Tagged: French Riviera
La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Ivory Open-Knit Sweater and Lee Jeans
Alain Delon in La Piscine (1969)
Vitals
Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer
French Riviera, Summer 1968
Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy birthday to French screen and style icon Alain Delon, born November 8, 1935. One of Delon’s most popular films is the steamy 1969 thriller La Piscine, which reunited him on screen with former partner Romy Schneider.
La Piscine (released in English as The Swimming Pool) centers around the dangerous passion and possessiveness between four people spending their summer vacations at the same Côte d’Azur villa. Continue reading
The Last of Sheila: James Coburn’s White Yachting Gear
James Coburn in The Last of Sheila (1973)
Vitals
James Coburn as Clinton Greene, eccentric Hollywood producer
French Riviera, Late summer 1972
Film: The Last of Sheila
Release Date: June 14, 1973
Director: Herbert Ross
Costume Designer: Joel Schumacher
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
If you’re the sort of person who follows such sartorial conventions, Labor Day on Monday makes this the last weekend where it’s “acceptable” to wear white. Of course, there are many who take umbrage to being told what’s acceptable to wear and when—such as Clinton Greene, the flamboyant film producer at the center of The Last of Sheila‘s sun-bleached mystery. Clinton was played by James Coburn, the versatile Nebraska-born actor born 95 years ago today on August 31, 1928.
Recently widowed after his wife Sheila was killed during a mysterious hit-and-run accident near their Hollywood home, Clinton commemorates the one-year anniversary of Sheila’s death by inviting his six closest frenemies—most of whom had been present during the party at their home the night Sheila was killed—to spend a week playing high-stakes puzzles on his luxury yacht off the coast of southern France. Continue reading
The Last of Sheila: Richard Benjamin’s Safari Jacket
Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett in The Last of Sheila (1973)
Vitals
Richard Benjamin as Tom Parkman, spaghetti western screenwriter
French Riviera, Late summer 1972
Film: The Last of Sheila
Release Date: June 14, 1973
Director: Herbert Ross
Costume Designer: Joel Schumacher
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I’ll bet you haven’t seen the last of Sheila! (Okay, so maybe you have seen this movie, but I can’t resist a pun.)
Released 50 years ago today on Flag Day 1973, The Last of Sheila was penned by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, inspired by the real-life scavenger hunts and murder parties that they used to organize for fellow friends in show business, from actors to agents like Sue Mengers. Director Herbert Ross had been part of the festivities at one point, telling Sondheim and Perkins to collaborate on a screenplay based on their parlor games, and it was Ross who ended up helming The Last of Sheila.
(It’s been reported that Mengers was actually offered a role in The Last of Sheila, but she turned it down as she wasn’t a professional actress and wanted to avoid taking work she felt her clients deserved, and she talked a characteristically effervescent Dyan Cannon into playing the part she inspired.)
The Last of Sheila has been the subject of renewed attention in recent years, thanks in part to Rian Johnson citing it as inspiration for Knives Out and its sequel, Glass Onion, both of which clearly share Sheila‘s DNA with their star-studded casts, plot complexity, and the balance of comic light-heartedness and deadly suspense, as well as specific plot elements like misinterpreted manners of death, a Mediterranean Sea full of red herrings, and an eccentric host welcoming a coterie of famous friends for a mystery party.
The film begins after colorful producer Clinton Greene (James Coburn) lost his wife Sheila in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. To commemorate the one-year anniversary of Sheila’s death, Clinton invites his friends—”six hungry failures”—to spend a week in the Ligurian Sea on the yacht he had named for her, including vivacious talent agent Christine (Dyan Cannon), washed-up director Philip Dexter (James Mason), in-demand actress Alice Wood (Raquel Welch) and her shady husband and promoter Anthony (Ian McShane), and desperate screenwriter Tom Parkman (Richard Benjamin) and his cautious, witty wife Lee (Joan Hackett). Continue reading
Picasso’s Terrycloth Leisurewear
Pablo Picasso, photographed by Arnold Newman, 1956.
Vitals
Pablo Picasso, influential Spanish painter
Cannes, French Riviera, September 1956
Photographs by Arnold Newman
Part of BAMF Style’s Iconic Photo Series, focusing on style featured in famous photography of classic stars rather than from specific productions.
Background
Born 140 years ago today on October 25, 1881, Pablo Picasso may be one of the few painters so associated with his craft that even those with little knowledge of art know his name. Thus, October 25 is also observed annually as International Artist’s Day, celebrating the contributions of creators around the globe.
A month shy of his 75th birthday, Picasso posed in his La Californie studio in Cannes for a series of portraits captured by Arnold Newman, the prolific photographer whose subjects ranged from Marilyn Monroe and Mickey Mantle to JFK and Alfried Krupp. Continue reading
La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Windowpane Shirts and Autumn-Ready Storm Rider
Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine (1969)
Vitals
Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation
French Riviera, Summer 1968
Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
“Actually, I don’t care much for summer,” the glamorous sun-kissed socialite Marianne (Romy Schneider) explains, clarifying “just the in-between seasons.” As tomorrow marks the first day of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, start finding your style for this transitional “in-between” season! Continue reading
La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Iconic Swimwear
Alain Delon as Jean-Paul in La Piscine (1969)
Vitals
Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation
French Riviera, Summer 1968
Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
More than a half-century after its release, La Piscine remains hailed as one of the most stylish movies, not just for French designer André Courrèges’s costumes but also its sun-drenched Côte d’Azur setting, Michel Legrand’s jazzy score, and the smoldering expressions of its quartet of stars. “The less you put in words, the more you will oblige me to have imagination,” director Jacques Deray reportedly screenwriter instructed Jean-Claude Carrière.
Deray’s “imagination” draws the most from the dangerously intense sexual tension among its leads, beginning with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider as the vacationing couple spending their summer in an opulent villa secluded in the French Riviera. Continue reading
Pierrot le Fou: Belmondo’s Red Shirt and Herringbone Jacket
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina in Pierrot le Fou (1965). As cool as those sunglasses look, Bébel unfortunately never wears them with this outfit on screen.
Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Griffon, runaway husband
French Riviera, Summer 1965
Film: Pierrot le Fou
Release Date: November 5, 1965
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
He may spend most of Pierrot le Fou insisting his name is Ferdinand, but we all know he’s actually Jean-Paul Belmondo—also known as Bébel—the French star born 88 years ago today on April 9, 1933!
Pierrot le Fou was the third and final feature-length collaboration between Belmondo and Jean-Luc Godard, who had directed him to worldwide fame as the criminal protagonist in A bout de souffle (Breathless), considered a seminal work in establishing the French New Wave cinematic movement.
While both of these stylish films shared themes of criminality, philosophy, and doomed love, Pierrot le Fou pops from the screen with its colorful and surreal pop art-inspired presentation of the increasingly desperate Ferdinand Griffon abandoning his family life to join his dangerously free-spirited ex-girlfriend Marianne (Anna Karina) in a life of crime and seaside seclusion. Continue reading
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!”
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!
Pierrot le Fou: Belmondo’s Striped Shirt by the Sea
Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina in Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Vitals
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Ferdinand Griffon, runaway husband
French Riviera, Summer 1965
Film: Pierrot le Fou
Release Date: November 5, 1965
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Five years after their collaboration in À bout de souffle that established many of the unconventional conventions that would define French New Wave, director Jean-Luc Godard reteamed with charismatic star Jean-Paul Belmondo for a surreal and colorful classic with its scenes and themes of seclusion that make it feel all the more relevant during this strange summer that still finds many in self-isolation.
Life may always be sad, but it’s always beautiful.