Welcome to Style Detective, a series from T Magazine. Each month, we’ll investigate readers’ questions regarding the items and objects they can’t stop thinking about — and can’t track down. Subscribe here and click this link to submit your own questions.
“I need to find the eyeglasses Charlie Murphy wears in ‘Harlem Nights’ (1989). They’re the Platonic ideal of glasses and, despite actively looking for them for the past couple of years, I haven’t found ones that are that perfect blend: rounded but not circular; not too small or Lennonesque; a bit of a late 1980s/early 1990s vibe, but still classic. I’ve seen a couple that were close, but the bridges on them were more lifted off the nose than the ones he has. Please help!” — Emily, Madison, Wis.
“Harlem Nights,” a comedic period drama, was the first and only film both written and directed by Eddie Murphy, who’s more widely known for his acting work in “Beverly Hills Cop” (1984), “Coming to America” (1988) and “Boomerang” (1992). In it, he also plays Vernest Brown, co-owner of a nightclub with his adoptive father (Richard Pryor), whose life is upended when gangsters interfere with the booming business. Although it’s now considered a cult classic, the film was neither a commercial nor a critical success. (Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert described the plot as “told in cliches so broad you keep waiting for it to poke fun at itself, but it never does.”) Despite the tepid overall reception, “Harlem Nights” earned praise for its costumes, which included tuxedos, pinstriped suits and, in one scene, a pair of shiny wire-rimmed glasses worn by a henchman named Jimmy, played by Murphy’s older brother, Charlie, who died in 2017.
To track down those glasses, I first turned to the crew. The costume designer, Joe I. Tompkins, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the film, left the industry more than 20 years ago. An internet search revealed that he’s now retired and living in Mexico. That bit was helpful, because it led me to a 2024 interview that Tompkins gave to Stephanie Carmon, who hosts a weekly radio show in Mérida and is the editor of MID CityBeat, an online magazine that caters to the expat community and English speakers in the Yucatán Peninsula. Carmon connected me with Tompkins, who said the glasses were possibly still in the possession of Paramount, the studio that produced the film, but he didn’t have much information beyond that. As I’ve since discovered, it is common for productions to consider anything handled by an actor to be a prop; since eyewear — along with wallets and pocket watches — is typically picked up at some point, it’s often considered to be outside the remit of the costume department. Then I tried to contact Jimmie Herron, the film’s prop master, but had no luck.
Period pieces aren’t always faithful representations of the eras they depict. If I couldn’t confirm the maker of the glasses, I hoped at least to find out if they were reproductions or true vintage. I reached out to Levi (who requested we print only his first name), the longtime owner of the Vintage Optical Shop, an online retailer specializing in frames from the 1850s to the 1970s. He explained that optical lenses changed dramatically in the 1920s with the invention of nose pads. Before that, frames sat directly on their wearer’s nose, and lenses were roughly 40 millimeters or less in width. Nose pads allowed frames to sit farther from the eyes, making space for bigger lenses. By 1930, the American Optical Company had introduced Ful-Vue glasses, which Levi suspected may have inspired Murphy’s pair. He explained, “Stylistically, the frames [from the film] are in keeping with the 1930s, with a few caveats. They appear to have regular skull temples” — a common arm style that curves downward toward the ear — “which are typically found on modern frames; the majority of 1930s frames had cable temples that wrapped around the [bottom of the] ears. They’re also very shiny, which wasn’t common at the time. Most frames had designs etched onto them and, while there were frames without engravings, the color was duller.”
According to Levi, Murphy’s frames were likely modern reproductions inspired by shapes that were popular in the ’30s. If you’re after historical accuracy, the Vintage Optical Shop sells several styles from that era, though I can attest that wraparound temples aren’t terribly comfortable. Levi said that real frames from the ’30s are also available in antiques shops and through online marketplaces — a quick search turned up multiple original Ful-Vues for under $250 — but that the rising price of gold has affected their availability, as some have been broken down for their gold fillings, bridges and pads. Modern approximations are more abundant: Ray-Ban, founded in 1937, sells gold-hued frames, and Oliver Peoples offers frames with a filigree pattern. If you want to get granular, you could commission a custom pair based on the shape and sheen of the glasses from “Harlem Nights.” The London-based brand Cubitts offers bespoke eyewear services at its stores in downtown New York, as does Friedrich’s Optik at its Midtown and Palm Beach flagships. Depending on the materials you choose, that could run anywhere from several hundred to about six thousand dollars.
