Tagged: Writer

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)

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Monty Woolley as Sheridan Whiteside, catty, cantankerous, and “celebrated author and critic”

Ohio, Winter 1941

Film: The Man Who Came to Dinner
Release Date: January 1, 1942
Director: William Keighley
Costume Designer: Orry-Kelly

Background

Based on a play of the same name by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, the holiday-centered screwball comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner was released 80 years ago this year. Inspired by Hart’s own experiences with critic and writer Alexander Woollcott, the eponymous “man” is Sheridan Whiteside, an acerbic radio personality whose well-publicized national tour includes a stop in the invented town of Mesalia, Ohio, where his prestige has preceded him more than his condescending attitude. Continue reading

California Split: George Segal’s Aran Turtleneck

George Segal as Bill Denny in California Split

George Segal as Bill Denny in California Split (1974)

Vitals

George Segal as Bill Denny, magazine writer and casual gambler

Los Angeles, Winter 1973

Film: California Split
Release Date: August 7, 1974
Director: Robert Altman
Costumer: Hugh McFarland

Background

In honor of George Segal, who died a year ago today, today’s post introduces us to his character in California Split, directed by Robert Altman and described by Tim Grierson and Will Leitch for Vulture as the greatest movie about gambling ever made, “one of the high watermarks of ’70s hangout cinema.” Continue reading

On the Road: Sam Riley Channels Kerouac in Dark Blue Flannel Plaid

Sam Riley as Sal Paradise in On the Road

Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Jack Kerouac’s alter ego, in On the Road (2012)

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Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, aspiring writer based on future Beat icon Jack Kerouac

Queens, New York, Winter 1947

Film: On the Road
Release Date: October 12, 2012
Director: Walter Salles
Costume Designer: Danny Glicker

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Jack Kerouac was born 100 years ago today on March 12, 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. His 1957 roman à clef On the Road became a defining work of what would be called the Beat Generation, chronicling the author’s wanderings in the late 1940s with contemporaries like William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassady, and Allen Ginsberg, all thinly disguised in the novel with pseudonyms.

Kerouac had started work on the novel almost immediately upon returning from his travels, the original draft being a continuous, single-spaced 120-page “scroll” that he typed across three weeks in April 1951. This free-flowing stream of consciousness has been called the ideal medium that captured the mad impulses that drove his adventures with Cassady, represented by the larger-than-life character Dean Moriarty. Continue reading

Jeffrey Wright in Hold the Dark

Jeffrey Wright and Riley Keough in Hold the Dark

Jeffrey Wright and Riley Keough in Hold the Dark (2018)

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Jeffrey Wright as Russell Core, thoughtful and grizzled wolf expert

Alaska, December 2004

Film: Hold the Dark
Release Date: September 28, 2018
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Costume Designer: Antoinette Messam

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

With another snowstorm predicted for this weekend, I tend to find strange comfort in dark, brooding winter-set tales. A recent search to replenish my cinematic catalog led me to the moody Hold the Dark, an under-promoted Netflix release starring Jeffrey Wright as a wolf expert summoned to a remote Alaskan town by a quietly distressed mother, Medora Slone (Riley Keough), who hopes he can use his skills to hunt the wolf she believes responsible for the disappearance of three local children, including her own six-year-old son.

Despite his doubts that the activity can be attributed to wolf behavior, Core investigates and finds himself enveloped in a bleak and brutal mystery appropriately dark for a grim place that gets less than six hours of sunlight each day. Continue reading

The Shining — Jack’s Gray Tweed Interview Sport Jacket

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)

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Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, former teacher, aspiring writer, and potential hotel caretaker

Silver Creek, Colorado, Fall 1979

Film: The Shining
Release Date: May 23, 1980
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Want to inject some Halloween spirit into your office attire this week without sending your co-workers into a panic? Take seasonal inspiration from Jack Torrance’s tweed jacket and tie as he successfully interviewed for the job of caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining.

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La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Windowpane Shirts and Autumn-Ready Storm Rider

Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine (1969)

Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine (1969)

Vitals

Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation

French Riviera, Summer 1968

Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

“Actually, I don’t care much for summer,” the glamorous sun-kissed socialite Marianne (Romy Schneider) explains, clarifying “just the in-between seasons.” As tomorrow marks the first day of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, start finding your style for this transitional “in-between” season! Continue reading

La Piscine: Alain Delon’s Iconic Swimwear

Alain Delon as Jean-Paul in La Piscine (1969)

Alain Delon as Jean-Paul in La Piscine (1969)

Vitals

Alain Delon as Jean-Paul Leroy, moody ad agency writer on vacation

French Riviera, Summer 1968

Film: The Swimming Pool
(French title: La Piscine)
Release Date: January 3, 1969
Director: Jacques Deray
Costume Designer: André Courrèges

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

More than a half-century after its release, La Piscine remains hailed as one of the most stylish movies, not just for French designer André Courrèges’s costumes but also its sun-drenched Côte d’Azur setting, Michel Legrand’s jazzy score, and the smoldering expressions of its quartet of stars. “The less you put in words, the more you will oblige me to have imagination,” director Jacques Deray reportedly screenwriter instructed Jean-Claude Carrière.

Deray’s “imagination” draws the most from the dangerously intense sexual tension among its leads, beginning with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider as the vacationing couple spending their summer in an opulent villa secluded in the French Riviera. Continue reading

Robert Redford Dressed for Tennis in The Way We Were

Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were (1973)

Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand in The Way We Were (1973)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner, Hollywood screenwriter

Los Angeles, September 1947

Film: The Way We Were
Release Date: October 19, 1973
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Design: Dorothy Jeakins & Moss Mabry

Background

Tomorrow will be the final day of the 2021 Wimbledon tennis championships, which—due to COVID-19—were canceled last year for the first time since World War II. In the spirit of the oldest tennis tournament in the world, I wanted to highlight the classic tennis garb worn by Robert Redford for a brief scene in The Way We Were.

More than a decade after the popular athlete Hubbell Gardiner and passionate activist Katie Morosky (Barbra Streisand) kindled their mutual attraction in college, the two have reunited and have moved out to southern California, where the carefree Hubbell is all too comfortable turning his successful novel into a much tamer screenplay, aimed for mainstream audiences.

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Robert Redford’s Tweed Jacket and Navy Polo in The Way We Were

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardner in The Way We Were (1973)

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardner in The Way We Were (1973)

Vitals

Robert Redford as Hubbell Gardiner, Hollywood screenwriter

Malibu, California, September 1947

Film: The Way We Were
Release Date: October 19, 1973
Director: Sydney Pollack
Costume Design: Dorothy Jeakins & Moss Mabry

Background

Don’t take any crap…to the both of us… and all the absent friends, class of ’37.

Navy pals-turned-Tinseltown teammates Hubbell (Robert Redford) and J.J. (Bradford Dillman) cynically reflect on the decade since they graduated from college together, one world war and sold-out script later.

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Christopher Plummer in Knives Out

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey in Knives Out (2019)

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey in Knives Out (2019)

Vitals

Christopher Plummer as Harlan Thrombey, mystery novelist and wealthy patriarch

Massachusetts, November 2018

Film: Knives Out
Release Date: November 27, 2019
Director: Rian Johnson
Costume Designer: Jenny Eagan

Background

The great Canadian actor Christopher Plummer died a week ago today at the age of 91 after three quarters of a century honing his craft across stage and screen from Shakespeare to The Sound of Music.

In his penultimate screen credit, Knives Out, Plummer starred as Harlan Thrombey, a charismatic writer who built his fortune through writing mystery novels and, on his 85th birthday, resolves to finally set his free-loading family free. Continue reading