The 39 Steps: Robert Doughnut's Hat...

[kiltie]

Here it is...

Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I hath rather lie in the woollen.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.

 

[Fletch]

I never would have considered the lack of a hat in 39 Steps being a symbolic element, even if you are being a bit tongue in cheek. I guess in all the idealizing about the hat once being commonplace, you can miss out on some of the subtleties (sp?).

The classic British distinction in dress is Town and Country. Now, you'd wear a hat of some kind in the country, classically, but probably not the somber black-ribboned hat you'd wear in town. The hat, in Hitchcock's symbology, might represent the bourgeois urban existence which has to be tossed aside. (Remember Roger Thornhill didn't wear one either.) Hannay puts on a milkman's hat briefly - a transition to urban workingclass good guy? - before going bareheaded to the country.

 

[kiltie]

First the Donut Robot, and now this! Nevermind DOUGLAS and his hats - I want to be like you when I grow up!

See, SEE?!? See what I did there? I put an emoticon. It's funny, cuz I'm already "grown-up". Plus, I really like who I am already. I don't see a therapist or anything. Just commenting on how I like the way Fletch thinks. He seems like a fun guy.

 

[John Ligonier]

PERFECTLY NATURAL

Robert Donat is being perfectly natural with his hat in The 39 Steps. Everyone wore hats then and they played with them.

I have been a hat wearer most of my adult life (and I'm getting along in years) and fiddling idly with your hat is just one of those things you do. Your hat is a part of you. It's as instinctive as running your hand through your hair or checking your fingernails. You "read" your hat, flick a bit of dust off it, smooth the felt, run your fingers over the brim, etc.

I'm not talking about some compulsive obtrusive, nervous behavior here. I'm just saying this is what "natural" hat wearers naturally do in those moments when their hats are off their heads and time may be hanging heavy on their hands.

The more you newer guys get used to your hats and know them and live with them and treat them as old friends (rather than relics, hobby objects, costume items, etc.), the more you'll find you have your own habitual rituals with them -- just like you do with glasses, say, or a favorite lighter or pocket knife (sounding way old fashioned here!!).

"Fiddling" is just one of the reasons why hats -- in addition to being practical, satisfying and classically fashionable -- are fun. This is my first post. Sorry. Didn't mean to go on so.

 

[kiltie]

Welcome! And thanks for the post.
Feel free to go on, as it is my little dream to start one of those threads that goes on for 20 pages. I saw on on a policeman's forum once where each poster simply contributed a number in counting to 1000.
...and now, back to the thread...