Tagged: Commando sweater

Richard Attenborough in The Great Escape

Richard Attenborough in The Great Escape (1963)

Vitals

Richard Attenborough as Roger Bartlett, aka “Big X”, RAF Squadron Leader and escape artist

Sagan-Silesia (now Żagań, Poland), Spring 1944

Film: The Great Escape
Release Date: July 4, 1963
Director: John Sturges
Wardrobe Credit: Bert Henrikson

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of English actor and director Richard Attenborough, born August 29, 1923 in Cambridge. One of this prolific stage and screen actor’s best-known roles was leading the ensemble cast of The Great Escape (1963) as Roger Bartlett, aka “Big X”, the Royal Air Force officer who organized the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III.

Bartlett was based on real-life RAF Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, whose birthday was only one day after (and 13 years before) the actor who portrayed him—born August 30, 1910 in Springs, Transvaal, South Africa. Bushell pursued his secondary education in England, first at Wellington College before studying law at Cambridge, where the athletic scholar distinguished himself as a champion skier. A skiing accident scarred Bushell’s left eye for the rest of his life, represented in The Great Escape by a scar painted over Richard Attenborough’s opposite eye as the fictionalized Roger Bartlett.

“He was a big, tempestuous man with broad shoulders and the most chilling, pale-blue eyes I ever saw,” Paul Brickhill described Bushell in his excellent 1950 chronicle The Great Escape, which formed the basis for the film of the same name. “After it had been sewn up, the corner of his eye drooped permanently, and the effect on his look was strangely sinister and brooding.”

The adventurous Bushell yearned to fly and was commissioned as a Royal Air Force officer in 1932. He continued practicing law, defending fellow RAF fliers including Paddy Byrne, with whom he would eventually be imprisoned at Stalag Luft III. After England entered World War II, Bushell was given command of No. 92 Squadron and promoted to Squadron Leader (OF-3). In May 1940, Bushell was leading his squadron against their first enemy engagement and damaged two German planes before he himself was shot down, crash-landing his Supermarine Spitfire fighter in occupied France. The downed Bushell was quickly captured by the Germans and transferred into a prisoner-of-war camp for Allied airmen. “If the Germans had realized what a troublesome man they had caught, they would possibly have shot him then,” Brickhill editoralized. Continue reading

Keith David in The Thing

Keith David in The Thing (1982)

Vitals

Keith David as Childs, skeptical research facility chief mechanic

Antarctica, Winter 1982

Film: The Thing
Release Date: June 25, 1982
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Supervisors: Ronald I. Caplan, Trish Keating, and Gilbert Loe

Background

One of my favorite movies to watch in the middle of winter is The Thing, a personal favorite of its director John Carpenter, who celebrates his 75th birthday tomorrow. For The Thing‘s 40th anniversary last year, I wrote about its lead protagonist—helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell)—though there’s plenty of unique wintry wardrobe choices among the research crew of U.S. Outpost 31.

Keith David made his major film debut as chief mechanic Childs, launching his prolific career in a versatile range of movies from the serious likes of Platoon (1986) and Requiem for a Dream (2000) to comedies like There’s Something About Mary (1998) and The Nice Guys (2016), most recently appearing in Nope (2022). Continue reading

No Time to Die: Daniel Craig’s Commando Bond Gear

Daniel Craig as James Bond in No Time to Die

Daniel Craig as James Bond, armed with a Walther PPK in No Time to Die (2021)

Vitals

Daniel Craig as James Bond, retired British secret agent

Sea of Japan, Spring 2020

Film: No Time to Die
Release Date: September 30, 2021
Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
Costume Designer: Suttirat Anne Larlarb

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

What happens to the hero after he rides off into the sunset?

Aside from the occasional epilogue featuring James Bond and his lady du jour, we hadn’t really received much of an answer until No Time to Die, Daniel Craig’s fifth and final movie as the stylish super-spy. On the 00-7th of March—which is Craig’s birth month, as the actor turned 54 five days ago—let’s revisit how his tenure ended after the martinis stopped being shaken. Continue reading

Sidney Reilly Goes Undercover in Russia

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in the seventh episode of Reilly: Ace of Spies.

Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in the seventh episode of Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983).

Vitals

Sam Neill as Capt. Sidney Reilly, British secret service agent and Canadian Royal Flying Corps airman

Russia, Spring 1918

Series: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Episode: “Gambit” (Episode 7)
Air Date: October 12, 1983
Director: Jim Goddard
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller

Background

The mini-series Reilly: Ace of Spies, being based on Sidney Reilly’s own exaggerated account of his life, certainly stretches the truth – if not downright fictionalizes – many parts of Reilly’s story. However, the show does a fine job of serializing Reilly’s most important and life-altering adventure: the attempted overthrow of the Bolshevik government. Continue reading

Jason Bourne in Paris

Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in <em>The Bourne Identity</em> (2002).

Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity (2002).

Vitals

Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, ex-CIA assassin on the run

Paris, Winter 2002

Film: The Bourne Identity
Release Date: June 14, 2002
Director: Doug Liman
Costume Designer: Pierre-Yves Gayraud

Background

After Bourne realizes his identity (as you would expect him to in a film called The Bourne Identity), he begins dressing in a manner that allows him to be practical and blend in while still looking respectable enough to access offices and decent hotels. Continue reading