I am looking for movies where hats have played a significant supporting role. I will be posting more on this very soon as the Oscars are coming soon.
I posted a request for suggested movies on my group The Hat Revivalist League on Face Book. Right now the group is really just starting up. I am looking for people to join up right now and by joining expressing their desire to bring hat wearing to daily wear. Please come over and give your support and join in the conversation.
I am asking for people to post pictures of themselves in their favorite hats as well as other pictures in the public domain or those they own the right to publish. Please take care when posting pictures. You have to have the permission of the subject and also the right to publish. I am looking for suggestions as to what to do with the group. One idea is that we could adopt a charity to support? Please submit your suggestions here or in the group discussions on Face Book.
I asked for nominees for hatty movies. One of the members of the Face book Group came up with the Secret Life of Walter Mitty a movie from 1947. I do not remember having seen this movie. The movie seems to be out of print and otherwise hard to obtain. Someone has posted the scene in question on You Tube. The movie is based upon a 1939 story by James Thurber. It is about a mild mannered dreamer. The Walter Mitty character has crept into popular culture to describe a personality of an ineffectual, hapless dreamer – one who is unrealistic and achieves nothing. It’s too bad it’s a great story and the bits of the movie I have seen are wonderful. I am reading stories that the Secret Life of Walter Mitty will be remade with Mike Myers in the starring role in 2010. I love Mike Myers but I am very partial to Danny Kaye. Let’s hope that the old version will be re-released. I wonder if hats will feature as much in the remake. We must express our views strongly.
Danny Kaye (Walter Mitty) walks in on a wonderful presentation of delightful hats from Anatole of Paris. They are truly a feast to the eye. He goes into a dream musical scene with even wilder hats from Anatole. What a great sequence and really dated today. My personal favourite is the “Striptease hat” that is actually several different hats in one – very clever idea. I wonder if someone can bring back “the Striptease Hat”? The Wikipedia page about the movie provides the following very interesting background about Anatole of Paris:
…one of his (Danny Kaye’s) best remembered dream characters, “Anatole of Paris”, a fey women’s milliner whose inspiration for the ridiculous chapeaus he creates is in actuality his loathing of women. The Anatole character is based on “Antoine de Paris,” a women’s hair-salon professional of the era, known for creating preposterous hairstyles. The lyrics to the song Anatole of Paris were written by Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine.
Sadly the love of hats has become faded. We are out to change that here. Please give us your support. Bring your hats out of the closet and wear them proudly and join the Hat Revivalist League.
The Walter Mitty Story has been posted on the Internet and is extremely short. It seems to me that there is a lot of “poetic” licence here and hats may well be cut out of the story line that appeared in 1947 – I don’t know? There have been other movies where hats have been cut out of the story line when the movie is remade. Ninotchka, starring the wonderful Greta Garbo, featured a great hat as the desire of the assistant Commissar from Russia (Garbo) in 1939. The movie was remade in 1957 when the object of desire was Silk Stockings – the movie Silk Stockings featured Cyd Charisse as the assistant Commissar from Russia in a similar but not identical plot. What happened to the hat idea? Probably stockings were more an object of desire since they were not available at all in World War II since silk was a valued war material for parachutes. Memories were still fresh in 1957 when Silk Stockings came out. Perhaps stockings were chosen in honour of Cyd’s famous legs – they were outstanding!
Oh please join the Hat Revivalist League and let’s bring hat wearing back!
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