Tagged: Fall
Christine: Arnie’s Red Jacket and Famous ’58 Fury
Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham in Christine (1983)
Vitals
Keith Gordon as Arnie Cunningham, high school senior
Rockbridge, California, Fall/Winter 1978
Film: Christine
Release Date: December 9, 1983
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Designer: Darryl Levine
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
No shitter ever came between me and Christine!
Christine drove into theaters 40 years ago today, directed by the great John Carpenter and adapted by Bill Phillips from Stephen King’s supernatural horror novel of the same name that had been published just months earlier. The titular Christine is a white-over-red 1958 Plymouth Fury, high-schooler Arnie Cunningham’s prized possession… and possibly also possessed by a homicidal demon. Continue reading
In a Lonely Place: Bogie’s Twill Sports Coat and Turtleneck
Humphrey Bogart as Dix Steele in In a Lonely Place (1950)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Dixon “Dix” Steele, frustrated screenwriter
Los Angeles, Fall 1949
Film: In a Lonely Place
Release Date: May 17, 1950
Director: Nicholas Ray
Costume Designer: Jean Louis (credited for gowns only)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today’s post wraps up #Noirvember on what would have been the 100th birthday of silver screen icon Gloria Grahame. Born November 28, 1923, Grahame’s film noir credits include Crossfire (1947) and The Big Heat (1953), though my favorite is In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by her then-husband Nicholas Ray and starring Humphrey Bogart.
Some of Bogie’s friends and acquaintances have described the character of cynical screenwriter Dixon Steele to be the closest that the actor ever came to projecting his true charismatic yet insecure persona onto the screen. Continue reading
Kevin Costner in A Perfect World
Kevin Costner and T.J. Lowther in A Perfect World (1993)
Vitals
Kevin Costner as Robert “Butch” Haynes, escaped convict
Texas, Fall 1963
Film: A Perfect World
Release Date: November 24, 1993
Director: Clint Eastwood
Costume Designer: Erica Edell Phillips
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 30 years ago today, A Perfect World overcame its initial lukewarm box office to be acclaimed as among the career-best works for both director Clint Eastwood and star Kevin Costner.
Costner stars as Robert “Butch” Haynes, a petty criminal who escapes from a Texas prison on the night of Halloween 1963. Despite Butch’s own distaste for him, he breaks out with the reckless Terry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka), who jeopardizes their getaway—and Butch’s own code of ethics—by attempting to force himself onto a suburban mother while the two look for a car to steal. Butch stops the situation before Terry can take it too far, but the commotion wakes up the neighborhood and results in the two fugitives taking a hostage—the mother’s eight-year-old son, Philip (T.J. Lowther), with whom Butch develops a special bond:
Me and you got a lot in common, Philip. The both of us is handsome devils, we both like RC Cola, and neither one of us got an old man worth a damn.
Succession: Cousin Greg’s Pre-Thanksgiving Puffer Vest
Nicholas Braun as “Cousin Greg” Hirsch on Succession, Episode 1.05: “I Went to Market”
Vitals
Nicholas Braun as Greg Hirsch, mild-mannered media conglomerate underling and family outsider
Canada to New York City, The day before Thanksgiving 2018
Series: Succession
Episode: “I Went to Market” (Episode 1.05)
Air Date: July 1, 2018
Director: Adam Arkin
Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Costume Designer: Michelle Matland
Background
Ahead of Thanksgiving tomorrow, one of the things I’m grateful for is that—if Succession had to end this year—the fact that it did so perfectly when the series finale ended in May. To commemorate the final year from this landmark series, let’s flash back to the first season as we joined the Roys for their annual Turkey Day celebration.
From the start of Succession, the anxious Greg Hirsch (Nicholas Braun), aka “Cousin Greg”, aka “Greg the Egg”, initially served as an audience surrogate as we were all collectively introduced to the world of the extremely wealthy and highly dysfunctional Roy family, led by domineering patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) as his children Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin), and Siobhan (Sarah Snook) wrested for their withholding father’s favor… and the keys to control his media conglomerate, Waystar RoyCo.
The outsider Greg had never been part of their circle, thrust into it during Logan’s 80th birthday party when his mother—Logan’s niece—dispatched him to New York for a job after he was fired from one of a Waystar amusement park for getting high inside a mascot costume. Within a month, he’s got a job with the company that pays himself just enough that he needn’t sneak food out of the Waystar break room in doggie-doo bags anymore, and he can afford enough gas to power his three-year-old Hyundai to Canada (“with the healthcare and the ennui!”) and back to transport his grandfather Ewan (James Cromwell) to New York for Logan’s Thanksgiving dinner.
Greg: Happy Thanksgiving!
Ewan: Not for the Indians.
Greg: No sir! Nope… that is still true.
Bad Lieutenant: Harvey Keitel’s Gray Nailhead Jacket
Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Vitals
Harvey Keitel as “The Lieutenant”, morally corrupt NYPD lieutenant
New York City, Fall 1991
Film: Bad Lieutenant
Release Date: November 20, 1992
Director: Abel Ferrara
Costume Designer: David Sawaryn
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Released 31 years ago today in 1992, Abel Ferrara’s controversial drama Bad Lieutenant features a fearless, uncompromising performance of a lifetime from Harvey Keitel, who replaced Christopher Walken in the titular role as the unnamed detective who regularly neglects his law enforcement duties in favor of a nightmarish spiral of blow, baseball, and broads. Continue reading
The Big Chill: Tom Berenger’s Convertible Down Jacket
Tom Berenger in The Big Chill (1983)
Vitals
Tom Berenger as Sam Weber, jaded TV star
Beaufort, South Carolina, Fall 1983
Film: The Big Chill
Release Date: September 28, 1983
Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Costume Designer: April Ferry
Background
As I prepare to gather with friends today for our annual Friendsgiving celebration, there’s a cinematic choice that perfectly captures the essence of fall, friendship, and the shared warmth of communal meals.
Despite not being centered around the holiday itself, The Big Chill has earned a place among many as a quintessential “Thanksgiving movie” with its autumnal setting, the camaraderie of old friends reuniting, and the soul-stirring soundtrack creating a nostalgic backdrop reminiscent of the season’s familial gatherings.
Beyond this thematic resonance, the film also offers a visual feast served by costume designer April Ferry’s array of early ’80s threads worn by its ensemble cast. Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, and JoBeth Williams star as college friends who reunite more than a decade after their graduation to mourn one of their group lost to suicide—portrayed by Kevin Costner, who was almost entirely cut from the film. Almost.
I recently had a request to explore Berenger’s style as Sam Weber, who was become arguably the most famous of his college pals, gracing magazine covers as the star of the Magnum, P.I.-like series, J.T. Lancer. Continue reading
Sunset Boulevard: William Holden’s Mini-Check Sport Jacket and “Dreadful Shirt”
William Holden as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Vitals
William Holden as Joe Gillis, struggling screenwriter
Los Angeles, Fall 1949
Film: Sunset Boulevard
Release Date: August 10, 1950
Director: Billy Wilder
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Noirvember continues with Sunset Boulevard, one of the great films noir that shines a light—or, more appropriately, casts a shadow—on the darker side of Hollywood, a theme popular with contemporary dramas like In a Lonely Place (1950) and The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), with an added verisimilitude through mentions of real studios like 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures—who, of course, produced Sunset Boulevard—and cameos from Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, and Buster Keaton.
William Holden stars as Joe Gillis, who describes himself in the opening narration as “a movie writer with a couple of B pictures to his credit.” On “the day when it all started,” Joe recounts living in a seedy one-room Hollywood apartment where he owes three months back rent, grinding out two original screenplays a week and fretting that he’s lost his touch. Three payments behind on his Plymouth, his screenplays aren’t selling, and his agent isn’t willing to help, instead insisting that “the finest things on the world have been written on an empty stomach,” though that may be just to get out of having to lend his client the $290 he needs to keep his car. Continue reading
Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours
Humphrey Bogart in The Desperate Hours (1955)
Vitals
Humphrey Bogart as Glenn Griffin, menacing fugitive
Indianapolis, Fall 1955
Film: The Desperate Hours
Release Date: October 5, 1955
Director: William Wyler
Costume Designer: Edith Head
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Noirvember continues with The Desperate Hours, a 1955 drama that was Humphrey Bogart’s penultimate silver screen performance. Bogie remains significantly associated with film noir, thanks to genre-defining movies like High Sierra (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948), and In a Lonely Place (1950).
The New York-born actor rose to prominence playing villains, perhaps most notably his breakthrough role of snarling Dillinger-esque gangster Duke Mantee in the stage and screen productions of The Petrified Forest. As exemplified by his masterful but hardly glamorous performance in movies like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Bogart never let his popularity get in the way of darker roles—even after winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for The African Queen (1951).
Adapted by Joseph Hayes from his own novel and play of the same name (itself loosely based on true events), The Desperate Hours cast Bogart as the dangerous Glenn Griffin, the leader of a trio of three escaped convicts who seek refuge by forcing their way into the suburban Indiana home of Daniel (Frederic March) and Ellie Hilliard (Martha Scott). Continue reading
Leave Her to Heaven: Cornel Wilde’s Brown Plaid Flannel Shirt
Cornel Wilde in Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Vitals
Cornel Wilde as Richard “Dick” Harland, idealistic novelist
Northern Maine, August 1942
Film: Leave Her to Heaven
Release Date: December 25, 1945
Director: John M. Stahl
Costume Designer: Kay Nelson
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I began Noirvember this month by highlighting a costume from one of the rare classic examples of “color noir”—which is exactly what it sounds like, a crime-centered drama from the 1940s and ’50s that includes many of the same themes and techniques as the shadowy film noir but photographed in full color, rather than the typical black-and-white.
Arguably the first major example of color noir is Leave Her to Heaven, widely released on Christmas 1945 and starring Cornel Wilde opposite the ravishing Gene Tierney, whose performance resulted in the actress’ only Academy Award nomination. Tierney died 32 years ago today on November 6, 1991. Continue reading
When Harry Met Sally: Harry’s Cream Cable-Knit Sweater
Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Vitals
Billy Crystal as Harry Burns, sarcastic political consultant and recent divorcée
New York City, Fall 1987
Film: When Harry Met Sally…
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Designer: Gloria Gresham
Background
As October advances deeper into colder weather, today’s post celebrates the enduring knitwear selected by costume designer Gloria Gresham for fall style icon Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally.
Though he only wears it for two brief scenes in Rob Reiner’s 1989 romantic comedy, Harry Burns’ cream-colored cable-knit sweater remains a cultural touchpoint even nearly 35 years later. Continue reading
You must be logged in to post a comment.