The Man Who Fell to Earth: David Bowie’s Table Tennis Whites

David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

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David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, ambitious humanoid alien

New Mexico, Summer 1975

Film: The Man Who Fell to Earth
Release Date: March 18, 1976
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Costume Designer: May Routh

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is World Table Tennis Day! For nearly a decade since it was established, WTTD had been celebrated on April 6 until the ITTF Foundation announced that it would be moved this year to April 23, to mark the birthday of Ivor Montagu, founder of the International Table Tennis Federation who organized the first World Table Tennis Championships in 1926. History buffs may also recognize his name as Ivor Montagu was also recruited by Soviet intelligence during World War II, at the same time that his older brother Ewen Montagu was developing the famous Operation Mincemeat on behalf of British intelligence.

Among the many movies that feature table tennis—or ping-pong, if you prefer its onomatopoeiac nomenclature—is The Man Who Fell to Earth, Nicolas Roeg’s surreal science fiction drama based on Walter Tevis’ 1963 novel of the same name. David Bowie stars as the titular Thomas Jerome Newton, a humanoid alien subject to an isolated life in government captivity. Continue reading →

Jack Nicholson in Easy Rider

Jack Nicholson as George Hanson in Easy Rider (1969)

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Jack Nicholson as George Hanson, civil rights attorney

New Mexico to Louisiana, February 1968

Film: Easy Rider
Release Date: July 14, 1969
Director: Dennis Hopper

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today is the 86th birthday of Jack Nicholson, the screen icon who recently [sort of] made headlines—and more than a few memes—after being photographed for the first time in 18 months, proving that not even an octogenarian retiree is spared superficial judgements about appearance.

Nicholson’s prolific career spanned six decades, and his 12 Academy Award nominations establish him as the most nominated male acting nominee in Oscar history. His first nomination recognized his memorable turn in Easy Rider as George Hanson, the easygoing lawyer who joins countercultural bikers Wyatt (Peter Fonda) and Billy (Dennis Hopper) on their freewheeling trek across America. Continue reading →

Mad Men: Kinsey’s 420-Friendly Mohair Cardigan

Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey on Mad Men, Episode 3.03: “My Old Kentucky Home”

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Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey, blowhard advertising copywriter

New York City, Spring 1963

Series: Mad Men
Episode: “My Old Kentucky Home” (Episode 3.03)
Air Date: August 30, 2009
Director: Jennifer Getzinger
Creator: Matthew Weiner
Costume Designer: Janie Bryant

Background

Though Mad Men is typically associated with alcohol, especially in the early seasons set early in the 1960s, the series still included a handful of memorable 420 moments, from Don Draper’s flashback-inducing toke at a Bohemian shindig to when Pete Campbell finally chills out with a much-needed spliff to the tune of Janis Joplin toward the end of the sixth season. But before we get to that point, we have a trio of Sterling Cooper creatives spending their Saturday afternoon trying to smoke their way to success on the Bacardi account in the third-season episode “My Old Kentucky Home”, set sixty years ago in the spring of 1963.

While the senior staff are invited to “work disguised as a party” hosted by Roger Sterling and his new wife Jane, copywriter Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) is among the Sterling Cooper skeleton crew of Smitty Smith (Patrick Cavanaugh) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) stranded in the office on this sunny spring weekend. Continue reading →

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Paul Newman’s Pajamas

Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

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Paul Newman as Brick Pollitt, bitter and repressed ex-athlete

Mississippi, Summer 1958

Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Release Date: August 27, 1958
Director: Richard Brooks
Wardrobe Credit: Helen Rose

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

April 16 is traditionally National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day, designed as a sartorial reprieve after the stress of meeting a late-night deadline to file taxes by April 15. As it felt incongruous to celebrate that “holiday” on a Sunday, I waited until today to celebrate a Hollywood icon who had the good fortune to wear pajamas for the majority of his screen-time in his first Oscar-nominated performance.

Thanks to movies like Somebody Up There Likes Me and The Long, Hot Summer, Paul Newman’s career was on the rise through the late 1950s when he was cast as Brick Pollitt alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the cinematic adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Continue reading →

A Night to Remember: Titanic Passenger Major Peuchen

Robert Ayres as Major Arthur Peuchen in A Night to Remember (1958)

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Robert Ayres as Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, resourceful Canadian industrialist and yachtsman

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Film: A Night to Remember
Release Date: July 3, 1958
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Costume Designer: Yvonne Caffin

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

111 years ago tonight, around 11:40 PM on Sunday, April 12, 1912, RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. The ship would sink in less than three hours, taking more than 1,500 to their death and leaving just over 700 survivors in open boats scattered across the sea, waiting for rescue.

“Women and children first” had the been the standing order of survival as lifeboats were loaded and lowered, first cautiously and then with increasing alarm as those aboard realized the ship’s desperate condition. Unfortunately, there was only room in the lifeboats for about half of those aboard and a fatal combination of initial trepidation among the passengers and restrictive attitudes by some officers responsible loading the boats resulted in most not being filled to capacity.

Nearly half of the survivors were men, though this still translated to only about 20% of the male passengers and crew that had been aboard the liner. One of these men was Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a chemical manufacturer and militia major from Toronto who was three days shy of his 53rd birthday as he sat shivering in lifeboat number 6. Continue reading →

S.O.S. Titanic: David Warner’s Tweed Norfolk Jacket as Lawrence Beesley

David Warner as Lawrence Beesley in S.O.S. Titanic (1979)

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David Warner as Lawrence Beesley, serious and sensitive schoolteacher

North Atlantic Ocean, April 1912

Film: S.O.S. Titanic
Air Date: September 23, 1979
Director: William Hale
Costume Designer: Barbara Lane

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Nearly twenty years before he chased Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet through the flooding corridors of the sinking ship, the late David Warner made his first foray in Titanic cinematic lore in S.O.S. Titanic, a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC in September 1979.

A far cry from the cynical, pistol-packing Spicer Lovejoy, Warner starred as Lawrence Beesley, a real-life passenger who sailed on RMS Titanic during her fateful maiden voyage 111 years ago this week in April 1912. Continue reading →

The Professional: Belmondo’s Blue Leather Jacket

Jean-Paul Belmondo as Joss Beaumont in The Professional/Le Professionnel (1981)

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Jean-Paul Belmondo as Josselin “Joss” Beaumont, vengeful French secret agent specializing in “espionage and brawls”

Paris, Spring 1981

Film: The Professional
(French title: Le Professionnel)
Release Date: October 21, 1981
Director: Georges Lautner
Costume Designer: Paulette Breil

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 90th birthday of Jean-Paul Belmondo, the prolific and popular French star who rose to fame during the New Wave cinematic movement in movies like Breathless and Pierrot le Fou before he was established as a dynamic hero of action and adventure movies. Belmondo actually appeared in a 1984 movie titled Happy Easter, but—despite the egg-cellent holiday today—let’s refocus to three years earlier and Bébel’s iconic action role in The Professional, released in France as Le Professionnel. Continue reading →

Roger Moore’s Ivory Dinner Jacket in Octopussy

Roger Moore and Kristina Wayborn in Octopussy (1983)

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Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Udaipur, India, Spring 1983

Film: Octopussy
Release Date: June 6, 1983
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Emma Porteous
Tailor: Douglas Hayward

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 00-7th of April! Easter weekend feels like the appropriate occasion to celebrate the debonair Roger Moore’s evening-wear for James Bond’s memorable “egg hunt” in his penultimate 007 adventure—the provocatively titled Octopussy, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this June. Continue reading →

Poker Face: Charlie’s Jacquard Cardigan

Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale on Poker Face, Episode 1.01: “Dead Man’s Hand”

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Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, casino cocktail waitress and human lie detector

Nevada, November 2021

Series: Poker Face
Episode: “Dead Man’s Hand” (Episode 1.01)
Air Date: January 26, 2023
Director: Rian Johnson
Creator: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Trayce Gigi Field

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Despite the mysteries that drive each episode, it was no mystery to me that Poker Face would immediately become one of my favorite new shows of 2023. As intended, this case-of-the-week series could softly be described as a modern update to Columbo, with its “howcatchem” structure (rather than the traditional murder-mystery “whodunit”) and a scrappy lead character with an uncanny ability to read people, here brought to life by the amazing Natasha Lyonne, who celebrates her 44th birthday today. Continue reading →

Leslie Howard in The Petrified Forest

Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest (1936)

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Leslie Howard as Alan Squier, itinerant and nihilistic writer “… in a way”

Black Mesa, Arizona, January 1936

Film: The Petrified Forest
Release Date: February 6, 1936
Director: Archie Mayo
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly (uncredited)

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“Petrified Forest, eh? A suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that’s what I’m destined to become… an interesting fossil for future study,” suggests the self-deprecating Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) after he learns more about the surrounding desert region he’s entered after his thumb-powered journey to “set forth and discover America.” Continue reading →