Tagged: 1930s
Coup de Torchon: Philippe Noiret’s Khaki Uniform
Philippe Noiret in Coup de Torchon (1981)
Vitals
Philippe Noiret as Lucien Cordier, ineffective yet conniving colonial police chief
French West Africa, Summer 1938
Film: Coup de Torchon
(English title: Clean Slate)
Release Date: November 4, 1981
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Moreau
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
For the 12th anniversary of my first-ever BAMF Style post, today’s entry is a labor of love analyzing the style from the French adaptation of one of my favorite novels, Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson. Born 118 years ago tomorrow on September 27, 1906, Thompson specialized in hardboiled crime fiction that has frequently been adapted into movies, including The Getaway, The Grifters, and The Killer Inside Me.
Published sixty years ago in 1964, Pop. 1280 is a darkly comic retread of the themes Thompson explored in The Killer Inside Me, following a southern sheriff whose mild-mannered persona masks his psychopathy. Set during the 1910s, Pop. 1280 is narrated by Nick Corey, the blissfully lazy “high sheriff of Potts County,” the 47th largest in an unnamed state of 47 counties. Nick presents himself as a dimwitted pushover, while secretly manipulating and murdering his way through his friends, family, and mistresses, all while nurturing delusions of being God’s agent sent to punish the sinful town of Pottsville.
Though there are rumors of a future adaptation directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (who seems well-suited for the material), the only major screen adaptation to date is Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon, which earned ten César Award nominations and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 55th Academy Awards.
Adapted by Tavernier and Jean Aurenche, Coup de Torchon maintains the story’s center around a lazy lawman living with his domineering wife and her overly affectionate and slow-witted, uh, “brother”, in a small town where he’s the constant target of bullies, from those in his own household to a boastful fellow lawman who works several towns away. However, the setting is shifted to the fictional French West African town of Bourkessa on the eve of World War II, and the protagonist is reimagined as Lucien Cordier, played by Philippe Noiret, a two-time César Award-winning actor born in Lille on October 1, 1930.
“Doing nothing is my job, I’m paid for it,” Cordier explains to the two snappily dressed pimps who regularly torment him, adding with some earnestness: “At times—not always—I think I’ve found paradise on Earth.” Continue reading
And Then There Were None (2015): Anthony Marston’s Pink Terry Shirt
Douglas Booth as Anthony Marston in And Then There Were None (2015)
Vitals
Douglas Booth as Anthony Marston, irresponsible socialite
Devon, England, August 1939
Series Title: And Then There Were None
Air Date: December 26-28, 2015
Director: Craig Viveiros
Costume Designer: Lindsay Pugh
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
A recent rewatch of the 2015 BBC One series And Then There Were None brought to mind the exquisite parade of interesting menswear designed by Lindsay Pugh for the half-dozen gents summoned to the mysterious Soldier Island off the coast of Devon. The series is set during a late summer weekend in August 1939 on the brink of World War II, a specter that hauntingly looms over the darkly faithful series which is the first English-language adaptation to restore Agatha Christie’s original ending.
The story centers around ten strangers—eight guests and a married couple to serve as their staff—invited to the island by the enigmatic U.N. Owen, whom it is quickly established none of the ten have ever met… nor will they meet him, as their unknown host only makes his presence known by a recording accusing each of the ten of murder. All but two of the attendees respond with horrified denials, with the roguish adventurer Philip Lombard (Aidan Turner) and brash socialite Anthony Marston (Douglas Booth) being the only two to instantly own up to their past crimes. Continue reading
Dillinger (1973): Harry Dean Stanton’s Raccoon Coat as a Doomed Homer Van Meter
Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter in Dillinger (1973)
Vitals
Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter, doomed and desperate Depression-era bandit
Wisconsin, Spring 1934
Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George
Background
Ninety years ago today in the late afternoon of Sunday, August 23, 1934, a 28-year-old named Homer Van Meter was rushing to keep an appointment in St. Paul, Minnesota. The tall, slender Hoosier nicknamed “Wayne” had been arrested multiple times and was currently wanted for the string of armed robberies and murders committed during his tenure with the infamous John Dillinger gang, which had all but crumbled after its eponymous leader was killed in Chicago a month and a day earlier.
The saga of the Dillinger gang continues to inspire an abundance of books and films, including the fiercely entertaining 1973 movie Dillinger. Written and directed by John Milius in his directorial debut, Dillinger dramatizes the facts and folks associated with the gang, benefiting from the involvement of Clarence Hurt, a retired FBI agent who was part of ace agent Melvin Purvis’ team and present when Dillinger was killed in July 1934.
Led by Warren Oates and Ben Johnson as Dillinger and Purvis, respectively, Dillinger‘s cast includes some of the most recognizable and reliable supporting players of the ’70s filling out the ranks of Dillinger’s gang, including Steve Kanaly, Geoffrey Lewis, John P. Ryan, a young Richard Dreyfuss as “Baby Face” Nelson, and Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter. Continue reading
Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition
Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition (2002)
Vitals
Tom Hanks as Michael Sullivan, recently widowed Irish mob enforcer and dedicated father
The Midwest, Winter 1931
Film: Road to Perdition
Release Date: July 12, 2002
Director: Sam Mendes
Costume Designer: Albert Wolsky
Tailor: John David Ridge
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
“Natural law… sons were put on this earth to trouble their fathers,” avuncular mob boss John Rooney (Paul Newman) advises his top enforcer Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks) at a time that both men are facing crises with their respective sons.
Father’s Day feels like the appropriate time to celebrate the style from this unorthodox role for America’s Dad. Tom Hanks pivoted from a career built on playing affable heroes and everymen to a dangerous Depression-era mob hitman in Road to Perdition, Sam Mendes’ 2002 drama adapted by screenwriter David Self from a graphic novel series of the same name by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner. 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
Bonnie and Clyde (1967): Warren Beatty’s “Air Ties” and Vests
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
Vitals
Warren Beatty as Clyde Barrow, Depression-era bank robber and gang leader
Across the American South and Midwest, Spring 1932 to 1934
Film: Bonnie & Clyde
Release Date: August 13, 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Background
Ninety years ago today on the morning of May 23, 1934, a light-gray Ford V-8 sedan traveling northeast on a rural Louisiana highway slowed as it approached a truck stopped by the side of the road. Suddenly, volleys of rifle fire peppered the car, obliterating the young couple in the front seat. After an estimated 167 rounds were fired, a half-dozen lawmen emerged from their ambush positions and approached the Ford, in which wanted outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were now unquestionably dead.
Despite their bloody crime spree that left at least a dozen men dead, Bonnie and Clyde captivated the fascination of a Depression-era public that often celebrated the exploits of contemporary outlaws like John Dillinger and “Pretty Boy” Floyd. The scrappy couple was hardly as criminally capable as their fellow “Public Enemies”, but Clyde’s remarkable ability to escape police traps and Bonnie’s frequent involvement added a romantic element that made them a newspaper favorite, especially after the discovery of undeveloped photos depicting the Barrow gang at play, including Bonnie smoking one of Clyde’s cigars—crafting a public image she would greatly resent—and holding him at gunpoint with one of the gang’s cut-down shotguns.
Among the many photos found at the gang’s abandoned Joplin, Missouri hideout after an April 1933 gunfight was this snapshot of Clyde and Bonnie in front of one of their many stolen Ford V-8 coupes, likely photographed earlier that year by their teenage gang member W.D. Jones. In the 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway posed in a similar manner, but this reenactment didn’t make the final cut.
The frequent news coverage during their lifetime ensured that Bonnie and Clyde wouldn’t be quickly forgotten after their deaths, inspiring a string of “couple of the run” crime movies like You Only Live Once (1937) and the films noir They Live By Night (1948) and Gun Crazy (1950). The couple’s story formed the basis for the highly fictionalized The Bonnie Parker Story, an exploitative 1958 quickie from American International Pictures starring Dorothy Provine as the “cigar-smoking hellcat of the roaring thirties” and Jack Hogan as her simping partner-in-crime, uh, “Guy Darrow”.
The outlaw couple would be immortalized on screen after the release of Bonnie & Clyde in 1967, produced by Warren Beatty who also starred as Clyde opposite newcomer Faye Dunaway as a redoubtable Bonnie Parker. Continue reading
Stavisky: Belmondo’s 1970s-Does-1930s Gray Chalkstripe Suit
Jean-Paul Belmondo in Stavisky… (1974)
Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Serge Alexandre Stavisky, debonair Russian-born French financier, impresario, and embezzler
Paris, Summer to Fall 1933
Film: Stavisky…
Release Date: May 15, 1974
Director: Alain Resnais
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Moreau
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
After a series of well-acclaimed and unconventionally presented films, Alain Resnais’ sixth feature Stavisky… was released 50 years ago today, starring the late Jean-Paul Belmondo as the famous financial fraudster Serge Alexandre Stavisky who made a fortune selling worthless bonds in interwar-era France. Continue reading
Lassiter: Tom Selleck’s Herringbone Blouson
Tom Selleck in Lassiter (1984)
Vitals
Tom Selleck as Nick Lassiter, debonair jewel thief
London, June 1939
Film: Lassiter
Release Date: February 17, 1984
Director: Roger Young
Costume Designer: Barbara Lane
Background
Released 40 years ago today, Lassiter was one of a pair of back-to-back period-set adventure films in which Tom Selleck starred at the height of his stardom on Magnum, P.I.
Perhaps Selleck was looking to make up for the missed opportunity when his commitment to Magnum, P.I. forced him to turn down the chance to be Indiana Jones before the role went to Harrison Ford, as both High Road to China (a 1920s-set aviation adventure) and Lassiter (set on the eve of World War II) echo the roguish yet risk-averse hero epitomized by Dr. Jones.
Lassiter centers around the titular Nick Lassiter, an American “gentleman thief” living the high life in London in June 1939. A joint task force led by Scotland Yard and the FBI recruit Lassiter to locate and steal a cache of $10 million in diamonds that the Nazis intend to sell to support their espionage efforts and plans for war. Of course, perhaps suspecting that law enforcement has additional plans for him after he’s served his purpose for them, Lassiter arranges a few twists of his own—including a gambit right out of The Sting. Continue reading
Cary Grant in His Girl Friday
Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (1940)
Vitals
Cary Grant as Walter Burns, fast-talking newspaper editor
Chicago*, Fall 1939**
Film: His Girl Friday
Release Date: January 18, 1940
Director: Howard Hawks
Costume Designer: Robert Kalloch
Background
Today is the 120th anniversary of when screen legend and style icon Cary Grant was born on January 18, 1904. One of the prolific actor’s most memorable films, His Girl Friday, was released on his 36th birthday in 1940. Continue reading
Jimmy Stewart’s Christmas Cardigan in The FBI Story
James Stewart in The FBI Story (1959)
Vitals
James Stewart as John “Chip” Hardesty, earnest FBI agent
Chicago, Christmas 1933
Film: The FBI Story
Release Date: October 1959
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Costume Designer: Adele Palmer
Background
While Jimmy Stewart’s cinematic Christmas creds are primarily as the troubled protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life, more than a decade later we’re treated to a brief holiday sequence in The FBI Story.
Essentially a feature-length dramatization propagating the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s role in quelling all American lawlessness across the first half of the 20th century, the once-obscure The FBI Story has been the subject of some renewed interest as it had been the first major production to depict the Osage murders of the 1920s that were recently at the center of Martin Scorsese’s epic Killers of the Flower Moon.
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