Tagged: French Cuff Shirt

Roger Moore’s Ivory Dinner Jacket in Octopussy

Roger Moore and Kristina Wayborn in Octopussy (1983)

Vitals

Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent

Udaipur, India, Spring 1983

Film: Octopussy
Release Date: June 6, 1983
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Emma Porteous
Tailor: Douglas Hayward

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 00-7th of April! Easter weekend feels like the appropriate occasion to celebrate the debonair Roger Moore’s evening-wear for James Bond’s memorable “egg hunt” in his penultimate 007 adventure—the provocatively titled Octopussy, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this June. Continue reading

Elf: James Caan in Camelhair for Christmas

James Caan as Walter Hobbs in Elf (2003)

Vitals

James Caan as Walter Hobbs, workaholic children’s book publisher

New York City, December 2003

Film: Elf
Release Date: November 7, 2003
Director: Jon Favreau
Costume Designer: Laura Jean Shannon

Background

Happy December!

The late James Caan effectively subverted his screen image when he starred in Elf, a family-friendly comedy that’s already established as a modern holiday classic. Of course, as one of the big screen’s most famous tough guys, Caan’s Walter Hobbs begins the story on Santa Claus’ notorious “naughty list” as a children’s book publisher too focused on his bottom line to care about his family or even the minutae of his job, overlooking the last two pages of his latest book that leave the fate of a beloved puppy and pigeon too ambiguous for its young readers. Continue reading

Live By Night: Ben Affleck’s White Gangster Suit

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin in Live by Night (2016)

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin in Live by Night (2016)

Vitals

Ben Affleck as Joe Coughlin, gangster and war veteran

Ybor City, Florida, Spring 1933

Film: Live by Night
Release Date: December 25, 2016
Director: Ben Affleck
Costume Designer: Jacqueline West

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

After years of memes picturing him in various states of Dunkin’-fueled despair, Ben Affleck seems to be doing pretty well for himself these days, recently married to Jennifer Lopez as they have evidently to put the past—including Gigli—well behind them. On Affleck’s 50th birthday, let’s explore one of his more stylish roles as the Prohibition-era protagonist in Live By Night.

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La Dolce Vita: Marcello’s White Party Suit

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini in La Dolce Vita (1960)

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini in La Dolce Vita (1960)

Vitals

Marcello Mastroianni as Marcello Rubini, playboy gossip journalist-turned-publicity agent

Fregene, Italy, Summer 1959

Film: La Dolce Vita
Release Date:
February 5, 1960
Director: Federico Fellini
Costume Designer: Piero Gherardi
Tailor: Brioni

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

No, no one’s leaving. It’s a long way ’til dawn.

The seventh and final “episode” of Fellini’s divine comedy La Dolce Vita catches up with our sleek protagonist Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni), erstwhile chronicler of Roman nightlife, as he and a group of friends descend upon his friend Riccardo’s beach house in Fregene, about 25 miles west of Rome on the Tyrrhenian coast. Continue reading

Secret Honor: Philip Baker Hall as Nixon

Philip Baker Hall as Richard M. Nixon in Secret Honor

Philip Baker Hall as Richard M. Nixon in Secret Honor (1984)

Vitals

Philip Baker Hall as Richard M. Nixon, disgraced former U.S. President

New Jersey, early 1980s

Film: Secret Honor
Release Date: July 6, 1984
Director: Robert Altman

Background

This week, we learned that the great Philip Baker Hall died at the age of 90. Familiar as a recurring face in Paul Thomas Anderson movies and as the anachronistic, straight-talking “library cop” Bookman on an early Seinfeld episode, Hall’s breakthrough screen performance was reprising his stage role as a disgraced Richard Nixon in Secret Honor.

“You have read in the press the reasons for the Watergate affair. Today, my client is going to reveal to you the reasons behind the reasons,” Hall narrates into a tape recorder as the now-former President Nixon. It was fifty years ago today when five burglars were caught breaking into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate hotel, igniting a political scandal that resulted in the fall of a president and a widespread cynical distrust of American government.

Subtitled “A Political Myth”, Secret Honor was originally a one-man play written by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone, who adapted their work for Robert Altman’s film of the same name. Avoiding caricature of an easily caricatured man, Hall portrayed Nixon—the only human who ever appears on screen—who spends the film’s hour-and-a-half runtime ranting to the contents of his study, specifically a tape recorder, an increasingly empty bottle of Scotch, a loaded revolver, his mother’s grand piano, and portraits of presidents and significant figures in his life from Henry Kissinger to his own mother. Continue reading

Christopher Lee in White as The Man with the Golden Gun

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Vitals

Christopher Lee as Francisco Scaramanga, sophisticated freelance assassin

Bangkok, Thailand, Spring 1974

Film: The Man with the Golden Gun
Release Date: December 20, 1974
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Supervisor: Elsa Fennell

Background

Today would have been the 100th birthday of Sir Christopher Lee, the imposing yet debonair screen icon known to many for portraying Count Dracula a total of nine times while Bond fans may know him best as Francisco Scaramanga, the eponymous villain who faced off against Roger Moore’s James Bond in Moore’s sophomore 007 outing, The Man with the Golden Gun.

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Goodfellas: Tommy’s Gray Suit for Mob Mayhem and Mom Visits

Joe Pesci in Goodfellas

Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas (1990)

Vitals

Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito, volatile and violent Mafia associate

New York, Spring 1970

Film: Goodfellas
Release Date: September 19, 1990
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Mother’s Day! One of my favorite cinematic sequences depicting the relationship between a son and his mother comes by way of my favorite movie, in which master auteur Martin Scorsese cast his own mother Catherine as the charming Mrs. DeVito, mother to the psychotic gangster Tommy (Joe Pesci) who brings his cohorts Henry (Ray Liotta) and Jimmy (Robert De Niro) seeking a shovel in a covert night-time stop to fetch a shovel… only to be sweet-talked into an early breakfast.

Catherine Scorsese endearingly embodies the familiar archetype of the aging Italian-American matriarch with her plastic-covered furniture, the gift to effortlessly slip between American English and Italian dialects, and the fierce desire to feed her children and their friends… regardless of whether they’re hungry or not. Continue reading

Being the Ricardos: Desi Arnaz’s Real vs. Reel Blue Suit

Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos

Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos (2021)

Vitals

Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born bandleader, actor, and TV producer

Los Angeles, September 1952

Film: Being the Ricardos
Release Date: December 7, 2021
Director: Aaron Sorkin
Costume Designer: Susan Lyall

Background

I grew up watching I Love Lucy, my childhood punctuated by many memories of me channeling inordinate levels of anxiety at Lucy’s antics into pacing around my grandmother’s kitchen while the decades-old drama unfolded in black-and-white from the small TV tucked on a corner countertop. Almost thirty years later, I still can recollect Lucy pitching Vitameatavegamin or stomping grapes with better clarity than anything I may have binged on Netflix over the last year.

As the real Desi Arnaz was born 105 years ago today on March 2, 1917, let’s take a look at Javier Bardem’s Academy Award-nominated performance as Desi in Being the Ricardos. Continue reading

Island in the Sun: Harry Belafonte’s Brown Suit

Harry Belafonte as David Boyeur in Island in the Sun

Harry Belafonte as David Boyeur in Island in the Sun (1957)

Vitals

Harry Belafonte as David Boyeur, popular local politician

On the fictional Caribbean island of Santa Marta, Spring 1955

Film: Island in the Sun
Release Date: June 12, 1957
Director: Robert Rossen
Costume Design: Phyllis Dalton & David Ffolkes

Background

Tomorrow will be the 95th birthday of Harry Belafonte, the singer, actor, and activist born March 1, 1927. Belafonte has tireless worked in show business and to advance social causes since beginning his recording career in the late 1940s. Though he’s narrated documentaries and appeared sporadically in features in the decades since, his screen acting career were primarily throughout the ’50s in features ranging from the musicals that made obvious use of his singing talent to drama, sci-fi, and noir.

Belafonte co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in his first three films, their collaborations concluding in the colorfully lush drama Island in the Sun, based on Alec Waugh’s novel of the same name. The eponymous island was said to be the fictitious “Santa Marta” in the Caribbean, though actually filmed on location in Barbaos and Grenada through the fall of 1956. Continue reading

Telly Savalas as Kojak: A Gray Suit for the First Lollipop

Telly Savalas as Kojak

Telly Savalas as Lt. Theo Kojak on Kojak (Episode 1.08: “Dark Sunday”)

Vitals

Telly Savalas as Theo Kojak, NYPD lieutenant

New York City, Fall 1973

Series: Kojak
Episode: “Dark Sunday” (Episode 1.08)
Air Date: December 12, 1973
Director:
Charles R. Rondeau
Creator: Abby Mann

Background

Who loves ya, baby?

As today would have been the 100th birthday of Telly Savalas—born January 21, 1922—it felt like the time to take a long-overdue look at the Greek-American actor’s signature role as the tough and tenacious Theo Kojak.

Kojak’s famous lollipops were introduced in the eighth episode, “Dark Sunday”, which begins with the murder of a small-time criminal named Artie Fowler (Marc Alaimo). “He used to love to play with cars, you know,” recalls Kojak. “Strip ’em, drive ’em, steal ’em… oh well, what else?” Through his investigations of the murder, Kojak welcomes Artie’s girlfriend Maria Cranston (Lara Parker) to his office. He has a lit cigarillo in his mouth when she enters, but he swiftly tosses it away in favor of a Tootsie Pop pulled from his desk… the first of what would become one of the character’s trademarks. Continue reading