Tagged: Classic Hollywood
Bonjour Tristesse: David Niven’s Coral Shirt and Sunglasses
David Niven as Raymond in Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
Vitals
David Niven as Raymond, bon vivant widowed father
French Riviera, Summer 1957
Film: Bonjour Tristesse
Release Date: January 15, 1958
Director: Otto Preminger
Costume Coordinator: Hope Bryce
Background
Secluded for the summer at their villa in the Côte d’Azur, libertine Raymond and his equally free-spirited daughter Cécile (Jean Seberg) enjoy a comfortable and carefree season living la belle vie by the sea. In fact, Raymond and Cécile would have fared quite well had they needed to spend their summer in quarantine, as few outsiders enter their lives aside from whichever mistress (or two) Raymond is entertaining at the moment. These young women are typically no more than a few years older than Cécile, who grows particularly attached to his latest paramour, Elsa (Mylène Demongeot), to the extent that she joins Raymond in waking the vivacious blonde from her nude slumber and helps her apply sunscreen during one of their typical days spent on the beach.
While all may be cordial and close, there’s no getting between the fiercely intimate bond between Cécile and her father, of which Elsa comments: “You do not even need words… the perfect marriage!”
Troy Donahue’s Beach Cardigan in A Summer Place
Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee in A Summer Place (1959)
Vitals
Troy Donahue as Johnny Hunter, college student and “silly sentimentalist”
New England, Spring 1959
Film: A Summer Place
Release Date: November 18, 1959
Director: Delmer Daves
Costume Designer: Howard Shoup
Background
Sixty years after shaking up more genteel audiences with its frank but ultimately tame depictions of adultery and sexuality, A Summer Place may be most widely remembered for its serene theme song. Originally written by Max Steiner, it was Percy Faith’s arrangement of “Theme from A Summer Place” that transformed the instrumental ballad into a #1 hit that took the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record-breaking nine consecutive weeks in early 1960.
The Snows of Kilimanjaro: Gregory Peck’s White Riviera Resortwear
Gregory Peck as Harry Street in Ernest Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
Vitals
Gregory Peck as Harry Street, expatriate writer and former newspaper reporter
French Riviera (Côte d’Azur), Summer 1936
Film: The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Release Date: September 17, 1952
Director: Henry King
Wardrobe Supervisor: Charles Le Maire
Background
Despite its wintry title, The Snows of Kilimanjaro was expanded significantly from Ernest Hemingway’s original short story for Henry King’s lush 1952 cinematic adaptation, featuring plenty of summertime fun in Côte d’Azur during its prewar heyday.
The rest of the world may have been suffering from the Great Depression, but Papa surrogate Harry Street has risen to literary stardom and is now living la belle vie, adrift in the Mediterranean while his latest paramour “Frigid Liz, the semi-iceburg of the semi-tropics” frolics in the warm sea around him. Though lovely, Countess Elizabeth (Hildegard Knef) is hardly the treasured Cynthia (Ava Gardner), and Harry admits he’s only attracted to Liz for her elusive qualities, describing in Papa-esque prose that “she was something to hunt down and trap and capture.”
In addition to today being the birthday of Ernest Hemingway, who entered the world July 21, 1899, today is also my 31st birthday!
Humphrey Bogart in Key Largo
Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on the set of Key Largo (1948)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Frank McCloud, taciturn war veteran and former newspaperman
Key Largo, Florida, Summer 1948
Film: Key Largo
Release Date: July 16, 1948
Director: John Huston
Wardrobe Credit: Leah Rhodes
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released today in 1948, John Huston’s moody noir Key Largo marked the fourth and final of Bogie and Bacall’s on-screen collaborations, closing out their celluloid romance the way it began in To Have and Have Not (1944) with a talent-packed cast (including Dan Seymour as a heavy heavy) in a tropical locale shrouded in shadows, storms, and gunplay. The claustrophobia of our characters’ forced isolation against the looming summer storm outside and the raging tension inside made it particularly impactful viewing during months in lockdown.
From Here to Eternity: Montgomery Clift’s Aloha Shirts
Montgomery Clift as Private Prewitt in From Here to Eternity (1953)
Vitals
Montgomery Clift as Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, U.S. Army bugler and “thirty-year man”
Honolulu, Hawaii, Summer through Fall 1941
Film: From Here to Eternity
Release Date: August 5, 1953
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Costume Designer: Jean Louis
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
April showers are said to bring May flowers, so let’s get into the spirit of the season with the classic floral shirts in From Here to Eternity, an adaptation of James Jones’ novel set on a U.S. Army infantry base in Hawaii during the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Rear Window: James Stewart’s Pajamas
James Stewart and Thelma Ritter in Rear Window (1954)
Vitals
James Stewart as L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, bored photographer
New York City, Summer 1954
Film: Rear Window
Release Date: September 1, 1954
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
April 16 is celebrated as National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day, an observance that many would have considered unthinkable until the spread of the coronavirus pandemic last month found many around the world working from home for the first time, finding comfort in their lounge-wear while struggling with unfamiliar teleconferencing software. The idea of being confined to one’s home in pajamas while a growing terror lurks outside brought one movie to mind: Alfred Hitchcock’s damn-near-perfect thriller Rear Window.
Continue reading
Cary Grant’s Final Screen Tuxedo in That Touch of Mink
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)
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.
Indiscreet: Cary Grant’s Christmas Dressing Gown
Cary Grant as Philip Adams in Indiscreet (1958)
Vitals
Cary Grant as Philip Adams, sophisticated playboy economist
London, Christmas Eve 1957
Film: Indiscreet
Release Date: June 26, 1958
Director: Stanley Donen
Tailor: Quintino
Background
Merry Christmas, BAMF Style readers! In the spirit of the holidays, let’s continue looking at stylish dressers in “Christmas-adjacent” fare by focusing on that most famously elegant icon, Cary Grant, in what was reportedly the actor’s favorite among his own movies.
Stanley Donen’s 1958 romantic comedy Indiscreet reteamed Grant with Ingrid Bergman a dozen years after the two iconic stars had shared the screen in Hitchcock’s spy thriller Notorious (1946), though the suspense of Indiscreet is less a matter of international espionage and more romantic intrigue with Bergman’s character believing herself to be engaged in a clandestine affair with a married man… though Grant’s Philip Adams only pretends to be married to limit his commitments to the women he can’t resist.
The Public Enemy: Cagney’s New Clothes and Car
James Cagney leans on the door of a LaSalle as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931)
Vitals
James Cagney as Tom Powers, dangerous gangster and bootlegger
Chicago, Spring 1920
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
Today is the 86th anniversary of the 21st Amendment that repealed Prohibition, the 13-year ban on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States. Even before Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, the wave of organized crime it inspired across the country was a popular subject for movies of the era, with Warner Brothers taking the lead with hits like Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface that made stars out of intense actors like Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney.
The latter was particularly renowned for his performance in The Public Enemy, a “ripped-from-the-headlines” tour de force of violence based on an unpublished novel written by two former newspapermen who had witnessed firsthand the impact of Al Capone’s brutal stronghold on Chicago during the beer wars of the roaring ’20s.
As #CarWeek continues, let’s flash back to the Prohibition era as Cagney’s Tom Powers hopes to make an impression with his new tailored suits and shiny new touring convertible. Continue reading
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