This is absolutely huge for me. I've been looking for the exact manufacture of the original sweater used in Friday the 13th Part II since I bought the screen-used head in 2015. It took me six years to locate one. And it was only $30 on eBay.
The sweater I found is pretty mysterious. There is no tag on the collar and it looks like there never was one; the only tag is near the waist and just says "dry clean or hand wash with care." As near as the seller could figure, it was a 1970s fisherman's sweater made of Shetland wool in the color of Heather Green (a gray with a tiny bit of a greenish tinge). It seems to have coarse brown and white fibers woven in. The sweater is very chunky and was clearly a male medium or large like the movie sweater.
Over the last six years, I've spent countless hours on eBay looking for the perfect cable knit sweater. There are a ton of vintage sweaters that are close, but this is the only one I've ever seen that is a perfect match to the movie sweater:
- It has the same fat cables that connect with a left-to-right twist and the same plain fields of about three inches between them. The cables sit in their own "channel" with just a half cm or so width around them in the same fashion.
- It has the same number of cables around the torso: four down the front, four down the back.
- It has the same number of cable links from collar to waist: five complete links and two half links at either end of each cable.
- It has the same broad, plain strips descending the arms, with a single cable running down the top of the arm from the top of the shoulder to the wrist cuff; the cuffs, waist pattern and collar are all correct to the movie sweater.
Here's a comparison of the collars. Check out the perfect stitching match between the field, the cable, the channel separating the cable from the field strip and even the length of the cables that are coming directly off the collar. If you look closely you can see the movie sweater seems to have the same flecks of white and brown or black wool blended into the gray fibers.
Here's a comparison of the waist stitching. Notice that the field strips line up with exactly three vertical bands in the waist stitching and the cables have a two-band width, just like the movie sweater.
I actually didn't realize that the movie sweater even had the single cable pattern descending the arm until I saw this sweater. It prompted me to take a closer look at blu-ray screenshots. They're definitely there.
It's hard to tell from the photo, but the links on my sweater cables are big--nearly four inches long. The collar is slightly over an inch thick and the waist pattern has about a four inch depth. Every detail checks out with the movie sweater.
Another thing I noticed is the sweater is very stretchy. Since Amy Steel wore it over a shirt in the movie, this stretched it out considerably and made it look larger and the features somewhat fatter.
Here's a few more shots of the movie sweater.
Great find. I have been trolling eBay for over 20 years looking as well, sad I missed this one, but glad you got it!
ReplyDeleteI recently located the 3rd book from the Part VI Tommy Jarvis books, that was one of my 20+ year grails I got to check off.
Nice! I love those details. I know a collector who focuses on odds and ends from the films and he's found every single patch that was on the main biker's jacket from part 3.
DeleteLoco is wearing 2 vests, a leather one covered in patches over a denim one which appears to have a back patch with at least a top rocker patch.
ReplyDeleteAli's denim vest has just one back patch, and it's the same back patch as the biker gang from the 1978 Clint Eastwood film Every Which Way But Loose.
I always assumed Ali and Loco's denim vest were props borrowed from that movie. Only thing is Loco's too rocker doesn't seem to say "Black Widows" like the Every Which Way But Loose biker vests. Bit of a mystery there.
There is a patch guy in Australia that makes the Every Which Way But Loose back patch set. The spider patch matches Ali's perfectly.
https://wizardpatch.com/collections/movie-tv-sci-fi/products/black-widows-every-which-way-biker-movie-set
Nice attention to detail
DeleteEven with the revelation that there likely is no brand to search for, this is the most helpful post on the topic. Plenty of references here that would not have been present in film stills. I thought the coloring was a part of weathering, but finding a green-gray color like that makes for a shortcut for a portraying the light blue sweater after rotting for years.
ReplyDeleteWill you display as-is, or apply weathering to it?
I'll be displaying as is. Since this is the only known perfect sweater I want to make sure it is preserved.
DeleteGlad to hear it. It's not often that you're left with the only known copy of an item from the film. With no label, there's no telling if/when one's going to pop up again. Though I look forward to the display
DeleteHere is the real question that I didn't see asked or answered. Are you going to age/weather it? That would drive me nuts, because the sweater obviously looks too new for replica photos. However, it's nearly impossible to match exactly the wear pattern. So hard to know if I would keep it pristine or make the attempt knowing how hard it was just to find the thing. It would've been great to find two!
ReplyDeleteI will be keeping it pristine. If this thing were as common as a Sears Perma Prest that might be a different story, but I have never seen another one so I don't want to damage this one and potentially shorten its life.
DeleteThis is amazing man! I am happy for you!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteAmazing finding Mrs. Voorhees' sweater 😁
ReplyDelete