Tagged: Costume design by Marilyn Vance
Clyde Barrow’s Brown Peak-Lapel Suit (2013 Version)
Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (2013)
Vitals
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, amateur armed robber
Texas, Spring 1932
Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
Earlier this week, I posted about the (possibly brown) single-breasted, peak-lapel suit worn by Derrick De Marney in Hitchcock’s 1930s thriller Young and Innocent. Today’s post expands on that theme, exploring a similar suit worn by another desperate young man on the run during the 1930s.
Sean Connery’s Brown Corduroy Jacket in The Untouchables
Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)
Vitals
Sean Connery as Jim Malone, tough and honest Chicago beat cop
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Untouchables is a highly entertaining—yet highly fictionalized—saga of the successful legal campaign to bring down Al Capone’s criminal enterprise that terrorized Chicago through the 1920s with an all-star cast including Robert De Niro as Capone himself.
Eliot Ness had made a name for himself in the final years of Chicago’s beer wars as a relentless Prohibition agent, and he would use his fame decades later to pen The Untouchables, a memoir in which he credits himself with practically single-handedly sending Capone to prison. In real life, Ness’ raids were indeed disruptive, but it was the work of modest investigators U.S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson and IRS agent Frank Wilson that eventually led to the charges that successfully convicted Capone. Continue reading
Clyde Barrow’s Blue Hairline Windowpane Suit (2013 Version)
Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger wielding a BAR and a Tommy gun as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (2013).
Vitals
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, bank robber with “second sight”
Northeast Texas, Spring 1932
Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
As an amateur criminal historian with a special interest in Depression-era desperadoes, I’d be remiss to let a year go by without commemorating the end of Bonnie and Clyde’s crime streak on May 23, 1934 when the now-famous duo was gunned down by a squad of expert lawmen on a rural road in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Continue reading
Hans Gruber in Die Hard
Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) aims John McClane’s own Beretta at him in a production still from Die Hard (1988).
Vitals
Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, shrewd German terrorist leader and self-described “excellent thief”
Los Angeles, Christmas 1987
Film: Die Hard
Release Date: July 15, 1988
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Like surprisingly many others, Die Hard is one of my favorite Christmas movies and no holiday season—no matter how hectic or bleak—is complete without a viewing of what is arguably the greatest action movie ever made.
For the first BAMF Style holiday season in 2012, I broke down the rugged (and eventually very sparse) style of Bruce Willis’ John McClane, but it feels like the time has come to look at what the film’s fashion-driven antagonist wore as he led his European gunslingers into Nakatomi Plaza on Christmas Eve 1987.
Mr. Takagi, I could talk about industrialization and men’s fashion all day, but I’m afraid work must intrude…
What’d He Wear?
Nice suit. John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumor has it Arafat buys his there.
Obviously, Hans Gruber knows a thing about clothes as he takes the time to compliment the Nakatomi Corporation’s soon-to-be martyr’s suit from “John Phillips… London,” though it remains a mystery whether the suit Hans wears for the holiday hijacking was intended to be one of the two he claims to own from this prestigious—but ultimately fictional—tailor.
The styling of Hans’ dark charcoal suit is contemporary to the late ’80s production and setting, not surprising for a man so interested in fashion and image. Continue reading
The Untouchables: Capone’s Gray Suits
Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987).
Vitals
Robert De Niro as Al Capone, legendary Chicago mob boss
Chicago, October 1931
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Wardrobe Consultant: Richard Bruno
Tailor: Henry Stewart
Background
Before Stephen Graham blazed into Capone’s shoes on Boardwalk Empire, Robert De Niro’s extremely method performance of Al Capone in The Untouchables was considered to be the epitome. De Niro infused his performance with the menacing charm that allowed a violent psychopath like Capone to rapidly climb his way up the ladder of the underworld. The extent of Capone’s criminal empire, culminating with the notorious St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, has lived on to define the Roaring Twenties… or more specifically, Prohibition era Chicago. Continue reading
Clyde Barrow’s Charcoal Chalkstripe Suit (2013 Miniseries)
Emile Hirsch and Holliday Grainger as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (2013).
Vitals
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, amateur bank robber with “second sight”
Texas, Spring 1932
Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
Today would have been Clyde Barrow’s birthday. Whether it was 1909 (according to birth records) or 1910 (according to the Barrow family bible) is up for debate, but there’s no doubt that the jug-eared killer was only in his early 20s by the time he had led a group of misfits on a deadly crime spree across the Midwest and South. Continue reading
Andy Garcia in The Untouchables
Andy Garcia as George Stone in The Untouchables (1987)
Vitals
Andy Garcia as Giuseppe Petri, aka “George Stone”, honest Chicago police recruit and expert marksman
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
A contemporary interview from People magazine at the time of The Untouchables‘ release was very flattering to Garcia:
Andy Garcia really doesn’t have much of a part in The Untouchables. His big moments come at the beginning, when he angrily jams a gun barrel into Sean Connery’s neck, and at the end, when he coolly kills one of Al Capone’s henchmen from a prone position. Of quiet demeanor, Garcia’s minor character has no love scenes and little to say. Yet Garcia’s rich portrayal of Treasury agent George Stone, the Italian-American T-man with a chip of ice on his shoulder, adds up to much more than the sum of his minutes onscreen. He’s The Untouchables‘ quicksilver gunslinger, the deadly rookie who’s a natural pistolero.
Garcia’s character, particularly his background, are a nod to the political correctness of the original 1950s TV series’ inclusion of Nick Georgiade as Agent Rico Rossi, who served primarily to show the audience that not all Italian-Americans are mafioso. Continue reading
Clyde Barrow’s Death Suit (2013 Version)
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow in part two of the 2013 mini-series Bonnie & Clyde.
Vitals
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, bank robber with “second sight”
Rural Louisiana, May 1934
Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
Eighty years ago today, six Southern lawmen pulled off a feat that the federal government had been failing to do for months with the first real victory in the United States’ “War on Crime”.
With the advent of the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, criminals abandoned gangsterdom and bootlegging (both “Machine Gun” Kelly and “Pretty Boy” Floyd were known to be bootleggers early in their career) in favor of motorized banditry. In the spirit of the Old West, bank robbers took to cars all across the country – with a special concentration in the poorest areas of the Midwest and the South.
This crime wave did not go unnoticed by the government. Soon, names like John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, and Alvin Karpis were dominating the headlines, and they were surprisingly welcome by the people who were sick and tired of the perceived “fat cats” in the government. Some of the criminals, Dillinger and Floyd especially, even had the begrudging respect of some small-town lawmen. But the greatest disparity between public opinion and actual temperament is with the case of Bonnie and Clyde. Continue reading
The Untouchables: Ness’ Gray 3-Piece Suit
Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables (1987).
Vitals
Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, honest and intrepid federal agent
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Wardrobe: Giorgio Armani
Background
This blog has been focusing on a lot of bad guys lately, so let’s take a look at a good guy… at least according to the film about him.
Despite what Robert Stack and Kevin Costner’s portrayals may have you believe, Eliot Ness didn’t single-handedly stop Al Capone’s reign of terror over the city of Chicago. Even Ness’ own account paints himself as a crime-fighting pariah who overcame the odds with a tight-knit group of rogue lawmen and brought down a monster. Continue reading
Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2
Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 2 (1990)
Merry Christmas from BAMF Style to you and yours!
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John McClane, LAPD detective lieutenant
Washington, D.C., Christmas 1990
Film: Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Release Date: July 4, 1990
Director: Renny Harlin
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Bruce Willis’ Key Costumer: Charles Mercuri
Background
One of the complaints about the Die Hard series is that there’s no way the same thing can keep happening to the one guy in the world who’s able to save it. Of course, these sort of complaints mostly started cropping up after the fourth installment in 2007 where John McClane literally saved the world. Prior to that, he’d saved about 30 lives in an office building, a few hundred in airplanes, and the population of New York City. Okay, so the scale kept getting bigger, but at least then he had a reason for being around. It’s even lampshaded in Die Hard 2 when McClane rants to himself:
Oh man, I can’t fucking believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?
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