World War II Marine Corps
Alpha Service Uniform
Alpha Service Uniform
Please note this contains spoilers to the plot of "Wait Until Dark."
The character of Mike enters wearing the uniform of a 2nd lieutenant in the US Marine Corps, telling Susan he had served with her husband in Italy, is on leave, and is headed to the Pacific Theater. What Susan doesn't know is that he is a con man, only impersonating a soldier.
This poses a few interesting challenges to the costume department. The contrivance of the first act is that Susan, and subsequently the audience, need to fully trust that Mike is who he says he is. His uniform, then, must stand up to a certain level of scrutiny, but perhaps contain some subtle but telling inconsistencies. Susan is blind and thus wouldn't know if he was wearing Bermuda shorts and an Hawaiian shirt. The audience, on the other hand, can see all too well. Furthermore, the FACTC is located in Colorado Springs which is home to no less than 5 military bases. Although none of them are Marine affiliated, our audiences generally have a high military awareness, particularly regarding rank and insignia. Careless slip-ups are usually called out. It is tempting to say "Susan is blind and Mike is a phony, so the details really aren't important." On the other hand, making his costume absolutely perfect might undermine the meta-theatrical fun of the mystery. I found that really fleshing out his character's back story was very helpful in finding a balance. |
We know from the script that Mike is a professional confidence man, therefore we can assume he works at a certain level of precision; this ain't his first rodeo. I assumed then that he must have contacts and sources to provide him with any necessary accouterments to carry out his cons. He must know all too well that the Devil is in the details; however, he also knows that Susan is blind. Therefore I assumed that whatever level of detail he commits to is more for his appearance outside the apartment than for Susan within. He is certainly aware that it is all but impossible to ensure he won't be seen going in and out of the apartment; his story must therefore check out if Susan, or anyone else, is ever questioned. If he says he is a 2nd Lieutenant in the Marines who served in Europe, his appearance must coincide with that story. On the other hand, he wants to be as low under the radar as possible and not draw unnecessary attention to himself; he would therefore not want to be, say, sporting a flashy "fruit salad" of service ribbons; neither would he want to answer too many questions about who he is and why he is in uniform walking the streets of New York during war time. In short, any inconsistencies I incorporated into his costume needed to be just as historically accurate as the consistencies and not simply misinformed anachronisms.
Also, as stated before, due to the sizing issues with vintage uniforms as well as the physical requirements on the actor, i.e. he needs to be able to fall down a flight of stairs and be doused in "gasoline," rather than try to find and use an actual period uniform, I decided to modify a more modern one.
Luckily, the Marine Corps, unlike the Army, has changed their alpha service uniforms very little over the past 75 years. Although the fabric is a bit different, the style is virtually the same.
Modern uniforms usually combine a synthetic fiber with wool in a twill weave, and the color is more olive than those of the Second World War. Vintage uniforms were made of a heavy melton wool and had a very deep, almost blueish, hue to it's green. Interestingly, the color and fabric now is closer to what the Army was at the time of WW2 while the Army adopted a less olive green in the 1950s and has now just recently started phasing out their green uniforms altogether in favor of dark blue, which I talk more about here. As it can be tempting to interchange Army and Marine uniform items because they are quite similar, some other important differences to note are the lapels and the pockets. Army lapels, from WWII until now, are peaked while Marines have always been notched. Army coats have hip pockets that are built on the inside of the body while the Marine hip pockets are exterior patch pockets. Furthermore, there are two types of patch pockets on Marine coats which are distinctive of rank. Enlisted ranks have top-stitched patch pockets that sit flush to the body of the coat while commissioned officers have "bellowed" pockets that hang away from the body of the coat, this has remained the case since WWII. Marine Coats have also always been belted, either with a self fabric belt or a leather "Sam Brown" belt since as far back as WWI, regardless of rank. The Army, on the other hand, no longer uses belts; at the time of WW2, however, officers only wore belts, usually of self fabric and enlisted men had none. In short, they are not synonymous.
Fabric and color aside, it was fairly easy to locate post 1950s uniform pieces in sizes that fit the actor, what wasn't so easy was finding an officers coat with the bellowed pockets. The ratio between enlisted ranks to commissioned officers in the Marine Corps generally sits around 10:1 in favor of the former, it therefore makes sense that used and surplus stock is saturated with enlisted uniforms. Furthermore, Officers are career men who may be less inclined to ditch their threads upon discharge than their enlisted counterparts. At any rate, I had a hard time finding an officer's coat in the size I needed for a reasonable price so I decided to alter the pockets on the more available enlisted uniforms.
One other difference worth noting is the cut of the pants. Pants for all armed forces during WWII had high rises meant to sit right at the natural waist, a roomy seat, and relatively wide, roomy legs with very little tapering from the knee to the hem, as was the mode of civilian dress at the time. Conversely, more modern uniforms have a lower cut to the rise and narrower, shaped legs, reflecting more modern fashion trends; there is very little that can be done to correct these particular discrepancies.
Also, as stated before, due to the sizing issues with vintage uniforms as well as the physical requirements on the actor, i.e. he needs to be able to fall down a flight of stairs and be doused in "gasoline," rather than try to find and use an actual period uniform, I decided to modify a more modern one.
Luckily, the Marine Corps, unlike the Army, has changed their alpha service uniforms very little over the past 75 years. Although the fabric is a bit different, the style is virtually the same.
Modern uniforms usually combine a synthetic fiber with wool in a twill weave, and the color is more olive than those of the Second World War. Vintage uniforms were made of a heavy melton wool and had a very deep, almost blueish, hue to it's green. Interestingly, the color and fabric now is closer to what the Army was at the time of WW2 while the Army adopted a less olive green in the 1950s and has now just recently started phasing out their green uniforms altogether in favor of dark blue, which I talk more about here. As it can be tempting to interchange Army and Marine uniform items because they are quite similar, some other important differences to note are the lapels and the pockets. Army lapels, from WWII until now, are peaked while Marines have always been notched. Army coats have hip pockets that are built on the inside of the body while the Marine hip pockets are exterior patch pockets. Furthermore, there are two types of patch pockets on Marine coats which are distinctive of rank. Enlisted ranks have top-stitched patch pockets that sit flush to the body of the coat while commissioned officers have "bellowed" pockets that hang away from the body of the coat, this has remained the case since WWII. Marine Coats have also always been belted, either with a self fabric belt or a leather "Sam Brown" belt since as far back as WWI, regardless of rank. The Army, on the other hand, no longer uses belts; at the time of WW2, however, officers only wore belts, usually of self fabric and enlisted men had none. In short, they are not synonymous.
Fabric and color aside, it was fairly easy to locate post 1950s uniform pieces in sizes that fit the actor, what wasn't so easy was finding an officers coat with the bellowed pockets. The ratio between enlisted ranks to commissioned officers in the Marine Corps generally sits around 10:1 in favor of the former, it therefore makes sense that used and surplus stock is saturated with enlisted uniforms. Furthermore, Officers are career men who may be less inclined to ditch their threads upon discharge than their enlisted counterparts. At any rate, I had a hard time finding an officer's coat in the size I needed for a reasonable price so I decided to alter the pockets on the more available enlisted uniforms.
One other difference worth noting is the cut of the pants. Pants for all armed forces during WWII had high rises meant to sit right at the natural waist, a roomy seat, and relatively wide, roomy legs with very little tapering from the knee to the hem, as was the mode of civilian dress at the time. Conversely, more modern uniforms have a lower cut to the rise and narrower, shaped legs, reflecting more modern fashion trends; there is very little that can be done to correct these particular discrepancies.