Tagged: White Odd Jacket
Atlantic City: Burt Lancaster’s White Vintage Sport Jacket
Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal in Atlantic City (1980)
Vitals
Burt Lancaster as Lou Pascal, aging numbers runner
Atlantic City, Fall 1979
Film: Atlantic City
Release Date: September 3, 1980
Director: Louis Malle
Costume Designer: François Barbeau
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Burt Lancaster kicked off his final decade on the silver screen with Louis Malle’s well-received romantic crime drama, Atlantic City. In addition to securing Lancaster’s fourth and final Academy Award nomination, Atlantic City also earned nomination across all “Big Five” categories, though the film was shut out at the Oscars with Henry Fonda taking home the trophy for his performance in On Golden Pond.
Lancaster plays Lou Pascal, a long-in-the-tooth numbers runner who proudly walks the boardwalk of the titular town, waxing poetic to anyone who’ll listen about the golden age of gangsterdom in America’s Playground, when “it used to be beautiful, whatwith the rackets, whoring, guns.”
Atlantic City had floy floy coming out of its ears in those days. Now it’s all so goddamn legal. Howard Johnson running a casino. Tutti-frutti ice cream with craps don’t mix.
Lou’s comfort among criminality results in a botched cocaine deal that results in a dead dealer and plenty of blow left over for Lou to sell for his own profit as he endeavors to seduce the dealer’s estranged—and now widowed—wife, an attractive and ambitious casino waitress named Sally (Susan Sarandon). Continue reading
The Long Good Friday: Bob Hoskins’ White Striped Jacket
Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand in The Long Good Friday (1980)
Vitals
Bob Hoskins as Harold Shand, ambitious English gangster
London, Spring 1979
Film: The Long Good Friday
Release Date: November 3, 1980
Director: John Mackenzie
Costume Designer: Tudor George
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today is Good Friday, a liturgical observance often overshadowed by Easter but certainly not overlooked in the world of British gangster cinema thanks to The Long Good Friday. Considered among the top 25 British movies ever made in separate polls by BFI and Empire, The Long Good Friday has been a frequent request by BAMF Style readers including Dominic, Scott, and Wendi (and thank you, Wendi, for sending me the DVD copy used to source these screenshots!)
The title was intentionally chosen to suggest a tonal alignment with the works of Raymond Chandler, and our boisterous anti-hero, Harold Shand, would be a welcome presence in any noir. Specifically written for the actor, the role of Harold provided Bob Hoskins with his breakthrough performance as a London gangster seeking to take his enterprises in a legitimate direction, though he can’t outrun his criminal legacy as he finds his promising world collapsing among mob hits and bomb scares.
The Lady Eve: Henry Fonda’s White Sports Coat
Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve (1941)
Vitals
Henry Fonda as Charles “Hopsie” Pike, brewery heir and ophidiologist
SS Southern Queen, sailing north from South America,
August 1940
Film: The Lady Eve
Release Date: February 25, 1941
Director: Preston Sturges
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Men’s Wardrobe: Richard Bachler
Background
Last year on my girlfriend’s birthday, my commemorative BAMF Style post explored Henry Fonda’s summer-friendly formal wear in The Lady Eve, the romantic screwball comedy that I first discovered with her family. I’ve thus chosen to dive back into this classic directed by Preston Sturges (who would have turned 121 years old yesterday!) with another look at Fonda’s attire, this time a more casual ensemble as his character Charles “Hopsie” Pike romances Barbara Stanwyck at sea: “You have the darndest way of bumping a fellow down and bouncing him up again.” Continue reading