Stetson Open Road hat in the movies

[danofarlington]

I don't know whether this subject has been dealt with previously at the Lounge, but ever since buying my Stetson Open Road at a flea market about six years ago, I've noticed in some movies of the 1940s and 1950s the Open Road in use. I see the movies on TCM, the world's greatest hat channel. This weekend I saw Frank Sinatra wearing an OR modified into a cavalry hat in "Sergeants Three," a Western. It looked good. Note the color combo--silver belly or yellow hat with cavalry blue. Digressing to Sinatra, I read in a book that he had forty hats. Dean Martin may also have had one in that movie. I have seen Orson Wells wearing one. I think ORs are found in the Clark Gable-Spencer Tracy movie Boom Town. Which other movies have Open Road hats featured prominently? Eventually I stopped shouting to my wife "that's my hat!" And now I just make a list of them.

 

[Pilgrim]

John Huston wore them, and I believe that in Chinatown he wore one.

The hat that Sammy Davis Jr. wore in Sergeants 3 was actually borrowed from John Wayne - it was one he'd worn in many westerns. The story is that Sinatra and Martin kept jamming it down over his ears, and by the end of the filming it couldn't be salvaged. Wayne had to break in a new hat!

 

[danofarlington]

The story is that Sinatra and Martin kept jamming it down over his ears, and by the end of the filming it couldn't be salvaged. Wayne had to break in a new hat!

Ha!

 

[Mr E Train]

The hat that Sammy Davis Jr. wore in Sergeants 3 was actually borrowed from John Wayne - it was one he'd worn in many westerns. The story is that Sinatra and Martin kept jamming it down over his ears, and by the end of the filming it couldn't be salvaged. Wayne had to break in a new hat!

I'll bet the Duke was not amused.

 

[RBH]

Try this thread.

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=34486

 

[danofarlington]

Try this thread.

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=34486

Thanks. I figured there had to be something on that. Very interesting.

In that thread someone complimented Jimmy Stewart on his wearing of hats. I don't know whether that's a skill one can aspire to, but if so I aspire to it. I always really liked his chocolate brown fedora in several films including I think Vertigo and the one with Doris Day about spying in Europe.