Tagged: Ugh It’s Raining
Nikolai in Eastern Promises
Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai Luzhin in Eastern Promises (2007).
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Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai Luzhin, Russian Mafiya “undertaker” and chauffeur with a few secrets of his own
London, Christmas 2006
Film: Eastern Promises
Release Date: September 8, 2007
Director: David Cronenberg
Costume Designer: Denise Cronenberg
Background
WARNING! Spoilers possible!
Eastern Promises is a great film, but there is a noteworthy twist that is hard to ignore when discussing the main character. If you haven’t seen it, please watch it before reading the post! Continue reading
The Untouchables: Ness’ Gray 3-Piece Suit
Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness in The Untouchables (1987).
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Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, honest and intrepid federal agent
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Wardrobe: Giorgio Armani
Background
This blog has been focusing on a lot of bad guys lately, so let’s take a look at a good guy… at least according to the film about him.
Despite what Robert Stack and Kevin Costner’s portrayals may have you believe, Eliot Ness didn’t single-handedly stop Al Capone’s reign of terror over the city of Chicago. Even Ness’ own account paints himself as a crime-fighting pariah who overcame the odds with a tight-knit group of rogue lawmen and brought down a monster. Continue reading
Brad Pitt in Killing Them Softly
Brad Pitt as Jackie Cogan in Killing Them Softly (2012)
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Brad Pitt as Jackie Cogan, freelance mob hitman
Boston*, November 2008
* The movie—like the source novel—was indeed set in the Boston area but was filmed in New Orleans.
Film: Killing Them Softly
Release Date: November 30, 2012
Director: Andrew Dominik
Costume Designer: Patricia Norris
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Although it met with mixed reviews, many fans of George V. Higgins appreciate the recent film version of his 1974 book Cogan’s Trade, released as Killing Them Softly based on a line from the novel’s titular protagonist, Jackie Cogan:
They cry. They plead. They beg. They piss themselves. They call for their mothers. It gets embarrassing. I like to kill ’em softly, from a distance. Not close enough for feelings. Don’t like feelings. Don’t want to think about them.
Bullitt’s Navy Suit
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Steve McQueen as Bullitt (1968).Vitals
Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, maverick SFPD inspector
San Francisco, Spring 1968
Film: Bullitt
Release Date: October 17, 1968
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Tailor: Douglas Hayward
Background
There is little dispute among both film and automobile fans that 1968’s Bullitt features the best car chase scene in movie history. Steve McQueen faces off in a fastback Mustang GT against two hitmen in a black Charger. By now, diehard fans of the film know that the Charger legendarily overtook and outpowered the Mustang during the actual filming, although it was still edited to have McQueen’s driving emerge victorious as the Charger ended up, sadly, in a ball of flame. Continue reading
Sidney Reilly’s Edwardian Gray Suit
Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly in “An Affair With A Married Woman”, the first episode of Reilly: Ace of Spies.
Had he not been killed by the Soviets in 1925, Sidney Reilly may have lived to be 140 last weekend- March 24th to be specific. However, a 140-year-old man is very unlikely, especially with his lifestyle and habits, so something would’ve probably gotten him anyway.
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Sam Neill as Sigmund Rosenblum, later renamed “Sidney Reilly” upon his entry into the British Secret Service
London, Spring 1901
Series: Reilly: Ace of Spies
Episode: “An Affair with a Married Woman” (Episode 1)
Air Date: September 5, 1983
Director: Jim Goddard
Costume Designer: Elizabeth Waller
Background
This is the first we see of Reilly – still known as Rosenblum – back home in London after his first mission, the details of which will be covered in a later post. After an assignation with his prostitute mistress Rose, he resurfaces at a public meeting in Covent Garden where the British Secret Service is denying his own existence. In a cheeky fashion that recalls James Bond, he gets the best of everyone. Later, we also see him wearing the same suit for a series of meetings and the funeral of his aforementioned mistress. Continue reading
Charade – Cary Grant’s Dark “Drip Dry” Suit
Cary Grant as the multi-named hero in Charade (1963)
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Cary Grant as Brian Cruikshank (aka Peter Joshua, Alexander Dyle, or Adam Canfield)
Paris, April 1963
Film: Charade
Release Date: December 5, 1963
Director: Stanley Donen
Background
Referred to as “the best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made”, Charade is a well-made blend of espionage thriller, screwball comedy, romance, and whodunit mystery. It was one of Cary Grant’s final movies before his retirement after Walk, Don’t Run in 1966.
In the film, Grant plays the well-suited hero or foil (depending on the scene) to Audrey Hepburn’s character, housewife Regina “Reggie” Lampert, who is gradually learning the layered criminal truth about her recently deceased husband. Although he was 59 years old when the film was made, Grant makes a convincing action hero, spending most of the final third of the film running, jumping, and shooting.
As to be expected, Grant is immaculately suited through most of the film.
On the 109th anniversary of Grant’s birth—when he entered the world in Bristol, England, as Archibald Leach on January 18, 1904—please enjoy… Continue reading
The Bourne Identity: From Zurich to Paris
Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity (2002)
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Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, ex-CIA assassin on the run
Zurich to Paris, Winter 2002
Film: The Bourne Identity
Release Date: June 14, 2002
Director: Doug Liman
Costume Designer: Pierre-Yves Gayraud
Background
The Bourne Identity was the first installment of what became a very successful trilogy—and, ultimately, a moderately successful series—starring Matt Damon as an amnesiac government assassin named Jason Bourne… based on a 1980 novel by Robert Ludlum that, as it happens, was also about an amnesiac government assassin named Jason Bourne. Continue reading
Bullitt
Steve McQueen’s iconic style in Bullitt was one of my first BAMF Style posts, originally published in October 2012. As my writing style and the information available to me has evolved over the years, this post has been in a state of constant revision and updates, most recently in April 2021.
Steve McQueen as Bullitt (1968).
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Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt, maverick San Francisco inspector
San Francisco, Spring 1968
Film: Bullitt
Release Date: October 17, 1968
Director: Peter Yates
Costume Designer: Theadora Van Runkle
Background
When I originally set out to learn more about Lieutenant Bullitt’s clothing, I came across a blog dedicated to Steve McQueen’s style that instantly made me feel seen with the declaration:
One thing sane people do, as we all know, is spend a good portion of their spare time on eBay searching for a brown tweed jacket a bit like the one in Bullitt.
Thanks to movies like The Great Escape, The Cincinnati Kid, and The Thomas Crown Affair—to name just a few—the Indiana-born McQueen has been firmly established as an icon of tough and timeless style, though its arguably his wardrobe as the eponymous hardworking and hard-driving SFPD detective in Bullitt that’s most singularly responsible for his enduring reputation as the “King of Cool”.
McQueen cycles through three distinct outfits in Bullitt—four, if you count his paisley pajamas—though it’s the tweed jacket, turtleneck, and boots that he wears while speeding his green ’68 Mustang fastback through the sloping streets of San Francisco in pursuit of a villainous black Dodge Charger R/T during the film’s unmatched ten-minute car chase that remains his most famous look. Continue reading
Three Days of the Condor
Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor (1975)
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Robert Redford as Joe Turner, alias “Condor”, CIA researcher
New York City, December 1975
Film: Three Days of the Condor
Release Date: September 24, 1975
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
In a July 2012 article of GQ, Sydney Pollack’s masterpiece paranoia government thriller Three Days of the Condor was named one of “The 25 Most Stylish Films of All Time.” Pollack apparently was shocked by questions about the wardrobe worn by Robert Redford, saying “He wore one outfit through the whole picture!”
True as that may be, Redford’s versatile costume throughout fits the character of Joe Turner, a desk-bound ex-military bookworm who finds himself in dangerous circumstances despite a relatively non-dangerous job with the CIA. Codenamed “Condor” by his CIA supervisors, Turner is “literally out to lunch” when a professional hit squad wipes out all of his co-workers, sending Turner on the run with no one to trust but a complete stranger, a troubled photographer that he takes hostage named Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), and presses into service to help him. Continue reading