Tagged: Riding Boots
Samuel L. Jackson in The Hateful Eight
Samuel L. Jackson as Major Marquis Warren in The Hateful Eight (2015)
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Samuel L. Jackson as Maj. Marquis Warren, bounty hunter and veteran Union Army cavalry officer
Wyoming Territory, Winter 1877
Film: The Hateful Eight
Release Date: December 25, 2015
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Courtney Hoffman
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy birthday to Samuel L. Jackson! Born December 21, 1948, the actor hustled for two decades before his breakthrough performance as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction (1994), his first of six collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, and he is currently the highest-grossing actor of all time with his films having collectively grossed more than $27 billion worldwide.
The actor’s most recent prominent role in a QT joint was the wintry western The Hateful Eight, released ten years ago this month on Christmas 2015, and an appropriate watch for tonight’s winter solstice.
Jackson leads the ensemble cast as Major Marquis Warren, a former Union Army cavalry officer now working as a bounty hunter who prides himself on his deadly reputation:
My bounties never hang, ’cause I never bring ’em in alive.
Glory: Colonel Robert Gould Shaw’s Union Army Uniform
Matthew Broderick as Col. Robert Gould Shaw in Glory (1989)
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Matthew Broderick as Col. Robert Gould Shaw, Union Army officer
Civil War-era America, Fall 1862 through Summer 1863
Film: Glory
Release Date: December 15, 1989
Director: Edward Zwick
Costume Designer: Francine Jamison-Tanchuck
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Memorial Day honors military personnel of the United States Armed Forces who died during their service. The Department of Veterans Affairs credits the holiday’s origins with Mary Ann Williams, who was widowed during the American Civil War, and the resulting holiday was known as “Decoration Day” when it was first proclaimed by Major General John A. Logan on May 30, 1868. Logan originally intended the holiday to honor Union soldiers and officers who had died during the Civil War, but the scope expanded to recognize all members of the U.S. military who had fought and died in service. On the 100th year of the observance in 1968, Congress standardized the timing to align with the last Monday in May.
Last spring, my wife and I traveled the nearly 200 miles east to Gettysburg—my first time visiting the historic city and battlefield since I was a child—which reinvigorated my interest in this destructive period in history. Combined with the origins of Memorial Day following the devastation of the Civil War, it feels appropriate to honor the true story at the heart of Glory, Edward Zwick’s Oscar-winning drama about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment—one of the first Black regiments organized by the Union Army.
Glory follows the regiment’s real-life commanding officer, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), from his service during the bloody Battle of Antietam in September 1862 through his assignment to lead the 54th and leading the regiment into battle against the considerable Confederate defenses of Charleston Harbor, culminating with the 54th’s heavy losses during the culminating Second Battle of Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863. Born to an abolitionist Bostonian family, the 26-year-old Shaw increasingly supports equal treatment and pay for the troops under his command.
The real Col. Robert Gould Shaw (1837-1863) and his screen counterpart, portrayed by Matthew Broderick in Glory.
Near Dark: Bill Paxton as a Vampire Biker
Bill Paxton in Near Dark (1987)
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Bill Paxton as Severen, vampire biker
Oklahoma to Kansas, Fall 1986
Film: Near Dark
Release Date: October 2, 1987
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Costume Designer: Joseph A. Porro
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today would’ve been the 70th birthday of Bill Paxton, born May 17, 1955. After his uncredited screen debut in Jonathan Demme’s period crime flick Crazy Mama (1975), Paxton emerged as one of director James Cameron’s favorite supporting players through the 1980s and ’90s as seen in The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), True Lies (1994), and Titanic (1997).
Amidst these, Paxton also appeared as the memorably psychotic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow’s solo directorial debut, the 1987 neo-Western horror film Near Dark. Despite an underwhelming initial box office performance, many contemporary critics praised the film—specifically Paxton’s “exceptional [performance]… as the undead sex symbol,” according to Jay Scott for The Globe and Mail. Near Dark has continued growing a cult following in the decades since its release. Continue reading
Star Trek: Captain Kirk’s Depression-era Workwear in “The City on the Edge of Forever”
Thanks to a suggestion from reader Rob Sundquist, today’s entry will boldly go where no BAMF Style post has gone before!
William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek, Episode 1.28: “The City on the Edge of Forever”
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William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, time-traveling starship captain
New York City, Fall 1930
Series: Star Trek
Episode: “The City on the Edge of Forever” (Episode 1.28)
Air Date: April 6, 1967
Director: Joseph Pevney
Creator: Gene Roddenberry
Costume Designer: William Ware Theiss
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Fans of Star Trek who are familiar with BAMF Style may not be surprised to learn that my inaugural post from this groundbreaking series covers “The City on the Edge of Forever”, the penultimate episode of the first season which has endured to be considered among the series’ best.
The episode begins on the USS Enterprise as first officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) reports that the starship’s turbulence is the result of “actually passing through ripples in time”. An accident results in medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley) accidentally injecting himself with a massive dose of cordrazine, an in-universe stimulant that sends the doctor into a paranoid frenzy.
Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) recruits Spock, communications officer Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), chief engineer “Scotty” (James Doohan), and two redshirts onto the mysterious planet where Bones beamed himself, where they discover a time portal with the ability to transport entrants back to any time and place.
Bones leaps through the portal to evade capture, resulting in altering the past so dramatically that the crew’s reality—and ship—cease to exist. Thus, Kirk and Spock thus have no choice but to leap into the gateway in pursuit of Dr. McCoy… landing them in New York City, circa 1930, at the intersection of the Prohibition era and the Great Depression. Continue reading
Coup de Torchon: Philippe Noiret’s Khaki Uniform
Philippe Noiret in Coup de Torchon (1981)
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Philippe Noiret as Lucien Cordier, ineffective yet conniving colonial police chief
French West Africa, Summer 1938
Film: Coup de Torchon
(English title: Clean Slate)
Release Date: November 4, 1981
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Costume Designer: Jacqueline Moreau
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
For the 12th anniversary of my first-ever BAMF Style post, today’s entry is a labor of love analyzing the style from the French adaptation of one of my favorite novels, Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson. Born 118 years ago tomorrow on September 27, 1906, Thompson specialized in hardboiled crime fiction that has frequently been adapted into movies, including The Getaway, The Grifters, and The Killer Inside Me.
Published sixty years ago in 1964, Pop. 1280 is a darkly comic retread of the themes Thompson explored in The Killer Inside Me, following a southern sheriff whose mild-mannered persona masks his psychopathy. Set during the 1910s, Pop. 1280 is narrated by Nick Corey, the blissfully lazy “high sheriff of Potts County,” the 47th largest in an unnamed state of 47 counties. Nick presents himself as a dimwitted pushover, while secretly manipulating and murdering his way through his friends, family, and mistresses, all while nurturing delusions of being God’s agent sent to punish the sinful town of Pottsville.
Though there are rumors of a future adaptation directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (who seems well-suited for the material), the only major screen adaptation to date is Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon, which earned ten César Award nominations and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 55th Academy Awards.
Adapted by Tavernier and Jean Aurenche, Coup de Torchon maintains the story’s center around a lazy lawman living with his domineering wife and her overly affectionate and slow-witted, uh, “brother”, in a small town where he’s the constant target of bullies, from those in his own household to a boastful fellow lawman who works several towns away. However, the setting is shifted to the fictional French West African town of Bourkessa on the eve of World War II, and the protagonist is reimagined as Lucien Cordier, played by Philippe Noiret, a two-time César Award-winning actor born in Lille on October 1, 1930.
“Doing nothing is my job, I’m paid for it,” Cordier explains to the two snappily dressed pimps who regularly torment him, adding with some earnestness: “At times—not always—I think I’ve found paradise on Earth.” Continue reading
Robert Mitchum’s Western Wear in River of No Return
Robert Mitchum with Marilyn Monroe in River of No Return (1954)
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Robert Mitchum as Matt Calder, taciturn farmer, widowed father, and convicted back-shooter
Pacific Northwest, Summer 1875
Film: River of No Return
Release Date: April 30, 1954
Director: Otto Preminger
Costume Designer: Travilla
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The first week of August would contain major milestones in the lives of Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe, two of the biggest stars of the ’50s, as Mitchum was born August 6, 1917, and Monroe died August 4, 1962. Mitchum and Monroe shared the screen just once, as the leads in Otto Preminger’s western River of No Return.
Released 70 years ago at the end of April 1954, River of No Return was a refreshingly small-scaled, personal, and generally non-violent story in contrast to the classic westerns associated with John Wayne and John Ford at the time. Indeed, Frank Fenton’s screenplay was adapted from a story by Louis Lantz that had itself been inspired by the 1948 Italian film Bicycle Thieves. Most was filmed on location in Calgary through the summer of 1953, followed by studio shots in L.A. and long shots in Idaho, where the Salmon River doubled for the eponymous waterway.
Mitchum stars as Matt Calder, a widower recently released from prison who seeks his virtually unknown nine-year-old son Mark (Tommy Rettig) who had been left in them care of saloon singer Kay Weston (Marilyn Monroe) in a rowdy northwestern boomtown. After the reunited father and son save Kay and her fiancé Harry (Rory Calhoun) from the dangerous rapids near their homestead, Harry attacks Matt and absconds with his horse while Kay remains with the Calders.
Eventually, Matt, Kay, and Mark take Harry’s log craft to embark on a journey down the treacherous river to confront Harry in Council City. “The Indians call it the River of No Return,” Matt explains to Kay and Mark. “From here on, you’ll find out why.” Continue reading
Death on the Nile: Simon MacCorkindale’s Honeymoon on Horseback
Simon MacCorkindale and Lois Chiles in Death on the Nile (1978)
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Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle, newlywed honeymooner
Egypt, September 1937
Film: Death on the Nile
Release Date: September 29, 1978
Director: John Guillermin
Costume Designer: Anthony Powell
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
As my wife and I are basking in the sun during our Jamaican honeymoon this week, I wanted to focus on another cinematic honeymoon… though I hope I’m not dooming us by pulling an example from Agatha Christie’s poison pen. Based on her 1937 novel of the same name, the 1978 adaptation of Death on the Nile was the first of six films to star Peter Ustinov as Christie’s eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, here pulled into a dangerous love triangle.
Simon Doyle (Simon MacCorkindale) was a simple young Englishman, relatively devoid of funds and creativity, but charming enough to attract the fiery Jacqueline de Bellefort (Mia Farrow). The seemingly happy couple’s engagement doesn’t last long after Simon meets Jackie’s dazzlingly wealthy and glamorous friend, Linnet Ridgeway (Lois Chiles), and it’s she whom Simon marries instead. The Doyles spend their honeymoon touring Egypt and exploring the pyramids, “some of the most recognizable—not to mention pointiest—buildings in history,” according to the great Philomena Cunk. Continue reading
Brendan Fraser in The Mummy
Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell in The Mummy (1999)
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Brendan Fraser as Rick O’Connell, American adventurer and former Legionnaire
Egypt, Summer 1926
Film: The Mummy
Release Date: May 7, 1999
Director: Stephen Sommers
Costume Designer: John Bloomfield
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
A quarter-century after its release, The Mummy is finding renewed love among audiences, no doubt due to star Brendan Fraser who has been enjoying a own career renaissance following his Oscar-nominated turn in The Whale that has already won the actor more than two dozen awards.
Directed and written by Stephen Sommers, The Mummy updated Karl Freund’s 1932 thriller of the same name, released among a wave of Universal’s now-iconic horror films including Dracula and Frankenstein. Sommers’ adaptation retained the supernatural elements while playing down the horror in favor of a more lighthearted adventure story inspired by Errol Flynn’s screen swashbucklers and the classic serials that influenced the character of Indiana Jones, to whom Fraser’s roguish Rick O’Connell has been likened. Continue reading
Warren Beatty in McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Warren Beatty as John McCabe in McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
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Warren Beatty as John McCabe, enterprising gambler and pimp
Presbyterian Church, Washington, Fall to winter 1902
Film: McCabe & Mrs. Miller
Release Date: June 24, 1971
Director: Robert Altman
Wardrobe Credit: Ilse Richter
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
There are moments every January where I envy the idiosyncratic wardrobe of John McCabe, warmly swaddled in hefty furs as he trots into the humble hamlet of Presbyterian Church, Washington, scored by Leonard Cohen’s mournful baritone.
One of the most prolific pioneers of the “New Hollywood” movement that began in the 1960s, Robert Altman followed up his maverick success with MASH (1970) and his artistic experiment with Brewster McCloud (1970) by setting his sights on one of the most venerated genres in American cinema. Altman and Brian McKay adapted a 1959 novel by Edmund Naughton to deliver McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which the director would ultimately deem an “anti-Western” for its subversion of genre conventions and expectations. Continue reading
Paul Newman’s Tan Work Jacket as Butch Cassidy
Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
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Paul Newman as Butch Cassidy, affable leader of the Hole-in-the-Wall bandit gang
Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, Fall 1898
Film: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Release Date: September 23, 1969
Director: George Roy Hill
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Background
“He speaks well and quickly, and has been all his life a leader of men; but if you asked him, he would be damned if he could tell you why,” William Goldman introduced Robert Leroy Parker in his Academy Award-winning screenplay, inspired by the true story of Parker and his partner-in-crime Harry Longabaugh… aka Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, respectively. Continue reading