Tagged: Horsebit Loafers
Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems: Black Leather Jacket and Yellow Polo
Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems (2019)
Vitals
Adam Sandler as Howard Ratner, gambling-addicted jeweler
New York City, Spring 2012
Film: Uncut Gems
Release Date: December 13, 2019
Director: Josh Safdie & Benny Safdie
Costume Design: Miyako Bellizzi & Nawaal Hendricks
Costume Consultant: Mordechai Rubinstein
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 57th birthday to Adam Sandler, born September 9, 1966. The Sandman turned in an arguably career best performance in Uncut Gems, the Safdie brothers’ excellent and stress-inducing callback to gritty ’70s crime cinema, set during the 2012 NBA finals. The uncut gem at the center of the story is a rare black opal that we follow from the mines of Ethiopia to New York City’s Diamond District—specifically KMH, a store run by the frenetic Howard Ratner.
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
A Warm December: Sidney Poitier’s Camel Blazer
Sidney Poitier as Dr. Matt Younger in A Warm December (1973)
Vitals
Sidney Poitier as Matt Younger, widowed father and clinic physician
London, Summer 1972
Film: A Warm December
Release Date: May 23, 1973
Director: Sidney Poitier
Wardrobe Supervisor: John Wilson-Apperson
Background
To remember the late screen legend Sidney Poitier KBE—born 96 years ago today on February 20, 1927—today’s post returns to the Oscar-winning actor’s second directorial effort, A Warm December.
In addition to directing, Poitier also stars as the recently widowed Dr. Matt Younger, who arrives in London with his daughter Stefanie (Yvette Curtis). Looking for nothing more than a mindless vacation with his daughter and riding his motorbike, Matt’s trip becomes considerably more complicated after an interesting encounter outside his Pall Mall hotel with the mysterious Catherine Oswandu (Ester Anderson). Continue reading
Two-Lane Blacktop: Warren Oates as GTO
Warren Oates in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Vitals
Warren Oates as “GTO”, an otherwise unnamed former TV producer
Arizona through Tennessee, Fall 1970
Film: Two-Lane Blacktop
Release Date: July 7, 1971
Director: Monte Hellman
Costume Designer: Richard Bruno
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
A race for pink slips between a ’55 Chevy and a GTO across a long-gone America when the road was much more than a shopping aisle. Three road hogs and an underage girl riding in back with the tools. The nights are warm and the roads are straight. This one’s built from scratch, and, as Warren Oates says, “Those satisfactions are permanent.” — Tom Waits
“Because there was once a god who walked the earth named Warren Oates,” Richard Linklater included among the sixteen reasons why he loves Two-Lane Blacktop, Monte Hellman’s low-buedget 1971 road movie that has become a cult classic.
One of my favorite actors, Oates was born 94 years ago today on July 5, 1928 in Depoy, an unincorporated community in western Kentucky. His craggy features suited him well to early roles as cowboys and criminals, though he rose to more prominent stardom through the ’70s beginning with his co-starring role as the garrulous, tragi-comic motorist who impulsively bets his showroom-bought Pontiac GTO in a cross-country race against James Taylor and Dennis Wilson’s “homegrown” ’55 Chevy in Two-Lane Blacktop. 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 (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.
The Irishman: De Niro’s Mob Hit Leather Jacket
Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019)
Vitals
Robert De Niro as Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, tough Mafia enforcer
New York City, Spring 1972
Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson
Background
Fifty years ago tonight, Mafia violence shook the streets of New York City when dangerous mobster “Crazy Joe” Gallo was shot and killed while celebrating his 43rd birthday with his family at Umbertos Clam House on Mulberry Street.
The most widely accepted facts attribute the slaying to four associates of the Colombo crime family, in retaliation for their suspicions that Gallo had ordered the attempted assassination of boss Joseph Colombo during an Italian-American Civil Rights League rally the previous June. Gallo’s widow recalled multiple men of short stature and likely Italian descent storming the Mulberry Street restaurant, where more than 20 shots were fired at her husband, who staggered onto the sidewalk and died shortly before 5:30 a.m. on April 7, 1972.
However, Charles Brandt’s nonfiction best-seller I Heard You Paint Houses includes an explosive claim by labor official and mob hitman Frank Sheeran that he alone was responsible for the hit. Continue reading
For Your Eyes Only: Bond’s Green Jacket and Melina’s Citroën
Roger Moore as James Bond, flanked by Lizzie Warville, Alison Worth, Viva, Vanya, Kim Mills, and Laila Dean, in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
Photo sourced from Thunderballs.org.
Vitals
Roger Moore as James Bond, British government agent
Spain, Spring 1981
Film: For Your Eyes Only
Release Date: June 24, 1981
Director: John Glen
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Background
During the 40th anniversary year of For Your Eyes Only, the 00-7th of July feels like the appropriate time to examine the clothes and cars of Mr. Bond himself, after previously exploring the fits of one of his allies and one of his enemies. (This may be a little late for #CarWeek, but isn’t it always a good day for a drive in the country?)
A Warm December: Sidney Poitier’s Navy Double-Breasted Blazer
Sidney Poitier as Dr. Matt Younger in A Warm December (1973)
Vitals
Sidney Poitier as Matt Younger, widowed father and clinic physician
London, Summer 1972
Film: A Warm December
Release Date: May 23, 1973
Director: Sidney Poitier
Wardrobe Supervisor: John Wilson-Apperson
Background
Happy birthday to screen legend Sidney Poitier, born 94 years ago today on February 20, 1927 in Miami. After two decades of screen success that landed him the Academy Award for Best Actor (and he remains both the oldest living and longest surviving recipient), Poitier began directing his own movies in the early 1970s, beginning with the groundbreaking 1972 Western Buck and the Preacher.
Poitier proved the diversity of his directorial talent by sliding to the other end of the genre spectrum the following year when he released the romantic drama A Warm December, in which he also starred as a recently widowed doctor who finds love across the Atlantic when he meets the magnetic Catherine (Esther Anderson) during an extended trip to London with his daughter.
Chris Evans’ Famous Fisherman’s Sweater in Knives Out
Chris Evans as Hugh “Ransom” Drysdale in Knives Out (2019)
Vitals
Chris Evans as Hugh “Ransom” Drysdale, arrogant “trust fund prick”
Massachusetts, November 2018
Film: Knives Out
Release Date: November 27, 2019
Director: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Jenny Eagan
Background
Released a year ago this week, Knives Out offered a fresh spin on the classic “whodunit” genre, complete with an idiosyncratic detective—in this case, Daniel Craig as the observant Benoit Blanc—and a dysfunctional family plunged into a murder mystery at their palatial country estate. It’s that dysfunctional family element that inspired me to write about Knives Out today, on the eve of a Thanksgiving that’s sure to look different than usual for most households.
The last member of the Thrombey household to be introduced on screen is Ransom Drysdale—or Hugh to “the help”—the spoiled grandson of the late mystery writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). Even before Knives Out reached theaters, the internet was ablaze with preview images of Chris Evans lounging in Ransom’s moth-eaten fisherman’s sweater, reintroducing the classic Aran knitting technique to a new generation.
The Irishman: Jimmy Hoffa’s Florida Meeting Suit
Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa in The Irishman (2019)
Vitals
Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa, pugnacious and passionate labor official
Miami, Summer 1972
Film: The Irishman
Release Date: November 1, 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Costume Design: Sandy Powell & Christopher Peterson
Tailor: Leonard Logsdail
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
It was on this day in 1975 that James R. Hoffa was last seen outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant in a suburb of Detroit. The outspoken labor leader had spent his decades in and out of power making dangerous enemies from law enforcement and the Mafia to the executive branch and his own union. Martin Scorsese’s latest epic, The Irishman, was released to Netflix last year, adapting Charles Brandt’s I Hear You Paint Houses that purportedly “closed the case” on what happened to Hoffa after he disappeared 45 years ago today.
That afternoon, Hoffa had been planning to meet with Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, two La Cosa Nostra capos, though The Irishman suggests that the animosity that stemmed from a prior meeting between Hoffa and Tony Pro made disaster inevitable for the pugnacious Teamster boss.