Tagged: Tan Shirt
Spy Game: Redford’s Brown Leather Jacket in Beirut
Robert Redford as Nathan Muir in Spy Game (2001).
Vitals
Robert Redford as Nathan Muir, shrewd CIA case officer
Beirut, Summer 1985
Film: Spy Game
Release Date: November 21, 2001
Director: Tony Scott
Costume Designer: Louise Frogley
Redford’s Costumer: David Page
Background
Robert Redford finally teamed up with his spiritual successor Brad Pitt in the 2001 action hit Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott. Redford played Nathan D. Muir, the veteran CIA operative who took rookie Tom Bishop (Pitt) under his wing. Muir’s cynicism eventually clashes with Bishop’s idealism after nearly ten years on the job, and the two split after a morally disastrous mission in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. Continue reading
Bo Duke (and the General Lee)
John Schneider as Bo Duke on the set of The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-1985).
Vitals
John Schneider as Bo Duke, race car driver & former moonshine runner
Hazzard County, Georgia, Fall 1978
Series: The Dukes of Hazzard
Creators: Gy Waldron & Jerry Rushing
Men’s Costume Supervisors: Bob Christenson & Joseph Roveto
Background
Picture a cool fall day in 2005 on a suburban road just north of Pittsburgh. A young – and charming, if I may say – 16-year-old is out with his dad, taking his red 1992 Plymouth Acclaim for a spin with his learner’s permit freshly in his wallet. After about a half hour of learning how to obey basic traffic laws, the father turns to his son and says: “Okay, let’s turn it around and go home.”
The son nods obediently, yanks the emergency brake release, taps the column shifter into neutral, and – without reducing speed – jams his foot onto the emergency brake. The rear tires of the Acclaim lock up, the steering wheel is yanked to the left, and within seconds, the surprisingly powerful V6 engine roars as the Acclaim is shifted back into gear to head home.
The son smiles smugly with his perfectly-executed first attempt at a bootleggers’ turn while the father breaks his steadfast rule about cursing around the kids:
You’re not Bo fucking Duke!
Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance
Bruce Willis as NYPD Lt. John McClane in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995).
I imagine there’s nothing more American to celebrate the 4th of July than the first Die Hard film set in summer with plenty of explosions, car crashes, and gunfights. Happy Independence Day!
(I’m aware that Live Free or Die Hard was actually set on the 4th of July, but that flick is when things started getting a little too ridiculous. McClane was no longer vulnerable, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I might post about it sometime, or I might not.)
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John McClane, increasingly cynical NYPD lieutenant
New York City, Late Summer 1995
Film: Die Hard with a Vengeance
Release Date: May 19, 1995
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi
Bruce Willis’ Costumer: Lori Stilson Continue reading
J.J. Gittes’ Sandy 3-Piece Suit in Chinatown
Jack Nicholson as J.J. Gittes in Chinatown (1974)
Vitals
Jack Nicholson as J.J. Gittes, private investigator and ex-policeman
Los Angeles, September 1937
Film: Chinatown
Release Date: June 20, 1974
Director: Roman Polanski
Costume Designer: Anthea Sylbert
Background
While many people – myself included – criticize the ’70s for being tacky with lows such as glam rock, disco, and leisure suits, it was also a renaissance in art, with guys such as Cassavetes, Peckinpah, and Scorsese honing their craft while the Stones put out Exile on Main St. and Led Zeppelin stuck together. Sideburns may have been battling mustaches for facial hair supremacy, but on the artistic front, the ’70s will hardly be duplicated again. The Godfather, The Sting, Network, Annie Hall, All the President’s Men, Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Three Days of the Condor, Paper Moon, Serpico, MASH, Patton, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and – of course – Chinatown round out the list of some of my personal favorites that were churned out during the decade. Continue reading
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