Tagged: Indiana
Gene Hackman’s Leather Jacket in Hoosiers
Gene Hackman in Hoosiers (1986)
Vitals
Gene Hackman as Norman Dale, controversial high school basketball coach and Navy veteran
Indiana, Fall 1951
Film: Hoosiers
Release Date: November 14, 1986
Director: David Anspaugh
Costume Designer: Jane Anderson
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Welcome to Indiana basketball…
The legendary late actor Gene Hackman was born 96 years ago today on January 30, 1930. On the first anniversary of his birthday since his death last February, today’s post centers around Hackman’s celebrated performance in the 40-year-old sports drama Hoosiers as Norman Dale, hired to coach a small Indiana town’s basketball team whose roster includes names like Merle, Rade, Strap, and Whit—which I think is just great.
Though set in the fictional town of Hickory, Hoosiers was loosely inspired by the true story of the Milan High School basketball team’s victory against Muncie Central High School to win the 1954 state championship. And if you don’t think that’s a big deal, just take it from Norm himself:
I thought everybody in Indiana played basketball.
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
Warren Oates’ Brown Striped Suit as Dillinger
Warren Oates as John Dillinger in Dillinger (1973)
Vitals
Warren Oates as John Dillinger, Depression-era bank robber
Indiana, Fall 1933
Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George
Background
Eighty four years ago tonight – November 15, 1933. Four police cars converge on a small office building on Irving Park Boulevard in the Chicago Loop. In an upstairs doctor’s office, one of the most wanted men in the tri-state area is being treated for either a ringworm infection or “barber’s itch,” an inflammation of hair follicles, depending on which account you read. On the floor below, a cagey informant named Art McGinnis is signaling desperately to police that their quarry is upstairs. Fate, however, is on the side of the outlaw, a thirty-year-old bank robber named John Dillinger. Continue reading
Ron Swanson’s Red Tiger Woods Polo
Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation (Episode 2.08: “Ron and Tammy”)
Vitals
Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson, surly libertarian city parks director and jazz saxophonist
Pawnee, Indiana, Fall 2009
Series: Parks and Recreation
Episode: “Ron and Tammy” (Episode 2.08)
Air Date: November 5, 2009
Director: Troy Miller
Created by: Greg Daniels & Michael Schur
Costume Designer: Kelli Jones
Background
By design, little attention is paid to Ron Swanson’s clothing throughout Parks and Recreation. In fact, Ron’s style could best be summed up by saying he dresses like a non-threatening suburban dad, as opposed to Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), who basks in the show’s sartorial attention with his “Brooks Brothers Boys” suits. We even learn, in “Ron and Tammys” (Episode 4.02), that Ron has only spent $40 on clothes in the past five years.
That said, there is one thing that gets Ron to care about what he pulls out of his closet that morning… and that’s his activity from the night before. Continue reading
Truth vs. Fiction: The Bank-Robbing Style of Warren Oates as Dillinger
Warren Oates as John Dillinger, leaving a South Bend bank job in 1973’s Dillinger.
Vitals
Warren Oates as John Dillinger, Depression-era bank robber and “super gang” leader
Indiana, Fall 1933
Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George
Background
Eighty years ago today in East Chicago, Indiana, 43-year-old ECPD patrolman William Patrick O’Malley responded to a call concerning the robbery of the First National Bank. Without hesitation, O’Malley showed up at the scene, unaware that he would be going up against John Dillinger, the Indiana bandit who would soon become famous as the first national Public Enemy #1. Continue reading
Dillinger’s Blue Jailbreak Suit in Public Enemies
Johnny Depp behind-the-scenes as John Dillinger in Public Enemies (2009).
Vitals
Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, Depression-era bank robber
Indiana, September 1934
Film: Public Enemies
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood
Background
Once again, the best shots of Dillinger’s attire in this scene from Public Enemies are from production shots, as Michael Mann’s choice of a handheld camera and extreme close-ups just show close details. However, unlike the previous Public Enemies post, Dillinger was nowhere near the incident being portrayed on film.
While Dillinger did indeed engineer the breakout of his prison buddies from the Michigan City Penitentiary on September 26, 1933 – eighty years ago yesterday – he was nowhere to be found on the day in question. Was he being smart by avoiding the situation? Was he scared?
Neither. He was in jail himself.
About a week earlier, Dillinger had managed to smuggle three .45-caliber pistols, likely the gang’s favorite Colt semi-automatics. On September 26, Harry Pierpont and Charley Makley found the marked box with the guns inside. They dug them out and, with eight other yeggs, managed to get out of prison. Unlike the film adaptation, it was relatively bloodless with no fatalities. Some of the prisoners were quickly rounded up and either killed or returned to prison, but the nexus of the Dillinger Gang: Pierpont, Makley, Russell Clark, Walter Dietrich, and John “Red” Hamilton, were now back together again. The only problem was Dillinger himself. Continue reading
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