Dillinger (1973): Ben Johnson’s Indigo Chalkstripe Suit as Melvin Purvis

Ben Johnson as Melvin Purvis in Dillinger (1973)

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Ben Johnson as Melvin Purvis, experienced federal agent

Northern Illinois, Winter 1933

Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Depression-era desperado roundup of 1934 which eventually took down the likes of John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and “Baby Face” Nelson began in the last days of 1933 when a 24-man strike force of federal agents and local police surrounded the rented cottage where “Tri-State Terror” Wilbur Underhill was spending his honeymoon with his new bride Hazel Jarrett Hudson… as well as his partner-in-crime Ralph Roe and his girlfriend Eva May Nichols. The subsequent gunfight resulted in one of the women’s deaths and Underhill mortally wounded.

Despite the title character’s removal from these events, John Milius’ 1973 directorial debut Dillinger gets these general circumstances correct, though it relocates the action from outside Shawnee, Oklahoma to “northern Illinois” and places rising FBI star Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson) onsite to single-handedly lead the counterattack against Underhill, silently portrayed by Dillinger‘s cinematographer Jules Brenner. Continue reading →

The Killer Elite: Robert Duvall’s Navy Shacket and Watch Cap

Robert Duvall in The Killer Elite (1975)

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Robert Duvall as George Hansen, mercenary-for-hire

San Francisco, Spring 1975

Film: The Killer Elite
Release Date: December 19, 1975
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Costume Designer: Ray Summers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

My post about the late James Caan’s style in The Killer Elite for the film’s 50th anniversary last month received more attention than I expected, as well as requests to cover his co-star Robert Duvall. So, ahead of Duvall’s 95th birthday tomorrow, let’s look at how he dresses as the double-crossing mercenary George Hansen across The Killer Elite‘s second act.

After betraying his partner Mike Locken (Caan) and leaving him with a crippling bullet to the knee, George has been profiting as a freelance mercenary most recently hired to assassinate a Taiwanese politician visiting the United States. Mike had been out of commission for weeks while recovering from his wound, but his old employer ComTeg finally welcomes him back into the fold—hoping he can foil his former partner’s plot. Continue reading →

Rocky: Sylvester Stallone’s Black Leather Jacket

Sylvester Stallone in Rocky (1976)

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Sylvester Stallone as Robert “Rocky” Balboa, ambitious boxer and mob enforcer

Philadelphia, Fall/Winter 1975

Film: Rocky
Release Date: December 3, 1976
Director: John G. Avildsen
Costumer: Robert Campbel

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy New Year! Fifty years ago tonight, scrappy southpaw Rocky Balboa went the distance against the heavyweight champ, turning a Philadelphia club fighter into an American myth—so, in the spirit of “new year, new you”—let’s punch into the style of Sylvester Stallone’s era-defining breakthrough role. Continue reading →

Blow: A Colorful New Year’s Eve Sport Jacket

Johnny Depp as George Jung in Blow (2001)

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Johnny Depp as George Jung, successful cocaine smuggler

Miami, New Year’s Eve 1979

Film: Blow
Release Date: April 6, 2001
Director: Ted Demme
Costume Designer: Mark Bridges

Background

I’ll be the first to admit my hypocritical cowardice. I’ve written many posts celebrating turtlenecks, but it wasn’t until this year that I truly started embracing them in my personal style, the result of a New Year’s resolution to myself. “What kind of resolution is that?” you might ask. “Didn’t you become a father this year? Why are you worried about turtlenecks?” you may also ask. And I’ll ignore all those questions.

I always had a soft spot for Blow, Ted Demme’s Scorsese-inspired movie following the rise and fall of the late drug dealer “Boston George” Jung, played to trichological perfection by Johnny Depp. Even at the height of George’s success, Depp convincingly sells George as the kind of himbo whose right connections at the right place at the right time converged for him to make millions smuggling cocaine for the Medellín Cartel through the 1970s and ’80s.

During a New Year’s Eve party (scored by KC and the Sunshine Band’s disco hit “Keep It Comin’, Love”), George learns from one of his partners that his old partner Diego Delgado—a thinly veiled stand-in for the real-life Carlos Lehder—has double-crossed him, cutting George out to conduct his own smuggling operations from Norman’s Cay… though it takes George a few beats to comprehend that “Norman Cay” isn’t a person but a place. Continue reading →

The Family Stone: Luke Wilson’s New Plaid Polo Jacket on Christmas Morning

Luke Wilson as Ben Stone in The Family Stone (2005)

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Luke Wilson as Ben Stone, documentary film editor

New England, Christmas 2005

Film: The Family Stone
Release Date: December 16, 2005
Director: Thomas Bezucha
Costume Designer: Shay Cunliffe

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Merry Christmas!

Released twenty years ago this month, The Family Stone (written and directed by Thomas Bezucha) has quietly earned its place in the modern Christmas-movie canon—not through spectacle or sentimentality, but by capturing something far more recognizable: the particular emotional chaos of being home for the holidays with people who know you a little too well.

Already an emotionally demanding watch, The Family Stone feels newly poignant in the wake of Diane Keaton’s death in October 2025 at age 79. Her characteristically stylish, warm yet acerbic, and ultimately devastating performance as the matriarch Sybil Stone has long been the film’s emotional anchor, and revisiting it now adds an unavoidable layer of grief and gratitude to a story already steeped in both.

Headed by the formidable Sybil and her husband Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), the Stones live in the fictional New England town of Thayer, likely somewhere in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley. Each Christmas, their five adult children—and an assortment of significant others—descend on the family home for a few days of overlapping traditions, unresolved resentments, and aggressively honest conversation.

Most families have a Ben. Luke Wilson’s youngest Stone sibling is the laid-back, free-spirited one—sometimes too laid-back, if his two consecutive missed flights are any indication. An excessive stoner even by his liberal New England family’s standards, Ben’s unbothered demeanor ultimately establishes him as the family diplomat: the only one who really gets along with his brother Everett’s tightly wound girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker), gradually thawing her icy, defensive exterior. Continue reading →

Three Days of the Condor: Wicks’ Leather Car Coat and Navy Suit

Michael Kane in Three Days of the Condor (1975)

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Michael Kane as S.W. Wicks, shady CIA section chief

Langley, Virginia to New York City, Winter 1975

Film: Three Days of the Condor
Release Date: September 24, 1975
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Released in September 1975, the Christmas-adjacent spy thriller Three Days of the Condor celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year. Robert Redford stars as the titular “Condor”, the CIA’s codename for its low-level researcher Joe Turner who is the only survivor of a coordinated attack on its deep-cover office in Manhattan.

The massacre is revealed to have been part of an internal conspiracy, involving Turner’s own section chief S.W. Wicks. Though not a prominent character with just a few minutes of screen time across four scenes, Wicks is certainly a significant one and very effectively played by Michael Kane—no, not that Michael Caine—an acclaimed Canadian actor and World War II veteran who died 18 years ago last week on December 14, 2007. Continue reading →

Samuel L. Jackson in The Hateful Eight

Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight (2015)

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Samuel L. Jackson as Maj. Marquis Warren, bounty hunter and veteran Union Army cavalry officer

Wyoming Territory, Winter 1877

Film: The Hateful Eight
Release Date: December 25, 2015
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Courtney Hoffman

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy birthday to Samuel L. Jackson! Born December 21, 1948, the actor hustled for two decades before his breakthrough performance as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction (1994), his first of six collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, and he is currently the highest-grossing actor of all time with his films having collectively grossed more than $27 billion worldwide.

The actor’s most recent prominent role in a QT joint was the wintry western The Hateful Eight, released ten years ago this month on Christmas 2015, and an appropriate watch for tonight’s winter solstice.

Jackson leads the ensemble cast as Major Marquis Warren, a former Union Army cavalry officer now working as a bounty hunter who prides himself on his deadly reputation:

My bounties never hang, ’cause I never bring ’em in alive.

Continue reading →

The Killer Elite: James Caan’s Brown Suede Jacket

James Caan in The Killer Elite (1975)

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James Caan as Mike Locken, government mercenary

San Francisco, Spring 1975

Film: The Killer Elite
Release Date: December 19, 1975
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Costume Designer: Ray Summers

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

The Godfather co-stars and real-life friends James Caan and Robert Duvall reunited as rival mercenaries in The Killer Elite, widely released fifty years ago today on December 19, 1975, following its L.A. premiere two days earlier. Adapted by Marc Norman and Stirling Silliphant from Robert Syd Hopkins novel Monkey in the Middle, the film’s mixed reception hasn’t improved much with age, and Caan himself considered it a dud that he took merely to work with director Sam Peckinpah—even if Peckinpah’s creative control was limited by United Artists.

The Killer Elite takes a lighter, action-oriented hand to the anti-government paranoia that defined ’70s thrillers, capitalizing on the easy chemistry between Caan and Duvall who portray the friends-turned-foes on opposing sides in a San Francisco proxy war. They begin the story as Mike Locken (Caan) and George Hansen (Duvall), colleagues in ComTeg—a private intelligence network often hired by the government. “What’s that? ‘Circumsized Italian Americans’?” Mike jokes when they’re asked if they work for the CIA. Continue reading →

Rob Reiner in This is Spinal Tap

Rob Reiner as Marty Di Bergi in This is Spinal Tap (1984)

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Rob Reiner as Marty Di Bergi, documentary filmmaker

Across the United States, Fall 1982 to Spring 1983

Film: This is Spinal Tap
Release Date: March 2, 1984
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Stylist: Renee Johnston

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

To celebrate the life of the late Rob Reiner following his and his wife Michele’s tragic deaths over the weekend, today’s post turns it up to eleven with his directorial debut: the 1984 mockumentary—if you will, rockumentary—This is Spinal Tap.

As the son of comedy legends Carl and Estelle Reiner, Rob established his own career on the 1970s sitcom All in the Family as Mike “Meathead” Stivic, whose passion for political activism mirrored the actor’s own. “I could win the Nobel Prize and they’d write ‘Meathead wins the Nobel Prize’,” the two-time Emmy-winning Reiner once commented of the nickname’s lasting association. Though he continued to act, Reiner pivoted behind the camera with a prolific and wide-ranging filmography as the director of genre-spanning modern classics like Stand By Me (1986), The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry Met Sally… (1989), Misery (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), and The American President (1995)—adept at everything from rom-coms and courtroom drama to fantasy and suspense.

Designed to satirize more hagiographical music documentaries, This is Spinal Tap popularized—if not effectively launched—the mockumentary: a comedic format that continues to thrive through titles like Abbott Elementary, Borat, Documentary Now!, The Office, Parks & Recreation, and What We Do in the Shadows.

Reiner allows Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer to shine as the fictional metal band Spinal Tap, also appearing on screen as Marty Di Bergi, a filmmaker tasked with chronicling the titular band’s American comeback tour. Continue reading →

The Silent Partner: Elliott Gould’s Navy Blazer at Christmas

Elliott Gould as Miles Cullen in The Silent Partner (1978)

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Elliott Gould as Miles Cullen, mild-mannered bank teller

Toronto, Christmas 1977 to Summer 1978

Film: The Silent Partner
Release Date: September 7, 1978
Director: Daryl Duke
Wardrobe Credit: Debi Weldon

Background

Daryl Duke’s often darkly comic thriller The Silent Partner was just mentioned by Letterboxd among its list of twenty underseen holiday favorites, and you’ll know right from the description if it’s the sort of thing that would interest you: Elliott Gould plays a bank teller (alongside a young John Candy) who foils the robbery plans of a sadistic mall Santa played by Christopher Plummer, pocketing several thousand for himself, only for “Santa” to swear his violent revenge. Continue reading →