LizzieMaine
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A question: Can we figure out when the pencil mustache trend began--what films first starred leading men wearing pencil thins? Who were some of the pioneers of the trend between Gable and Flynn? And when did the trend die out as a mainstream stylistic choice? Could we list some films where a man with a pencil thin mustache is either the lead character or at least a side character?
That style of moustache was identified with Douglas Fairbanks, Ronald Colman, and John Gilbert long before Gable or Flynn were ever heard of -- it's as much a '20s style as it is a '30s, but by the end of the twenties it was often considered the badge of a gigolo or a fake European count as much as it was the sign of suavity -- a lot of lounge-lizards and cake-eaters were wearing such moustaches in order to look sophisticated, and that tended to put it in bad odor with a lot of people. Gable and Flynn made it respectable again, but they didn't create it.
A good example of how pencil moustaches were viewed by the ordinary public in the late twenties can be seen in Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill Jr.," where Buster is the effette college-boy son of a rough and tough riverboat captain. He comes home for the summer wearing a pencil moustache and carrying a ukulele -- much to his old man's disgust.