KNOX BOX sighting

[pgoat]

Quick story: I've been watching all our videos (DVD & VHS) in chronological order (don't ask - this is the kind of crazy obsessive stuff us archivists do) and am at around 1960 right now - a pivotal era in hat wear.

The JFK debate has been well-documented here but I was curiously looking for signs of hat decline in these films. I should mention I am watching films made outside the US as well and the trends seem to more or less follow internationally.

I just watched "North By Northwest" (1959). Naturally Cary Grant is hatless; I'd want to show off that nice head of silver tipped hair too! He is often said to have not looked good in hats, but he often wore them in his pre-war films and didn't look so bad in them imho. But in NbN he wears no hat (or coat - it appears to take place in August) and a quick glance shows perhaps 50-60% of the men standing around as extras or in supporting roles (cops, crooks, etc.) are wearing hats, mostly fedoras with fairly small brims.

One delightful discovery: When Grant has fled the UN and is speaking to his mother from a phone booth, There is a man standing in Grand Central Station holding a gold Knox hat box secured with twine (and no hat on his head!).

Not to start another hat decline war, but has anyone ever mentioned TV as contributing to the decline? I was born in '64 and the shows I grew up watching (reruns as well as newer shows) had little hat sighting overall vs. films of the same era - perhaps because the men were often either seen at home or at work with little incidental movement between the two (as in movies). Since men didn't wear hats indoors, it seems that the familiarized routines of the sitcom and the soap opera would concentrate on the hatless man, burning that into the viewing public's conciousness. Naturally the actors in these shows all had great hair! (Well, Ricky Ricardo, not Fred Murtz! )

 

[J.T.Marcus]

Television had to have been a tremendous factor in the decline of hat wearing, especially when you condider how often hats were used as a comedian's prop, thus lending a comedic air to hats. Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante and others used them in a way which, probably unintentionally, poked fun at both hats and people who wore them. Johnathan Winters had a classic routine that involved an entire table full of hats!

 

[pgoat]

Good point! I recall that now that you mention it. Just watched a Honeymooners marathon and Norton's hat was often worked into the skits.

By the way, Art Carney was in the promo ads for that marathon (TV Land, back in the 90s) and he wore a hat like the one Ed Norton did - twas supposedly "the" Hat....but who knows for sure?

 

[pgoat]

Btw, I have also been looking at a great website for you train and mass-transit fanatics: www.nycsubway.org

There are a lot of images of trains with commuters - very interesting to see the shots in the 50s, where you definitely see a decline in hats. But the bottom definitely did NOT drop out in 1961. There were lots of bare heads before that in those pics and plenty of hats afterwards as well.

 

[Spellflower]

 

[pgoat]

Awwww, Geeez!

ok, maybe I was wrong......:eusa_doh:

of course, now I am spotting TV hats left & right.....I had originally been thinking Dick van Dyke, Ward Cleaver, Ricky Ricardo, etc. I realize these men were seen wearing hats at times but I recall most of the action taking place indoors - at home or (in later years especially) the workplace, and hence these fellas were hatless much of the time.

I watched an old M*A*S*H rerun last night and realized Father Mulcahy always wore some type of fedora or what not. I realize it was set in the 50s, but just the same.....I stand corrected!

 

[J.T.Marcus]

... I recall most of the action taking place indoors - at home or (in later years especially) the workplace, and hence these fellas were hatless much of the time.

That's another big factor. When we spent most of our time outdoors, we wore hats. As we spent more and more time indoors, we tended to wear hats less. We have become an indoor society.

 

[pgoat]

exactly my point JT, thanks. Plus in those old films you saw the hero(ine) moving about more between points A & B, and they didn't have to be repelling down buildings or engaged in high speed chases or accompanied by mtv noise. They just sort of did their thing......and looked tres cool doing it! (I'm thinking Bogie, Sean Connery, Cary Grant, etc etc etc.). For most films pre-1960s, that involved a great hat.

 

[astaire]

I just watched "The Talk of Town" DVD starring Cary Grant last night. I must say, Cary Grant looks very good with his fedora.

There is a scene in the post office where he is actually carrying an oval knox hat box. I almost jumped in ecstasy I wonder if Mr. Grant wears a Knox hat in this instance. He's wearing a very nice rain coat too in this scene.

I love my Knox hats and boxes even more now.

How do fellow loungers do a screen shot from movies?fftopic: i think this one is worth posting on the lounge.

 

[jdbenson]

Hats on TV

I've often thought that the rise of television and the decline of wearing hats must be linked. In a previous life I did some studies in TV production and I know that in most studios it's virtually impossible to light someone's face who's wearing a hat...the brim casts a shadow across the upper 1/2 - 2/3 of their face. So, most directors ask actors to remove their lids or at least snap the brim up, ala Art Carney.

Think about it this way: TV's started becoming affordable in the 50s, hat's went sharply into decline in the 50s...

I figure the more people watched TV, the more TV became our popular culture, and the more people stopped wearing hats.

Just a theory, but I think it has merit.

 

[Lefty]

Hats were well on their way out decades before anyone had a tv. We've got plenty of threads on the decline of the hat, most of which begin with a question about "Hatless Jack."

I believe the conclusion reached is that hat wearing began to fall out of favor at about the same time that average people began driving cars.

Here's one of many acts of desperation by hatters, this one from 1932.

Second Source
Richard Lockridge, The Talk of the Town, ""Block that sinus!" Talk," The New Yorker, February 27, 1932, p. 7
Hatters try to stop fad of going without hats by placards stressing sinus troubles and the effeminacy of the habit. Students observed didn't seem to be suffering from either complaint.

According to wikipedia (the most reliable source on the planet ):

The first regularly scheduled television service in the United States began on July 2, 1928. The Federal Radio Commission authorized C.F. Jenkins to broadcast from experimental station W3XK in Wheaton, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. But for at least the first eighteen months, only silhouette images from motion picture film were broadcast.

So, tv was a bit late to the phenomenon of hat decline. Plus, if you're going to blame tv and comedians, why not go further and blame movies and the Tramp, who made just a few films in which he played with his hat.

 

[jdbenson]

I forgot about cars

Don't get me wrong, I fully realize that hat decline was well underway in the 30s, and was due to innumerable causes. I just thought that TV's depiction of a hatless society might've played a part...Of course I could have the cart before the horse, and TV was simply reflecting what was already going on in Hatless USA, but that's the whole chicken/egg argument.

The rise of lower roofed cars is another good point that may have added to the decline of hat wearing.