John Wayne's Akubra?

[zetwal]

Does anybody know where I can get the #585 black & gold hat cord w/o paying almost the same for shipping that the item cost?
http://www.millerhats.com/accesories_index/civilwarbands.html

It looks to me that the shipping is $7. Is that the price to which you refer?

http://www.millerhats.com/shipping.html

 

[gtdean48]

It looks to me that the shipping is $7. Is that the price to which you refer?
...

Yep. That is too high for a cord such as this. I have seen UPS on some sites at $5.95 but something like this can go in a pouch for $3 or less....

 

[zetwal]

Yep. That is too high for a cord such as this. I have seen UPS on some sites at $5.95 but something like this can go in a pouch for $3 or less....

I agree. An item that small and light could certainly be shipped for much less than seven.

 

[gtdean48]

I agree. An item that small and light could certainly be shipped for much less than seven.

I have found a couple of CW reenactor sutler sites that have flat rate of $5 shipping in US but none that have online ordering/checkout. Have to call them or mail it in????

Update = found 1 for $3.99 shipping.... & Mill Creek Mercantile is only $2.00!!!!

 

[zetwal]

I have found a couple of CW reenactor sutler sites that have flat rate of $5 shipping in US but none that have online ordering/checkout. Have to call them or mail it in????

I know how you feel. Two dollars is nothing in itself. But I really don't like overpaying for shipping either. In this instance, you could look at it as though you are paying a little extra for the convenience of online ordering.

 

[danofarlington]

I think that retailers figure in "shipping and handling" and add a small flat fee for the labor of futzing with the packages. That takes time and has to be costed out.

 

[gtdean48]

I think that retailers figure in "shipping and handling" and add a small flat fee for the labor of futzing with the packages. That takes time and has to be costed out.

I can understand some S&H charging when you have to use considerable packaging & labor, but to stuff a cord into a padded envelope & charge about 1 hour at minimum wage is excessive IMHO.
I don't begrudge folks covering their costs of S&H but to use it for another mechanism of profit is another. I sell enough online myself to have a good idea of the costs involved. Don't need a Masters degree in Business to figure that out...

 

[DougC]

Chisum is on AMC right now--The Duke's hat is pretty uninspired.

 

[1961MJS]

Hi

I bought one of those $100.00 Resistol hats from Joe's hats in New Mexico (thanks Earl). It's at Hatman Jack's getting creased into the John Wayne Cavalry square and the brim flattened. Pictures when the new computer and the hat come in.

Later

 

[Corky]

An Open Road version of the hat in question-

The Hollywood Hat Legend that I heard about the fate of Wayne's favorite hat goes like this: Sammy Davis Jr. asked Wayne if he could borrow one of his hats for a a western, SERGEANTS 3. Wayne said "Take your pick" and Davis selected the Ft. Apache-Rio Bravo hat. Davis used it in the movie, but hung on to it and used it for years as a prop for a Duke impersonation (Davis pushes the hat down over his head, strikes a pose, and says "Hey look, I'm John Wayne!") on TV variety shows, and as part of his lounge act. The hat finally made it back to to Wayne, but by that time it had been utterly ruined. Davis can be seen wearing the hat near the bottom of this poster for the film below.

I was recently inspired to block an Open Road in Silverbelly in that style (sometimes called The Rifleman's Roll).

The hat came from the Hatco Outlet store which can be reached at (972) 494-0337.

My take on the hat. Front view:

Side view:

Bottom view: (I remove the liners from my hats -- it makes them cooler in California's summer.)

Top view: My Open Road is in a Teardrop block, but Duke's hat in the photo above was blocked in a Diamond.

I have blocked a number of lesser hats into this same Rifleman's Roll in the past, but this was my first experiment with a new 4 X felt hat.

Next week, I will probably replace the thin ribbon with a rawhide saddle string. This will make it less formal and make it more closely resemble this hat in RIO BRAVO.

NOTE: This brim treatment seems to have the additional benefit of eliminating the Indiana Jones comments.

 

[scottyrocks]

Now you'll get John Wayne comments.

 

[scottyrocks]

Anybody wonder why Westerns were such popular movies for decades? They pioneered a new set of stories and did a lot of cool things. After the 1960s we'd had enough of them for a while, because they were so prevalent in the 40s and beyond, but looking back, they had a lot going for them story-wise and costume-wise.

Yes, and in my opinion, the film that brought westerns back into the mainstream again was Silverado (1985).

 

[Corky]

Westerns are far from dominating the mainstream today...

A couple of things: the first Western was probably Jame Fennimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, a series of novels which featured the main hero Natty Bumppo, also called "Leatherstocking," 'The Pathfinder", and "the trapper" and by the Native Americans as "Deerslayer," "La Longue Carabine" and "Hawkeye". This established the Western Hero as an ideal American type: He was usually a loner with amazing skill with a firearm. He lived outside civilization on the frontier, sometimes with a Native American as his sidekick and he was the one who brought order into the chaos that was the West.

This was a powerful, potent, American myth and it expressed a powerful vision of the unconscious yearnings and fulfilled the needs of countless numbers of Americans for generations.

Perhaps half of the movies made in the first century of Hollywood's existence were Westerns. The western movie developed from cheap silent one-reelers to serials in the 30's. The flowering of the Western genre came when directors like John Ford made STAGECOACH and Raoul Walsh made The BIG TRAIL. The Western flourished throughout the 40's and 50's. At that time, many of the best films being made by the many of the same directors and actors.

In the 50's and early 60's the studio system declined, but they still continued to churn out essentially the same films with the same actors. Western movies ossified at this point, as both the audience and the faces on screen aged and audiences found their Western heroes on television.

But the important thing was the Western hero was still at some level the Foundation Myth of our society. It was the way American people thought about themselves.

This all changed later in in the 1960's. Part of this was a reaction to the American experience in Vietnam, but at some point, the prime symbol in the American National Mythology changed. The Gangster (a sort of urban cowboy) or The Space Cowboy has taken his place. The over-use of the Mythic Cowboy as a symbol to sell cigarettes contributed to the decline as well. The day of the TV shoot-em-up ended when a few of our most inspirational national leaders were cut down by assassin's gunfire.

They literally just can't make Western movies like they used to any more for a host of reasons. The audiences stopped paying to see them. The great craftsmen like John Ford or Howard Hawks got too old to make good ones. And the dominant image of the American Mythic hero passed from being someone like Wyatt Earp to being someone like Tony Soprano.

Now and then an odd Western slips through and makes a splash. Westerns based on Japanese movies were popular for a while. Westerns made for the European market in Italy or Spain were popular in the 60's and 70's. Although these were popular with American audiences, they were not American films, they simply borrowed themes, plots, and story lines from the old American Westerns and presented them anew.

We are fortunate in that there have been some great Westerns or Frontier Stories lately. The re-make of TRUE GRIT and the first two seasons of DEADWOOD would be extraordinary cinematic achievements in any generation.

But this is hardly a resurgence.

 

[Italian-wiseguy]

Westerns based on Japanese movies were popular for a while. Westerns made for the European market in Italy or Spain were popular in the 60's and 70's. Although these were popular with American audiences, they were not American films, they simply borrowed themes, plots, and story lines from the old American Westerns and presented them anew.

For me, as an italian, it has always been crystal clear that Leone's "spaghetti westerns" (besides being based on japanese movies- at least most of them) weren't actually "westerns" at all.
They feel too much... well, italian. Or at least, latin in a larger sense (Latium is in Italy, I remember ) and in a way "catholic"; but primarily italian and even roman (in the sense of the modern Rome).
I guess you have to be italian to notice; but I always wonder how came that they could be popular in the USA!

One thing he (Leone) was always proud, is that his "West" was actually much more accurate in reconstruction than you may think. He did a lot of research, and came up at times with things that some times (at least according to him) even americans didn't know. But he liked to boast a little
while other things were clearly fantasy and make-believe.

Anyway, his movies are not westerns at all, in a sense.

ciao!!

 

[monbla256]

Two things or I should say events in American culture happened in the 60's/70's which killed off the Western really. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement and LBJ and the Vietnam war. I grew up during both and was involved in one of them and can say that the nievetay and simplified version of life socially that these movies portrayed was turned upside down during this time and Western movies merely followed suit and went away as they no longer could re-enforce a way of life that was gone. Sad but true and for me, the last TRUE western was The Shootest . JMHO

 

[scottyrocks]

After reading Corky, above, I decided t do a little research. What I found is by no means complete or definitive, but it does put into historical perspective what Corky asserts.

The following is a list of western films by decade, except for the 1950s, which is first broken down by year, due to the sheer number of films, followed by the decade total. All westerns are included that fit the genre, whether they be traditional, B-movie, comedy, or otherwise. The great majority are American. There may be films missing so the numbers could be higher.

1930s - 117
1940s - 106

1950 - 115
1951 - 85
1952 - 76
1953 - 68
1954 - 51
1955 - 50
1956 - 58
1957 - 61
1958 - 44
1959 - 33

Total for 1950s - 641

1960s - 244
1970s - 168
1980s - 64
1990s - 82
2000s - 80

The 1950s were indeed the banner decade for westerns by a wide margin. Both before and after, the numbers fluctuated way below the 1950s number, with a low of 64 during the 1980s, and a high of 244 for the 1960s.

The last year I have included data for is 2009 because the decade of 2010 is far from over.

So I have come to the conclusion that my original assumption of westerns making a comeback was in error. They are making a comeback now if you compare the 2000s to the 1980s, but there are nowhere near the number of westerns being made compared to the 1950s, and not even the 1960s or 1970s.

 

[MrAcheson]

For me, as an italian, it has always been crystal clear that Leone's "spaghetti westerns" (besides being based on japanese movies- at least most of them) weren't actually "westerns" at all.

My intro English course in college covered westerns and this was my prof's take on spaghetti westerns as well. They look like westerns, but they're shot and plotted like films from other genres like martial arts movies.

Also, one reason for the decline of the western is that nobody knows how to pace one anymore. Modern westerns are seen as excuses for long, rambling, overly-talky films. Compare that to a John Wayne movie that typically had at least one fistfight and two shootouts, but still only ran 2 hours once you take out all the commercials.

 

[monbla256]

My intro English course in college covered westerns and this was my prof's take on spaghetti westerns as well. They look like westerns, but they're shot and plotted like films from other genres like martial arts movies.

Also, one reason for the decline of the western is that nobody knows how to pace one anymore. Modern westerns are seen as excuses for long, rambling, overly-talky films. Compare that to a John Wayne movie that typically had at least one fistfight and two shootouts, but still only ran 2 hours once you take out all the commercials.

When we wnt to the theater to see a John Wayne western, they did not have commercials in them And they don't have the same impact on an HD TV as they did on the big screen with a soda and bag of popcorn

 

[hatophile]

Fascinating history and research guys!
I have always liked westerns, but as I've aged, I prefer to have my historical based films with more real history. After all, truth is stranger than fiction. Unfortunately, most modern films need a "catch" and the true story often gets lost in the film-making.
I think True Grit did a nice job of pacing an recreating the pattern of speech and clothing for the era. I wish more modern westerns were like that.

 

[jlee562]

My intro English course in college covered westerns and this was my prof's take on spaghetti westerns as well. They look like westerns, but they're shot and plotted like films from other genres like martial arts movies.

Also, one reason for the decline of the western is that nobody knows how to pace one anymore. Modern westerns are seen as excuses for long, rambling, overly-talky films. Compare that to a John Wayne movie that typically had at least one fistfight and two shootouts, but still only ran 2 hours once you take out all the commercials.

Funnily enough, when I was a film student I took a course on westerns and my professor would disagree with you both. Well, actually, his argument would be that the term "western" should be inclusive to spaghetti westerns, not that they were not thematically or structurally identical.