This Property Is Condemned: Robert Redford’s Depression-era Cap and Corduroy

Robert Redford and Natalie Wood in This Property Is Condemned (1966) Vitals Robert Redford as Owen Legate, railroad representative Mississippi, Summer 1931 Film: This Property Is Condemned Release Date: August 3, 1966 Director: Sydney Pollack Costume Designer: Edith Head WARNING! Spoilers ahead! Background Robert Redford was on the verge of stardom when he was cast as the romantic lead opposite Natalie Wood in This Property is Condemned, released sixty years ago this week on August 3, 1966 and marking the late actor’s first of seven collaborations with director Sydney Pollack. Set in the fictional Mississippi town of Dodson (but actually filmed in the Gulf Coast city of Bay St. Louis) during the Great Depression, Redford stars as Owen Legate—a representative of the railroad that provides much of Dodson’s economic base. He literally drops into Dodson by the night train, dusting off his trousers and striding up to a raucous boarding house where the owner’s daughter, Willie Starr (Mary…