The Wild One: Brando style

On the re-release of Brando's stunning A Sreetcar Named Desire, Gentry takes time to appreciate one of the most stylish icons to swagger out of Hollywood… Nothing beats a bit of Brando style!

If you haven't had the chance to see A Streetcar Named Desire, remedy that situation while it's on brief re-release. It's all sweat and growl. With no-one – before or since – carrying the working-class t-shirt and jeans look better than Marlon Brando. Strange, that a man so delicate and refined in other roles, should play such an untamed brute so definitively. He's a hot, prowling menace in Elia Kazan's seminal film, fairly bursting the seams of his bowling jacket. This is where Brando style icon was born.

There's something ape-like about Brando, in his mannerisms and in the simple humour he brought to many of his roles. He dominated the clothes he wore. But he wore them supremely well. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of another actor who looked so consistently good as Marlon.

A beefcake and a deletante. A meat-head intellectual who looked as dashing in the uniform of the marines (Reflections in a Golden Eye) as the costume of the cowboy (One Eyed Jacks). He could carry anything off – even looking quite fetching cross-dressing in grandma gettup for "The Missouri Breaks"!

We've selected his most dashing silver screen incarnations to pay tribute to a true icon, a hero to any man striving to look good:

5. The Godfather

The iconic tuxedo is perfectly filled by Brando’s sleek frame. Close around the throat, with a sense of strict authority, that bow-tie seems pinned in place by will alone. And as an accessory, that sinister cat isn’t half bad. The real style angle here is the incredible sense of grace and poise Brando brings to Il Padrino. Even when he returns to his peasant outfit in the vineyards before his death, the way he seems to be able to frame himself is remarkable.

4. The Fugitive Kind

As Val Xavier in Sidney Lumet’s ripe adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending Brando slithers and sweats through the film like a sick lizard. He plays a rebel too old to be cool, with a genuine sense of danger. His snake-skin jacket was borrowed by David Lynch for Sailor in wild at Heart, lending to the film not only the garment but the sneering shrug with which Brando wore it. In this tale of individuality and personal freedom, Brando – the true rebel without a cause, lest we forget – carries it rightly.

3. Guys and Dolls

If you’re wondering whether or not Brando could pull off plain old slick, check out his Sky Masterson. Dapper and debonair, he makes the always worryingly thin Sinatra look like a drowned cat. The high-end gangster suits, silk shirts, shiny wingtips and askance fedoras just look perfect on Brando. To top it all, he surprised everyone by being able to sing and dance.

2. A Streetcar Named Desire

Brando’s fearsome Stanley Kowlaski is an enduring, brutish icon that ranks up there with the best realised characters cinema has ever given us. Too much has been made of his mumbling, his lines are not only intelligible but full of arresting intonations simply not existent at that time. Besides, with a body like that, who needs words? The torn tee, the worker’s pants, the bowling jacket – Stanley is a working class monster brought to life with careful rage. Nobody ever looked better leaning menacingly than Stanley Kowalski.

1. The Wild One

He looks more like a runaway from the French navy than a biker, but he looks great nonetheless. Even more iconic than Stanley, Johnny Strabler is the high-point of Brando’s fashion legacy. The leather jacket and slanted hat sting with attitude. Even if that attitude is more “your place or mine” than “we’re gonna smash up your diner”. And don’t forget the bike. The 650cc Triumph Thunderbird is a classic and Johnny straddles it like it’s beautiful. “Whattya gonna wear tomorrow, Johnny?” “Whattya got?” he snarls. Or something like that!

And he was pretty dashing off screen too…

Here's our take on another Hollywood style icon – Paul Newman…

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