

John Hannah in Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea (2007)

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John Hannah as Ian Holbourn, English-born professor, writer, and Scottish laird

RMS Lusitania in the North Atlantic Ocean, off the Irish coast, May 1915

Film: Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea
(Original title: Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic)
Air Date: May 12, 2007
Director: Christopher Spencer
Costume Designer: Diana Cilliers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

110 years ago today on the afternoon of Friday, May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania was steaming east toward its destination port of Liverpool when a German U-boat fired a torpedo that struck the Cunard ship on its starboard side. Less than 20 minutes later, the grand 787-foot-long ship was on its way to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in a disaster that would claim the lives of nearly 1,200 of its 1,960 passengers and crew.

Although the Lusitania was indeed a passenger liner, the Imperial German Embassy had just issued an official warning that any ship flying the flag of England or her allies was subject to a German attack. This open statement of aggression from the German government has resulted in lingering conspiracies that the British government had intentionally sailed the Lusitania through dangerous waters to provoke a German attack and lure the United States into war. Though these theories have been generally discredited, the deaths of 128 Americans who were aboard the liner has been cited as a significant factor in the U.S. ultimately entering World War I against Germany.

Unlike the famous sinking of the RMS Titanic three years earlier, the Lusitania victims were less determined by chance than a mix of luck and “survival of the fittest”, with the odds favoring able-bodied swimmers who were either on deck or able to quickly reach it during the 18 minutes that it took the liner to founder.

Despite the drama, scale, and significance of its sinking that took 1,197 lives, the Lusitania disaster has yet to be prominently portrayed on screen, save for a docudrama that first aired on the Discovery Channel in May 2007. Originally titled Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic, the 90-minute production’s recognizable cast includes Kenneth Cranham as the ship’s captain William Turner and John Hannah as Ian Holbourn, an Anglo-Scotsman professor who was returning to his home on the remote Shetland island of Foula after a lecture tour of the United States. Missing his own sons who were at home with his wife, Holbourn befriended the homesick 12-year-old Avis Dolphin (Madeleine Garrood), a fellow second-class passenger.

The real John Bernard Stoughton “Ian” Holbourn (1872-1935), pictured as he would have looked shortly before the Lusitania disaster.

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The Handmaiden: Ha Jung-woo’s Tan Solaro Suit as Count Fujiwara

Ha Jung-woo as Count Fujiwara in The Handmaiden (2016)

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Ha Jung-woo as Count Fujiwara, conniving con artist

Japanese-occupied Korea, Summer 1930

Film: The Handmaiden
(Korean title: 아가씨)
Release Date: June 1, 2016
Director: Park Chan-wook
Costume Designer: Jo Sang-gyeong

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Considered one of the best South Korean movies of all time, The Handmaiden premiered nine years ago this month during the 69th Cannes Film Festival in May 2016, just weeks before it was released to theaters on June 1st. Director and co-screenwriter Park Chan-wook was inspired by Sarah Waters’ 2002 novel Fingersmith, reimagining the setting from Victorian-era England to Japanese-occupied Korea in the years leading up to World War II.

The eponymous handmaiden is Nam Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri), a Korean pickpocket recruited by the smooth con artist known as “Count Fujiwara” (Ha Jung-woo) to work for the aloof Japanese heiress Izumi Hideko (Kim Min-hee), helping the Count gain Hideko’s favor so she ultimately agree to marry him—only for him to commit her to an asylum and inherit her fortune. Continue reading →

A Matter of Life and Death: David Niven’s Houndstooth Jacket

David Niven in A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

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David Niven as Squadron Leader Peter David Carter, charismatic Royal Air Force pilot

Southern English Coast, Spring 1945

Film: A Matter of Life and Death
Release Date: November 1, 1946
Directed by: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
Costume Designer: Hein Heckroth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Powell and Pressburger’s marvelous Technicolor fantasty-romance A Matter of Life and Death begins eighty years ago today, “the night of the second of May, 1945.”

Less than a week until the German surrender that effectively ended the European theater of World War II, a Lancaster bomber is returning through the fog over the English Channel after a Royal Air Force mission over Germany that resulted in the aircraft’s terminal damage. His radio operator dead and the rest of the crew bailed out on his orders, the poetic Squadron Leader Peter David Carter (David Niven) sits alone at the controls, communicating to the charming U.S. Army Air Forces technician June (Kim Hunter), who attempts in vain to reassure the pilot while he offers his own reassurance that he isn’t afraid to meet whatever awaits him:

Hello, June, don’t be afraid. It’s quite simple—we’ve had it, and I’d rather jump than fry. After the first thousand feet, what’s the difference? I shan’t know anything anyway. I say, I hope I haven’t frightened you… you’ve got a good voice, you’ve got guts, too! It’s funny, I’ve known dozens of girls—I’ve been in love with some of them—but an American girl who I’ve never seen, who I never shall see, will hear my last words. It’s funny. It’s rather sweet! June, if you’re around when they pick me up, turn your head away.

With his own parachute damaged and the Lancaster hurtling toward a fiery fate, Peter stoically accepts the inevitability of death (“I’ll be a ghost and come and see you! You’re not frightened of ghosts, are you? It’d be awful if you were.”) and relays a few final messages for June to pass along to his mother and sisters before bailing from the craft. Continue reading →

Niagara: Joseph Cotten in Shades of Gray

Joseph Cotten as George Loomis in Niagara (1953)

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Joseph Cotten as George Loomis, former sheep rancher and Korean War veteran

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Summer 1952

Film: Niagara
Release Date: January 21, 1953
Director: Henry Hathaway
Costume Designer: Dorothy Jeakins

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

One of 20th Century Fox’s biggest box-office hits of 1953, Niagara is one of the most accessible movies to be described with the seemingly oxymoronic “color noir,” blending elements of dark film noir with stunning three-strip Technicolor, photographed by cinematographer Joseph MacDonald.

The action is set at picturesque Niagara Falls—specifically on the Canadian side, though the American side became New York’s first state park 140 years ago today when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation on April 30, 1885. The tradition of newlyweds journeying to Niagara Falls dates back to at least 1801, when Aaron Burr’s daughter Theodesia joined her new husband Joseph Alston at the falls.

The destination’s self-dubbed reputation as the “Honeymoon Capital of the World” inspired producer Charles Brackett, who co-wrote the script for Niagara with Richard Breen and Walter Reisch. The story centers around the honeymooning Cutlers—Ray (Max Showalter) and Polly (Jean Peters)—who arrive at the Rainbow Cabins, only to find their reserved suite still occupied by George Loomis (Joseph Cotten) and his sultry wife Rose (Marilyn Monroe), who explains to the couple that George was recently discharged from an Army mental hospital. Continue reading →

Midnight Mary: Ricardo Cortez’s 1930s Tuxedo

Ricardo Cortez in Midnight Mary (1933)

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Ricardo Cortez as Leo Darcy, sociopathic gangster

New York, Spring 1933

Film: Midnight Mary
Release Date: June 30, 1933
Director: William A. Wellman
Costume Designer: Adrian (gowns)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

When Midnight Mary was streaming on the Criterion Channel last year, I was impressed not just by the well-tailored costumes worn by its male characters on both sides of the law but also the amount of dialogue within this 74-minute pre-Code classic dedicated to discussing menswear, whether that’s a a lawyer’s butler modeling his new dressing gown or an underworld mook fishing for positive feedback about his new tuxedo only to receive conflicting criticism about the length of his jacket.

The movie centers around the titular Mary Martin (Loretta Young), whose hard life as an orphaned young girl led to her acquaintanceship with the smooth-talking gangster Leo Darcy (Ricardo Cortez) by her late teens. One of the most popular actors of pre-Code Hollywood, Cortez died 48 years ago today on April 28, 1977. Continue reading →

The Panic in Needle Park: Al Pacino’s Deck Jacket and Layers

Al Pacino and Kitty Winn in The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

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Al Pacino as Bobby, desperate drug addict

New York City, Fall 1970

Film: The Panic in Needle Park
Release Date: July 13, 1971
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Costume Designer: Jo Ynocencio

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

On Al Pacino’s 85th birthday, let’s look back at the Manhattan-born actor’s first leading screen role that launched his prolific career.

Born April 25, 1940, Pacino studied acting through the ’60s at the HB Studio and Actors Studio, which led to a handful of acclaimed stage roles. His manager, Martin Bregman, then helped him land what would become his breakout film performance as hustler and heroin addict Bobby in The Panic in Needle Park, directed by Bregman’s fellow client Jerry Schatzberg, a photographer who had just completed his directorial debut Puzzle of a Downfall Child.

“I had made my theater bones playing these types of street characters, so I was grateful to have that choice for a first film,” Pacino later recalled in his 2024 memoir Sonny Boy. “The Panic in Needle Park turned out to be a showcase for me. It’s still lauded today, and Jerry Schatzberg did such a magnificent job.”

Written by John Didion and John Gregory Dunne, The Panic in Needle Park centers around Bobby and his girlfriend Helen (Kitty Winn), navigating their worsening heroin addictions among a network of fellow junkies whose presence in a section of New York’s Upper West Side resulted in the titular “Needle Park” nickname. Continue reading →

The Departed: Jack Nicholson’s Seersucker Sport Jacket

Jack Nicholson as Frank Costello in The Departed (2006)

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Jack Nicholson as Francis “Frank” Costello, sadistic Irish-American mob boss

Boston, Spring 2007

Film: The Departed
Release Date: October 6, 2006
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Sandy Powell

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

With 12 Academy Award nominations (and three wins), today’s birthday boy Jack Nicholson remains the most-nominated male actor in Oscar history. Following a prolific career that began in the late 1950s, Nicholson delivered one final characteristically intense performance in The Departed (2006), his first—and, given his decades-long retirement from acting, only—collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. Continue reading →

Ten Little Indians: Hugh O’Brian’s Three-Piece Tuxedo as Lombard

Hugh O’Brian in Ten Little Indians (1965)

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Hugh O’Brian as Hugh Lombard, romantic adventurer

Austrian Alps, Winter 1965

Film: Ten Little Indians
Release Date: September 10, 1965
Director: George Pollock
Wardrobe Credit: John McCorry

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

American movie and TV actor Hugh O’Brian was born 100 years ago today on April 19, 1925.

During World War II, the teenage Hugh Krampe followed his father’s footsteps and joined the U.S. Marine Corps, becoming the youngest drill instructor in the branch’s history. While a young recruit at Camp Pendleton, Hugh participated in a boxing match refereed by none other than John Wayne, who was shooting a film nearby. More than three decades later, the two actors’ paths would cross again when Hugh appeared in Duke’s final film, The Shootist (1976), portraying the last character that John Wayne would shoot on screen.

After his discharge from the Marines, Sgt. Krampe embarked on an acting career initially marred by misspellings. When a program incorrectly spelled his name as “Hugh Krape”, the young actor decided to avoid even more embarrassing clerical errors and took his mother’s maiden name O’Brien as his last name; when even this was misspelled as “O’Brian”, the re-christened actor shrugged and stuck with it. It was thus as Hugh O’Brian that he rose to fame portraying the title character in 229 episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp on ABC, establishing himself as a strapping and charismatic leading man.

O’Brian was a substantial enough star by the mid-1960s to command the “Tony Danza treatment” when he was cast in British filmmaker Harry Alan Towers’ first of three increasingly ill-advised adaptations of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery novel And Then There Were None; Christie had named one of the ten strangers Philip Lombard, though O’Brian’s casting evidently prompted someone to rechristen the character as Hugh Lombard. Continue reading →

The Towering Inferno: William Holden’s Red Silk Dinner Jacket

William Holden in The Towering Inferno (1974)

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William Holden as James Duncan, commercial real estate developer

San Francisco, Summer 1974

Film: The Towering Inferno
Release Date: December 14, 1974
Director: John Guillermin
Costume Designer: Paul Zastupnevich

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Born 107 years ago today on April 17, 1918, charismatic actor William Holden was one of the biggest stars of the 1950s with landmark performances in Sunset Blvd. (1950), Stalag 17 (1953), Sabrina (1954), and The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957).

Though his screen presence continued into the next decade, Holden revitalized his career as the grizzled lead in Sam Peckinpah’s violent revisionist Western The Wild Bunch (1969), which led to several prominent roles through the 1970s—including Clint Eastwood’s artful romance Breezy (1973) and his final Oscar-nominated turn in Sidney Lumet’s media satire Network (1976).

Between those films, Holden joined the star-studded ensemble of The Towering Inferno (1974), Irwin Allen’s fiery follow-up to The Poseidon Adventure that earned eight Academy Award nominations—including Best Picture. And what better way to celebrate this fire-sign icon’s April 17th birthday than spotlighting his standout wardrobe in a disaster epic that quite literally turns up the Aries heat? Continue reading →

The White Lotus: Lochlan’s Tombolo “Reptile Dysfunction” Full Moon Party Shirt

Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff on The White Lotus, Episode 3.04: “Hide or Seek”. Photo credit: Fabio Lovino.

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Sam Nivola as Lochlan Ratliff, timid and self-questioning high school senior

Ko Pha-ngan, Thailand, Spring 2024

Series: The White Lotus
Episodes:
– “Hide or Seek” (Episode 3.04, aired 3/9/2025)
– “Full-Moon Party” (Episode 3.05, aired 3/16/2025)
– “Denials” (Episode 3.06, aired 3/23/2025)
Director: Mike White
Creator: Mike White
Costume Designer: Alex Bovaird

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

This weekend, revelers gathered on the Thai island of Ko Pha-ngan for the monthly Full Moon Party, a celebration that coincided this month with the start of Songkran—the vibrant three-day festival observing the Thai New Year. While the April Full Moon Party is often the biggest of the year for this reason, the 2025 celebration is especially significant as it markst he 40th anniversary of the first Full Moon Party on Haad Rin Beach in 1985.

The intersection of Songkran and the Full Moon Party was depicted on the most recent season of The White Lotus, which ended last Sunday. While most characters from the ensemble cast were removed from the central Songkran action, the privileged Ratliff brothers Lochlan (Sam Nivola) and Saxon (Patrick Schwarzenegger) joined their new friends Chelsea (Aimee Lou Wood) and Chloe (Charlotte Le Bon) on the island for a night of neon-lit chaos and self-discovery.

Among The White Lotus‘ characteristically excellent ensemble cast, the third season offered a breakout performance for 21-year-old Sam Nivola as Lochlan, the shy youngest sibling navigating the uncertain space between adolescence and adulthood and the masculine and feminine forces in his family. Continue reading →