Tagged: Snow Boots

The Four Seasons: Alan Alda’s Après-ski Sweater in Winter

Alan Alda in The Four Seasons (1981)

Vitals

Alan Alda as Jack Burroughs, married lawyer

Stowe, Vermont, Winter 1980

Film: The Four Seasons
Release Date: May 22, 1981
Director: Alan Alda
Costume Designer: Jane Greenwood

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy 90th birthday to Alan Alda, the movie and TV icon born January 28, 1936. Alda rose to prominence through the 1970s playing Army surgeon “Hawkeye” Pierce in the TV adaptation of M*A*S*H—an early style inspiration for yours truly, as I was particularly obsessed with Hawkeye’s rakish pairing of aloha shirts with his G.I.-issue OG-107 fatigue trousers.

In addition to being the only cast member to appear in all 256 episodes, Alda also ignited his talents behind the camera, ultimately writing 17 and directing 32 episodes during the series’ eleven-season run. Even before M*A*S*H ended, Alda penned his screenwriting debut, The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), starring as the eponymous fictional senator. As Alda’s own grandson Jake would summarize in his Letterboxd review: “My grandpa has an affair with a young Meryl Streep… what more can I ask for?”

Two years later, Alda released his directorial debut, The Four Seasons (1981), which he also wrote and—of course—starred in. Alda portrays New York lawyer Jack Burroughs who, along with his wife Kate (Carol Burnett), join two other middle-aged couples for quarterly getaways: one for each of the titular four seasons, and thus framed by Vivaldi’s violin concerti of the same name. Continue reading →

Clark Griswold’s Christmas Tree-Hunting Parka and Sweater

Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Vitals

Chevy Chase as Clark W. Griswold Jr., festive family man and food additive executive

Chicago*, December 1989

Film: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Release Date: December 1, 1989
Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik
Costume Designer: Michael Kaplan

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Let’s officially launch the Christmas season and continue this winter’s Car Week with the Griswold family in their “ol’ front-wheel-drive sleigh” in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, released 36 years ago today on December 1, 1989!

After the first two films took the Griswolds traveling across the United States and Europe, the family spends the holidays at home, where “the last true family man” Clark (Chevy Chase) and his wife Ellen (Beverly D’Angelo) are trying to spread yuletide cheer to their kids Audrey (Juliette Lewis) and Rusty (Johnny Galecki) with a snowy Saturday afternoon trek into the most mountainous region of rural Illinois* in search of “that most important of Christmas symbols.”

Audrey: We’re not driving all the way out here so you can get one of those stupid ties with the Santa Clauses on it, are we Dad?
Clark: No, I have one of those at home.

Rather than neckwear, the family is embracing the frosty majesty of the winter landscape to find the perfect tree that will anchor the “fun, old-fashioned family Christmas” envisioned by Clark, foregoing the pre-cut trees offered in Jolly Jerry’s lot to chop one down himself… despite forgetting a saw. Continue reading →