Movies with Men in Kilts and MUGs
Movies showing men wearing kilts,
sarongs, tunics, togas, robes, and other male unbifurcated garments. (No tranny
stuff.)
(Arranged roughly in order of significance, as judged by
the webmaster.)
Films featuring Scottish kilts:
 Braveheart
(1995). Historians may question whether the real William Wallace ever wore a
kilt, but that did not stop this Academy Award winning film - starring Mel
Gibson as the Scottish hero - from becoming the greatest kilt epic of all time.
Rob Roy (1995) -
starring Liam Neeson as the legendary kilt-wearing Scottish outlaw.
Tunes of Glory (1960) -
British film with Alec Guinness in a kilted Highland regiment.
Mrs. Brown (1997) -
Billy Connolly plays John Brown, the kilt-wearing Scottish servant who became a
close companion of Queen Victoria after her husband's death.
King of Hearts (Le Roi de
coeur) (1966) - French film starring Alan Bates as a kilted Scottish
soldier in World War I.
 Bonnie
Scotland (1935) - A well-regarded Laurel and Hardy comedy. Haven't seen
it yet, but I understand they join a Scottish regiment and wear kilts.
Formula 51
(a/k/a The 51st State)
(2001) - Action film starring Samuel L. Jackson in a kilt.
Be forewarned that this film
is grossly violent and populated with reprehensible characters spewing non-stop
profanity. The only thing notable is that Jackson (an African-American) wears a
tartan kilt throughout almost the entire film, which is set in the present-day
U.S. and England. The kilt is magnificently macho and Jackson wears it well.
When Jackson arrives in his kilt at the airport in England, one of the villains
instructs his lackey to "follow the black man wearing a dress." At this point
there arrive about a dozen African men wearing robes and caftans. The lackey
becomes confused and follows them instead. This is an amusing example of why
it's important to call a kilt by its proper name.
Brigadoon (1954) - Film
version of the Broadway musical, in which Gene Kelly and Van Johnson play two
American hunters who stumble upon a magical village in the Scottish Highlands.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
(1969) - starring George Lazenby in his only outing as Commander James Bond,
007. Pretending to be a Scottish gentleman, Bond wears a kilt in one portion of
the movie. This so excites one of the women in the party that she reaches under
his kilt and, with lipstick, writes her room number on his thigh.
The Avengers (1998) -
This film got terrible reviews and I haven't seen it,but I understand that it
features Sean Connery as a kilted villain.
 Carry
On Up the Khyber (1968) - A British comedy in the "Carry On" series,
which includes a "kilt check" in which the commanding officer of a Highland
regiment investigates reports that one of the soldiers wears bloomers under his
kilt.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1994) - One of the weddings in the title takes place in Scotland, where the
groom and most of the men appear in kilts.
So I Married an Axe Murderer
(1993) - In this comedy, Mike Myers plays both the main character and his
Scottish father. There is a wedding celebration in which all the men wear kilts.
Highlander (1986) - A
French actor plays a sometimes-kilted Highland warrior, while Scottish actor
Sean Connery plays a Spaniard. Go figure.
Geordie (a/k/a "Wee
Geordie") (1955) - A Scottish lad represents Britain at the Olympics in
hammer-throwing and insists on wearing his kilt.
 My
Life So Far (1999) - A Scottish film, set in the post-World War I era,
in which the boys wear kilts for church and sometimes for casual wear.
The Wicker Man (1973) -
A classic horror flick, set on a Scottish island and featuring Christopher Lee
in a kilt.
The Match (a/k/a "The
Beautiful Game" - 1999) - Two Scottish pub soccer teams play each other in
order to resolve a century-old grudge. One of the characters wears a kilt
throughout the film.
A Life Less Ordinary
(1997) - Ewan McGregor (a Scottish actor who frequently wears kilts
off-screen) marries Cameron Diaz at the end and wears a kilt at the wedding.
Road to Bali (1952) -
In one of their better "Road" pictures, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby play
song-and-dance men who both wear Scottish kilts in one of their routines.
Rushmore (1998) - A
Scottish student wears his kilt at a party near the end of the film.
Intolerable Cruelty
(2003) - George Clooney and his best man wear kilts during a marriage ceremony
at a wedding chapel in Los Vegas.
Journey to the Center of
the Earth (1959) - Before the trip gets underway, Pat Boone visits his
lady friend in Edinburgh while wearing a kilt and full Highland attire.
This scene did nothing to advance the plot, but it did give Boone an opportunity
to sing and to show off his legs.
Casino Royale (1967) -
I have been told that, at one point, David Niven wears a kilt in this James Bond
spy spoof.
Those Magnificent Men in
Their Flying Machines (1965) - Scottish actor Gordon Jackson (who later
played Hudson in the Upstairs, Downstairs series) has a bit part as a
Scottish aviator who wears a kilt throughout this comedy about an international
air race set in 1910.
Men with Brooms
(2002) - Offbeat comedy about a small-town Canadian curling team, in which I am
told there is a piper who wears a kilt.
The Magnificent Ambersons
(1942) - This Orson Welles classic includes a boyhood scene in which the main
character wears a fancy kilt-suit, in accordance with boys' fashion during the
late 1800's. (Further
details at
the HBC website.)
Life with Father (1947)
- In this comedy about family life in the 1880's, the youngest son wears
historically accurate kilt-suits in a couple of scenes. (Further
details at
the HBC website.)
The Quiet Man (1952) -
Excellent John Ford film, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in a small
Irish village, offering a few brief glimpses of men in kilts.
Films featuring Roman tunics and other ancient garb:
 There
were many of these movies back in the days of Cecil B. DeMille and the big
Hollywood Biblical epics, until the cost became prohibitive. Recently, the magic
of computer graphic imaging has breathed new life into this genre. These are just a few examples.
Gladiator (2000) -
Academy Award winning spectacle starring Russell Crowe in a tunic, in the first
big movie of this genre in 40 years.
 Troy (2004) -
Homer's epic comes to the big screen, with Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom,
and a host of male warriors wearing MUGs of antiquity.
Alexander (2004) -
Oliver Stone epic in which Alexander the Great and his army of mini-MUGged
Greeks conquered the ancient world.
Ben Hur (1959) -
Charlton Heston plays a skirted charioteer.
Spartacus (1960) -
Great Stanley Kubrick epic starring Kirk Douglas and a MUG-wearing cast of
thousands.
Quo Vadis? (1951) -
Lions vs. Christians in ancient Rome. This was my first introduction to "men in
skirts."
Life of Brian (1979) -
Monty Python's irreverent satire of Jewish-Roman relations in MUG-wearing
ancient Israel.
Robin and Marian (1976)
- Sean Connery as an aging Robin Hood in a tunic.
Films with males in sarongs, robes, and other male skirted
garments:
 The
Cup (1999) - Tibetan men and boys in robes at a Buddhist monastery in
India, in desperate search of a television set to see the World Cup soccer
finals.
 Bruno
(released on video as "The Dress Code" - 2000). The skirt and
dress-wearing boy in this film claims that he doesn't want to be a girl. Bruno
tells his grandmother that his dresses are "holy vestments" (which he associates
with the priests' vestments that he sees at church and the dresses worn by the
angels in his dreams). When the head nun at his Catholic school objects to his
wearing a dress, Bruno counters that men have worn "dresses" in many countries
throughout history, and that even the Pope wears a dress. However, the film then
departs from Bruno's original argument and puts him in wigs, make-up, and
flamboyantly feminine attire. This send the wrong message for those of us who
wish to promote male unbifurcated garments. Why doesn't Bruno have his
dress-maker mom make him some kind of robe, cassock, or even a kilt? No -
instead we see him dressed up like Diana Ross, the Queen of England, and a
cowgirl, with wigs and all. By turning Bruno's quest for self-expression into a
"cross-dressing" thing, the film perpetuates the stereotype that wearing dresses
means dressing like a female. It is only at the very end, when he meets the
Pope, that Bruno wears something that could be considered a dress designed for a
male (a white robe similar to what the Pope is wearing).
In Country (1989) - directed
by Norman Jewison and starring Bruce Willis as a traumatized Vietnam War
veteran. In one scene, Willis wears a sarong around his house. His guests
initially consider this to be a joke, like the cross-dressing Corporal Klinger
in the M*A*S*H television series. But later Willis explains: "Socrates wore a
skirt. All your Greeks and Romans wore dresses. It's healthy for a man to wear a
skirt. He ain't all cramped up and stuff."
Lawrence of Arabia
(1962) - Arab robes and caftans abound in this award-winning classic.
Standing On Fishes
(1999) - This independent film features Kelsey Grammar
playing a European film director with a taste for high fashion. In one scene,
shot in a trendy Sunset Boulevard restaurant, Grammar wears a Versace tunic
coupled with a long ethnic wrap skirt and sandals.
The Time Machine (1960
version) - Science fiction flick by George Pal, based on the H.G. Wells novel. A
Victorian Englishman travels into the far future and discovers a passive race of
humans called "Eloi," in which both the men and women wear tunic-type dresses.
Zoolander (2001) -
In this comedy about male fashion models, Owen Wilson's character Hansel wears
a long green skirt when hanging out at his pad.
The Thomas Crown Affair
(1999) - Brief glimpses of Pierce Brosnan wearing a dark sarong while visiting a
Caribbean island. Easy to miss if you're not looking closely.
Photographs: Scenes from Braveheart; The 51st State;
Carry On Up the Khyber; My Life So Far; Gladiator; The Cup; Bruno; Standing on
Fishes.
Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by WDP Bravehearts
e-mail: Brvhearts@aol.com
This site has been visited
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(This page was visited at its
original site 1,397
times from March 22, 2002, to September
1, 2002.)
This page last modified on January 25, 2006
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