Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)
Vitals
Al Pacino as Frank Serpico, plainclothes New York Police Department office
New York, Winter 1967
Film: Serpico
Release Date: December 5, 1973
Director: Sidney Lumet
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
My eyes see… 84 birthday candles for Al Pacino, born April 25, 1940! Sandwiched between his acclaimed performances as Michael Corleone in the first two installments of The Godfather, the New York-born actor returned to the scrappy persona that signified many of his early screen roles as an easygoing drifter in Scarecrow and the police drama Serpico.
Pacino’s performance as real-life NYPD officer Frank Serpico in the latter resulted in his second Oscar nomination, though Pacino has since shared the story of why he was relieved not to have won during the 46th Academy Award ceremony held 50 years ago this month in April 1974. As the actor shared with Lawrence Grobel for a 1979 Playboy interview:
I was at the Oscars once, for Serpico. That was the second time I was nominated. I was sitting in the third or fourth row with Diane Keaton. Jeff Bridges was there with his girl. No one expected me to come. I was a little high. Somebody had done something to my hair, blew it or something, and I looked like I had a bird’s nest on my head, a real mess. I sat there and tried to look indifferent because I was so nervous. Any time I’m nervous, I try to put on an indifferent or a cold look. At one point, I turned to Jeff Bridges and said, “Hey, looks like there won’t be time to get to the Best Actor awards.” He gave me a strange look. He said, “Oh, really?” I said, “It’s over, the hour is up.” He said, “It’s three hours long.” I thought it was an hour TV show, can you imagine that? And I had to pee—bad. So I popped a valium. Actually, I was eating valium like they were candy. Chewed on them. Finally came the Best Actor. Can you imagine the shape I was in? I couldn’t have made it to the stage. I was praying, “Please don’t let it be me. Please.” And I hear…”Jack Lemmon.” I was just so happy I didn’t have to get up, because I never would have made it.
What’d He Wear?
A brief but memorable segment of Serpico follows chronicles Frank’s icy reception upon a new assignment to the Bronx, where he’s eventually relieved to meet another honest officer, Inspector Lombardo (Edward Grover), the film’s stand-in for his real-life colleague Paul Delise. Over the past seven years of his career with the NYPD, his appearance evolved from the relatively clean-cut officer who joined the department in 1960 to a long-haired hippie with a full beard and unkempt clothing, instantly differentiating his appearance from his fellow officers but also providing a valuable verisimilitude to effectively blend in while conducting his plainclothes duties.
The real Serpico had spent two years serving in the U.S. Army during the 1950s prior to joining the NYPD, perhaps informing much of the military-style clothing that costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone blended with Pacino’s on-screen hippie attire, such as the OG-107 fatigue shirt he wears under a corduroy sports coat and the M-1951 field jacket he would be wearing when shot and wounded on the job in February 1971.
Serpico layers against the winter chill for his first day at Delise’s Bronx precinct in a dark navy-blue pea coat made of heavy 32-oz. melton wool blended with nylon for a weather-resistant shell. Given the Schott-style cut and anchor-detailed buttons, the coat is likely military surplus, aligned with the guidelines for the kersey wool Type A “Coat (peacoat), blue” stipulated in the U.S. Navy’s uniform regulations.
Serpico’s pea coat follows the traditional design with its hip-length skirt and double-breasted front, arranged in two columns of four black 50-line “foul anchor” plastic buttons, with an additional row under the top of the broad ulster-style collar to close the jacket over the chest. The set-in sleeves are left plain at each cuff, the back is split with a single vent to aid movement without sacrificing insulation, and there are two hand-warmer pockets with vertical welted openings.
Serpico maintains the naval themes with his work shirt, made from a blue chambray cotton like the long-sleeved shirts adopted as part of the U.S. Navy’s “working uniform” in 1913. Woven in a blue warp and white weft that presents a mottled denim-like mid-blue finish, his shirt has a point collar, six-button placket, single-button cuffs, and two chest pockets—each covered with a single-button flap, mitred in each corner. (Since we see the unfastened shirt cuffs coming through the ends of his jacket sleeves, we can tell this isn’t the similar chambray shirt he wore earlier with the sleeves cut off at mid-bicep for a makeshift short-sleeved shirt.)
Unlike the pea coat, Serpico’s chambray shirt is likely a civilian-marketed garment as informed by its white plastic buttons (never used on USN-issued shirts) and the pocket flaps (which had been removed from USN-issued shirts early during World War II.)
Serpico’s light-gray jeans may be a pinwale corduroy cotton, also known as “needlecord”, as suggested by the soft-napped sheen seen in the folds of the cloth. The small black branded patch along the back right seam and the “lazy S” stitching across the two back patch pockets informs us that these were made by Lee, the North Carolina-based outfitter that competed with Levi’s and Wrangler for American denim supremacy throughout the latter half of the 20th century.
Fashioned with the requisite belt loops and five-pocket configuration—two back pockets, two curved front pockets, and a small coin/watch pocket inset on the right—the frayed bottoms are dramatically flared in the style of “bell-bottoms” that were becoming increasingly trendy among the hippie subculture through the late 1960s.
Serpico draws his Hi-Power on an officer who dares threaten him. Note the IWB holster worn clipped onto his waistband (sans belt) and the Lee branding and stitch, visible albeit blurred due to his rapid movement.
Serpico carries his personally purchased Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol in a simple tan suede leather IWB holster clipped onto the back-right side of his waistband for a right-handed draw. Inside-the-waistband (IWB) holsters grew increasingly common through the 1960s and ’70s with the rise of more concealable handguns being carried by private citizens.
His black leather boots have a squared plain-toe and raised heels, with the shafts likely rising to mid-calf under the ample flared bottoms of his gray jeans.
Serpico’s arrangement of jewelry typically includes a silver box-chain necklace with a pendant depicting the Muslim symbol of a star inside a crescent moon, a gold cable-link necklace with a gold Winnie-the-Pooh bear dangling with movable arms and legs (given to him by a Swedish girlfriend), and a rotating assortment of rings; when arriving for his new assignment in the Bronx, he appears to only be wearing a silver-toned overlap ring on his right index finger, detailed with a square gem shining from each end.
Consistent with the winter weather, Serpico also cycles through a few knit caps, most prominently the slightly elongated and self-cuffed navy-blue cable-knit woolen beanie that he wears to the precinct. (He was earlier seen wearing a more loosely knit magenta beanie with a purple top and cuff.)
The Gun
Considering himself a “marked man” after his grand jury testimony against the officers who accept bribes, Pacino’s Serpico increases his firepower by purchasing a blued steel-framed Browning Hi-Power at the legendary John Jovino Gun Shop on Grand Street in Little Italy, just as he had in real life.
“I went into a gun store behind headquarters. Jovino’s, I think it was called, and I bought a fourteen-round Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol,” Serpico recalled in a 2017 interview with Doug Poppa for the Baltimore Post-Examiner. “I was the first cop in the New York City Police Department to carry a Browning 9mm. You couldn’t carry 9mms back then. They weren’t what you would call an authorized firearm. All we had was the .38 Special.”
“That takes a 14-shot clip,” the on-screen salesman tells him, likely conflating the total capacity with carrying a round in the chamber in addition to the 13-round magazine, adding “you expecting an army?” Serpico responds, “No, just a division.”
Serpico completes the paperwork for his new Hi-Power. Note that he’s wearing the magenta-and-purple knit cap referred to earlier, with the same pea coat and chambray shirt he would wear for his first day in the new division.
Serpico’s prediction for his reception at the precinct becomes prescient when he feels forced to draw it almost instantly upon being greeted by an angry fellow officer at his new division who threatens him with a knife. In Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System, author Peter Maas recounts the incident that would also be depicted on screen:
Serpico was over him at once. He whipped out his Browning automatic, cocked it, and pressed it against the base of the plainclothesman’s skull. “Move, you motherfucker,” Serpico said, “and I’ll blow your brains out.”
The man’s body went limp, his face was jammed too tightly against the floor and he could not speak. Serpico kept the gun on him, looking around the room. Everyone was frozen in place, and no one was smirking anymore.
Perhaps 30 seconds passed before one of the other cops in the room coughed nervously and said, “Jesus Christ, is that a forty-five?”
“No, nine-millimeter,” said Serpico.
“Oh, so that’s the new Browning, huh? How many rounds does it hold?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen? What do you need fourteen rounds for?
“How many guys you got in this office?”
“Hey look, we were just joking.”
“Yea, so was I,” Serpico said.
— Peter Maas, Serpico: The Cop Who Defied the System
The officer refers to the “new Browning,” though the design had existed for decades. Famous firearms designer John Browning started conceptualizing this firearm during the early 1920s, drawing from aspects of his venerable M1911 like the single-action trigger and short-recoil operation, though Colt’s ownership of the 1911 patent pushed Browning’s new design in a different direction. Brought to completion by the late Browning’s protégé Dieudonne Saive, the Hi-Power changed the firearms landscape upon its launch by the Belgian manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) Herstal in 1935, ushering in a new era of reliable pistols that offered both a high capacity and the relatively potent 9x19mm Parabellum ammunition, presaging the double-action “Wonder Nines” that would be innovated by the likes of Beretta, Glock, SIG-Sauer, Smith & Wesson, and Walther through the 1970s and ’80s. At the time that Serpico was set and made, the single-action Hi-Power still offered perhaps the greatest balance of power and capacity in a generally portable package.
Pacino’s screen-used Hi-Power was sold by Heritage Auctions in 2018, with the listing and photos showing a serial number as 72C67613, informing a production date of 1972 that would have been produced about four or five years after this scene was set, though the overall Hi-Power design changed little in this time. The screen-used Hi-Power is configured with target sights—a raised front ramp sight and adjustable rear sight—that visually differentiate it from the standard model.
The screen-used Browning Hi-Power from Serpico, serial #72C67613, as pictured in its 2018 auction listing. (Source: Heritage Auctions)
How to Get the Look
Al Pacino in Serpico (1973)
Serpico’s regular wearing of military surplus gear aligns with its embrace by ’60s counterculture as well as providing practical and hardy layers for his work on the streets of New York, relying on the warm and versatile comfort of a classic navy pea coat like generations before and after him.
- Dark navy-blue 32-oz. melton wool pea coat with broad ulster-style collar, anchor-detailed 8×4-button double-breasted front, vertical welted-entry side pockets, and single vent
- Blue chambray cotton work shirt with point collar, six-button front placket, two chest pockets (with mitred-corner single-button flaps)
- Light-gray pinwale corduroy/needlecord cotton flat-front Lee jeans with belt loops, five-pocket layout, and flared plain-hemmed bottoms
- Tan suede IWB holster (for Browning Hi-Power pistol)
- Black leather mid-calf boots with squared plain-toe and raised heels
- Navy-blue cable-knit wool elongated self-cuffed beanie hat
- Gold cable-link necklace with animal-shaped pendant
- Silver box-chain necklace with star-inside-crescent moon pendant
- Silver overlapping ring with gem-set ends, right index finger
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
It’s not who I wanna work with, it’s who wants to work with me?
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