Why does this look wrong to me? (Cary Grant Picture)

[MudInYerEye]

To my untrained eye, his suit is cut like a gangster's: double breasted and narrow at the waist. Grant nearly always played more upstanding characters.

Emphasis on untrained. Gangsters wore all sorts of suits and Grant played many jerks and cads.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Genuine Palm Beach does not shrink.

Oh yes, it can. A lot. The answer (besides dry cleaning): drip dry only.

 

[reetpleat]

It's his big head that is throwing everything off.

And the prize goes to, resortes. I was wondering if anyone else would see what I was thinking. I think the sleeves look fine, the length is fine and the jacket, while short, is period and looks fine.

We are much more used to later cg pictures. in those later pics, i think he wore looser cut stuff and darker fabrics, both of which served to camoflage what seems to be a rather large noggin.

the dark hat does not help as it emphasizes the head and throws it out of balance.

 

[reetpleat]

Is this perhaps a little bit of evidence that Grant - rightly -, like many stars of today, despised the press photographers. And this was his way of taking the piss out of them. Give the idiots in the press something to gabble about ("Look who looks bad this week!") …

johnincovina - that's not a tapered body line. It is a suit jacket that's too tight. Hence the puckering at the button. This modern eye is most certainly happy with the tapered body line. We don't see enough of it (esp. with Re: modern American apparel)!

bk

I don't think it is too tight, but would suggest a couple of possibilities for the blousing. One is that he may have, just hopping of a plane, not bothered to button the inside button. This would cause the wrinkling. The other possibility is that it is a belted beck, with a bit of looseness to around the chest.

 

[reetpleat]

I have to agree with the Baron on this one. Either the suit is a size or two too small, which for a svelte guy like Grant, he could probably squeeze into, or this is evidence that mid-30s proportions don't work for everyone.

(for the record, I was wearing a size 7 hat at the time, the suit is close to a size 32, and I normally wear a 34 or 36S)

If you look at the right arm, and where the arm hole is, you would perhaps, come to the conclusion that if anything, it was a bit big in the chest. Come to think of it, I think even more that it is a case of the inside button not being done, shifting a bit of the jacket too far back causing the pulling, blousing, and the arm hole to not fit right and perhaps the sleeve to ride up. A minute after this photo, he may have shrugged his shoulder, tugged at the bottom, and been right as rain.

 

[BinkieBaumont]

Perhaps Carey reached into the wrong closet when he was house sharing with Randolph Scott, so they could both save money