Tagged: Jeans
Point Break: Keanu Reeves’ Pale-Blue Camp Shirt and Jeans
Keanu Reeves as FBI Agent Johnny Utah in Point Break (1991)
Vitals
Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, ambitious FBI agent
Los Angeles, Summer 1991
Film: Point Break
Release Date: July 12, 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Supervisors: Colby P. Bart & Louis Infante
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Point Break was released 35 years ago today on July 12, 1991, chronicling Ohio State football star-turned-FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) infiltrating a group of bank-robbing surfers and skydivers led by the enigmatic Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) while also buying two meatball subs for his supervisor, Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey). It feels especially appropriate to celebrate Point Break‘s cinematic legacy on the day after World Skydiving Day—observed on the second Saturday of July. Continue reading
Kill Me Again: Val Kilmer’s White Shirt and White Cadillac
Val Kilmer in Kill Me Again (1989)
Vitals
Val Kilmer as Jack Andrews, cynical private investigator
Nevada, Spring 1989
Film: Kill Me Again
Release Date: October 27, 1989
Director: John Dahl
Costume Designer: Terry Dresbach
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
This summer’s Car Week wraps with Kill Me Again, John Dahl’s little-known (at least to me, before last year) 1989 neo-noir thriller starring the late Val Kilmer and Michael Madsen opposite Kilmer’s then-wife Joanne Whalley as a dangerous femme fatale.
I’ll admit I was drawn to this as a subject this week due to some stylistic similarities with one of my favorite “car movies”, Vanishing Point (1971), which also features a man in a white shirt and jeans desperately racing a white two-door hardtop V8 through the desert until the car meets a fiery end. In this case, it’s not the nihilistic Kowalski in a Dodge Challenger but our widowed gambler P.I. in his quarter-century-old Cadillac, racing through the sand for a bundle of stolen cash. Continue reading
Two-Lane Blacktop: James Taylor as a ’55 Chevy Driver
James Taylor with Dennis Wilson and Laurie Bird in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
Vitals
James Taylor as “The Driver”, laconic race car driver
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
Monte Hellman’s offbeat cult classic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop was released 55 years ago this week on July 7, 1971, starring musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson as the unnamed driver and mechanic of a ’55 Chevy gasser that picks up a hitchhiker (Laurie Bird) and falls into a cross-country race for pinks against the blustering driver of a new Pontiac GTO, played by Warren Oates.
Always an unorthodox maverick, Hellman was inspired to cast Taylor after spying his face on a Sunset Boulevard billboard, recalling that he “just flipped over his face.” Both Taylor and his late co-star Oates recalled the first-time actor feeling frustrated with his lack of control as Hellman and his 30-person crew shot the film in sequence, offering the cast only a few pages of the script at a time. “I’m not talking out of turn when I say Jimmy Taylor had terrible struggles relinquishing control to Monte,” Oates later shared.
The on-set strife reached a point where Hellman convinced Taylor not to quit the production by finally allowing him to read the entirety of Rudy Wurtlizer’s screenplay… which he didn’t do. Still, Taylor didn’t see Two-Lane Blacktop as the detour to a new path in his career, explaining in a contemporary interview with the Los Angeles Times that “I’m not an actor. I’ll never do this again. If I ever did another film I’d have to be the director and writer, I’d have to be in control.” To date, this remains the six-time Grammy-winning Taylor’s sole big-screen acting credit apart from cameos.
As this summer’s Car Week feature stretches on, let’s follow Sweet Baby James in that primer-gray Chevy along America’s blue highways stretching east from Arizona. Continue reading
Kurt Russell’s Tank Top and Trucker Style in Big Trouble in Little China
Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall in Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
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Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, troublesome truck driver
San Francisco, Fall 1985
Film: Big Trouble in Little China
Release Date: July 2, 1986
Director: John Carpenter
Costume Designer: April Ferry
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
John Carpenter’s cult classic Big Trouble in Little China was released 40 years ago today on July 2, 1986. Following their initial collaboration in The Thing (1982), Kurt Russell stars as cocky trucker Jack Burton, who indeed lands in big trouble in little China—specifically San Francisco’s Chinatown district—when his friend’s fiancée is kidnapped by a local street gang and then again kidnapped by henchmen serving the reclusive sorcerer David Lo Pan (James Hong), who needs a green-eyed wife to break an ancient curse. Jack and his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) are joined by appropriately named attorney Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) on their quest through the literal underground to retrieve Wang’s betrothed. Carpenter has explained he envisioned Jack as a sidekick who thinks he’s a hero, while the more comparatively reserved Wang more closely exemplifies the traditional leading man. Continue reading
Passenger 57: Wesley Snipes’ Biker Jacket with Layered Shirts and Jeans
Wesley Snipes as John Cutter in Passenger 57 (1992)
Vitals
Wesley Snipes as John Cutter, airline security chief and ex-Secret Service agent
In flight from Miami to Los Angeles, Spring 1992
Film: Passenger 57
Release Date: November 6, 1992
Director: Kevin Hooks
Costume Designer: Brad R. Loman
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, sometimes there’s nothing more necessary than to sit back and turn off your brain to watch a pleasantly absurd ’90s action movie. Luckily for us, Kevin Hooks directed the 1992 action thriller Passenger 57—its title literally inspired after writer Stewart Raffill spied a bottle of Heinz ketchup.
Wesley Snipes stars as John Cutter, a former* Secret Service agent whose stalwart reputation has followed him into his latest career as an airline security consultant, training flight attendants like Marti Slayton (Alex Datcher) how to handle hijacking scenarios. After his pal Sly Delvecchio (Tom Sizemore) helps Cutter secure an executive position as the vice president of security for the fictional Atlantic International Airlines, Cutter boards Atlantic Flight 163… the same flight on which FBI agents are escorting the dangerous international criminal Charles Rane (Bruce Payne)—who is not insane—back to California to face trial.
With his history of commercial airline bombings that makes us—and Delvecchio—wonder why the feds would choose this particular method of transportation, “the Rane of terror” has more explosive ideas for securing his freedom, which becomes an unfortunate situation for his fellow passengers—all except passenger #57, who happens to be the nation’s foremost expert in combating air terrorism. Continue reading
John Wayne’s Blue Cowboy Bib Shirt in The Searchers
John Wayne in The Searchers (1956)
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John Wayne as Ethan Edwards, obsessive Confederate Army veteran
West Texas and New Mexico Territory, Fall 1868 through 1873
Film: The Searchers
Release Date: May 26, 1956
Director: John Ford
Costume Designer: Charles Arrico (uncredited)
Background
Ten days after its Chicago premiere, John Ford’s Western epic The Searchers was released 70 years ago today on May 26, 1956—which coincided with its star John Wayne’s 49th birthday. Successful upon its release, The Searchers remains considered not just one of the greatest Westerns but also one of the best films of all time, influencing generations of contemporary and future filmmakers including David Lean, George Lucas, Sam Peckinpah, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Wim Wenders. Continue reading
Bonnie and Clyde: Michael J. Pollard’s Type I Denim Jacket as C.W. Moss
Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss in Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
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Michael J. Pollard as C.W. Moss, slow-witted mechanic-turned-bank robber
Texas to Missouri, Spring 1933
Film: Bonnie & Clyde
Release Date: August 13, 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
My last post centered around one of the many quick-and-dirty Depression-set crime films released in the wake of Bonnie & Clyde‘s popularity, so let’s refocus today’s sartorial attention back on the groundbreaking 1967 drama that started it all. Starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty (who also produced the film), Bonnie & Clyde fictionalized the exploits of real-life Texas outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, whose two-year crime spree of mostly unprofitable robberies left a trail of at least twelve dead lawmen and civilians until they were ultimately killed by law enforcement in May 1934.
Robert Benton and David Newman’s Academy Award-nominated screenplay emphasized the twenty-something couple’s youth, capitalizing on the prevailing countercultural sentiment of the late 1960s in the stylized spirit of French New Wave cinema. Presumably even younger than Bonnie or Clyde is their first on-screen accomplice: small-town gas station attendant C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard), whose simplicity often suggests excessive exposure to fuel fumes. Moss served as a composite for several real-life associates of the gang, specifically eventual turncoat Henry Methvin and Dallas teenager W.D. “Deacon” Jones.
Born 110 years ago today on May 12, 1916, Jones was only 16 years old when the 23-year-old Clyde and 22-year-old Bonnie recruited him into their scrappy band on Christmas Eve 1932. After a car theft gone wrong resulted in the murder of Temple, Texas family man Doyle Johnson the next day, Jones became inextricably linked with the Barrow gang for more than a year until his eventual arrest in November 1933, six months before his more famous friends were gunned down in Louisiana. Continue reading
When Harry Met Sally: Harry’s Post-College Hoodie and Jeans
Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Vitals
Billy Crystal as Harry Burns, recent college graduate
Chicago to New York City, Spring 1977
Film: When Harry Met Sally…
Release Date: July 14, 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Costume Designer: Gloria Gresham
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I graduated from college fifteen years ago this week, and I’m still (slightly) younger than 40-year-old Billy Crystal was when he played recent University of Chicago graduate Harry Burns in the opening scenes of When Harry Met Sally. Directed by the late Rob Reiner (a qualifier which still hurts to say), When Harry Met Sally is considered by many—including yours truly—to be one of the best romantic comedies of all time.
Ironically scored to Louis Armstrong crooning “Our Love is Here to Stay”, the movie begins with Harry kissing a girlfriend whose name he wouldn’t even remember five years later. Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) introduces Harry to her friend Sally Albright (Meg Ryan), who has agreed to drive the stranger across the country to New York, which Sally has calculated should be “an 18-hour trip with six shifts of three hours each.” Continue reading
Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw: Marjoe Gortner’s Blue Cutoff Western Shirt
Marjoe Gortner and Lynda Carter in Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976)
Vitals
Marjoe Gortner as Lyle Wheeler, wannabe outlaw
New Mexico, Summer 1975
Film: Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw
Release Date: April 28, 1976
Director: Mark L. Lester
Costume Designer: Cornelia McNamara
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
People typically cite two major reasons to watch the low-budget ’70s crime flick Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw… neither of which are Marjoe Gortner’s wardrobe. Is that going to stop me from writing about it for the film’s 50th anniversary? No, of course not.
Released in Los Angeles on April 28, 1976, this was also Lynda Carter’s big-screen debut, finally hitting screens nearly six months after she became an instant sensation when Wonder Woman premiered on ABC. Made with the same exploitative “guilty pleasure” watchability that defined so much of American Independent Pictures’ contemporary output, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw is known to many for Carter’s sole (but frequent) nude screen appearance—often in varying states of undress playing the, uh, titular Bobbie Jo Baker, who abandons her dead-end job and alcoholic mother to join the charismatic car thief Lyle Wheeler on a crime spree through the southwest. Prior to his Rocky fame, Sylvester Stallone was producers’ first choice to play Lyle until ex-child preacher Marjoe Gortner was cast.
Yep, you read that right. Continue reading
Tommy Lee Jones in Jackson County Jail
Tommy Lee Jones in Jackson County Jail (1976)
Vitals
Tommy Lee Jones as Coley Blake, laconic career criminal
Southwestern United States, Summer 1976
Film: Jackson County Jail
Release Date: April 11, 1976
Director: Michael Miller
Costume Designer: Cornelia McNamara
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The grindhouse cult classic Jackson County Jail was released fifty years ago today, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Yvette Mimieux, and the late Robert Carradine, who died earlier this year at age 71. While hardly the best known of any of its stars’ filmographies, Jackson County Jail developed a cult following in the decades since its 1976 release—including by director Quentin Tarantino, who screened it for his inaugural film festival in Austin.
The movie follows advertising executive Dinah Hunter (Mimieux), driving across the country to take a new job in New York after leaving her deadbeat husband back in L.A. Her troubles begin early after the hitchhiking hustler Bobby Ray (Carradine) and his pregnant, pill-popping girlfriend Lola (Nancy Noble) steal her AMC Pacer at gunpoint, leaving her stranded in the titular Jackson County—likely somewhere in the southwest, between Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.
She seeks help from local bartender Dan Oldum (Britt Leach), but this also demolishes her luck as the creepy taxidermist Dan tries to sexually assault her… resulting in her arrest when a good ol’ boy deputy happens into the bar. Dinah is placed into a cell opposite to the taciturn Texan crook Coley Blake (Jones), who recently capped his extensive rap sheet by reportedly killing a man who caught him stealing melons. Continue reading
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