Tagged: Fringe Jacket

Moonrunners: Kiel Martin’s Fringed Buckskin Jacket and Blue Jeans

Kiel Martin in Moonrunners (1975)

Vitals

Kiel Martin as Bobby Lee Hagg, daredevil moonshine driver and part-time guitar picker

Georgia, Fall 1973

Film: Moonrunners
Release Date: May 14, 1975
Director: Gy Waldron
Costume Designer: Patty Shaw

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Two rambunctious and fast-driving cousins speed through a fictional county in the deep south, running moonshine for their uncle Jesse while evading local sheriff Roscoe Coltrane and his connections to a corrupt local crime boss who drives a white Cadillac—all set to the music and homespun voiceover of outlaw country legend Waylon Jennings. And no, I’m not talking about The Dukes of Hazzard.

Four years before the Dukes debuted on CBS, Gy Waldron’s B-movie Moonrunners premiered in drive-in theaters across the South fifty years ago tomorrow on May 14, 1975.

Moonrunners could have been lost in the traffic jam of cheap ’70s hick flicks about moonshine and muscle cars until it was plucked from potential obscurity by Warner Brothers’ perplexing—but indeed prophetic—suggestion that it could form the basis for a successful TV show. Now best known as the rawer progenitor to The Dukes of Hazzard, Moonrunners has essentially all the same elements and characters but distilled into a dirtier, hornier jar of shine—seasoned with the visceral authenticity that comes from filming on location in rural Georgia and not a WB backlot. Continue reading →

Midnight Cowboy: Jon Voight as Joe Buck

Jon Voight as Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Vitals

Jon Voight as Joe Buck, naïve Texan wannabe gigolo and Army veteran

New York City, Summer through Winter 1968

Film: Midnight Cowboy
Release Date: May 25, 1969
Director: John Schlesinger
Costume Designer: Ann Roth

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Harry Nilsson recorded his cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin'” 57 years ago this week on November 13, 1967. This Grammy-winning folk hit has since become inextricably linked with the 1969 drama Midnight Cowboy—which celebrated its 55th anniversary in May—after director John Schlesinger chose it as the film’s theme song.

Adapted by Waldo Salt from James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel of the same name, Midnight Cowboy received a controversial if critically acclaimed response upon its release. Six months earlier, the MPAA implemented its voluntary rating system to classify age suitability for major releases, replacing the increasingly outdated “Hays Code” that had been enforced since the early 1930s. Midnight Cowboy was one of the first mainstream movies to be rated “X”, which forbade any audience members under age 17 to be admitted and was reserved for movies demonstrating the most extreme sexual themes, graphic violence or language. Despite the stigma of this dramatically restrictive rating, Midnight Cowboy was the third highest-grossing American movie released in 1969 and won three of the seven Oscars for which it was nominated—Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay—and it remains the only movie with an X (or equivalent NC-17) rating to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Continue reading →

Willie Nelson’s Fringe Jacket in The Electric Horseman

Willie Nelson as Wendell Hickson in The Electric Horseman (1979)

Vitals

Willie Nelson as Wendell Hickson, trusty talent manager and cowboy singer

Las Vegas, Fall 1978

Film: The Electric Horseman
Release Date: December 21, 1979
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Bernie Pollack

Background

Happy 90th birthday, Willie Nelson! Best known as a country singer/songwriter and prolific stoner, Nelson made his screen acting debut in The Electric Horseman as Wendell Hickson, the laidback and loyal yet understandably weary manager to Sonny Steele (Robert Redford), an increasingly erratic ex-rodeo star who has been reduced to PR appearances promoting cereal for his corporate overlords.

Naturally, Willie also contributed three songs for the film’s soundtrack, including the outlaw standards “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”, “Midnight Rider”, and “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys”. Continue reading →