Why Didn't Indy 4 Feature a G&B?

[havershaw]

Ok.
31-32, we start to see the TALON HOOKLESS FASTENER (zipper) all over the catalog, but primarily on windbreakers and field and stream jackets (all of which reasonably resemble the Indy jacket, although virtually all have button cuffs and knit waistbands). These are all cloth and suede, however - no goat or horse or steer leathers.
The horsehide jackets are all still button front, although there is now an Indy-length one, called 'The Collegiate Type Windbreaker,' also featuring button cuffs and knit waist. No zippers available on the horsehide jackets, though.
For the most part...not much that resembles an Indy.
I have few years I'm missing, so the next one I have handy is 37-38...and now we've got 4 pages of very Indy-type stuff. Several are dead ringers for Indy's, apart from button cuffs and halfbelt backs. These all have zippers (now called Slide Fastened Front), no button fronts available in leather at all, all predominantly horsehide, with a few available in capeskin, and many in suede only. There's also three 'grizzly' jackets - fur and lambskin. Most have halfbelt backs, as well as pleated action backs, and almost all have the side straps.
The horsehide is definitely getting a hard sell in these catalogs, with little sidebars talking about how horsehide is the highest quality, most rugged material available to use on jackets, which is why the army uses it, etc., etc.
The styles don't change all that much through the 40s.
All of these are very Indy styles. So it seems like Indy's jacket is fairly period correct...unless, of course, he's had it for decades...um, so yeah.

[havershaw]

FWIW, is Indy's hat really considered a gentleman's hat? Wouldn't that be a bit more of a homburg? I know that the one they actually used in the film was a dress hat...but the only fedoras I see in these catalogs around that time period look a lot classier and dressier than Indy's. Only things that look like Indy's are 'western style,' and would have still required some fussing from Indy to get it to what we're used to seeing.

Ward's isn't the only store in town, of course, and I don't think of it as any kind of vintage bible. But I've never really thought of Indy's hat as being particularly fancy. In other films from that period, it's the younger, more blue-collar guys who wear hats like Indy's. From what I've seen.

I've always felt like Indy is more middle class...although i don't know if that existed much in the Depression. My wife grew up super poor (government cheese!), and I grew up middle class...so of course she thinks I grew up a rich kid, because we had cable. (Or a TV, even.)

Though it took years for us to afford HBO.

Anyway, I do like the idea, though, that Indy fancied himself an adventurer and bought the gear he thought an adventurer would wear...whether it was appropriate or durable enough or not...and then hung onto and continued to use it all out of sheer sentimentality and stubbornness than anything. "See? It's an adventurer's hat...because I've worn it on a lot of adventures."

[havershaw]

Well, yes, you do have to pay $400 today to get a hat that comes close to the quality of mid-level hats of the 30s. Just like you have to pay $1000 for a leather jacket that undoubtedly didn't cost that then. (and each and every one was handmade at that time! no other way to do it.)

an analogy:
Several companies used to make analogue tape (for recording audio, amongst other things, for those who don't know).
Tape was a reasonable cost, as millions of reels were sold per year - it was the norm for recording audio for many years.
All of the companies went out of business eventually, as digital recording became the standard.
One company sprung up to make the tape again...but since it's now a "boutique" product with a niche market, a reel of tape is twice as expensive as it used to be.

Back in the day, any store that sold men's clothing at that time certainly would have sold men's hats, no matter how limited the selection. ####, even Ward's only sold one or two wool felt models, as opposed to their fifteen models of fur felt (of varying blends and qualities, but still fur felt). So I think it could safely be assumed that he could have gotten a high-quality hat (well, high-quality compared to today's manufactured hats, anyway) without spending that kind of money.
I don't know that anyone really has any demonstrative way to know how much Indy's hat cost (or that it was even a beaver hat, though I'm certain it was at least fur felt).

_, now that you mention it, I do recall hearing that there really was no middle ground in the Depression, so yeah, you're probably right.
I ignore pretty much any part of Indy outside of the first three films, so my opinion is probably biased. I've never seen any YIJC to speak of, so if we're basing Indy's background on events from that show, I have no leg to stand on. sorry!

But either way, Indy would have been 29 by the time the Depression hit, if we use HF's age as Indy's (he was 36 when they shot Raiders, right?), so he really would have "grown up" in the teens and 20s.
He's obviously not "rich" in the 30s or he wouldn't have been trying to sell little pieces to Marcus to try to buy a ticket to Marakesh. He has a fairly nice house, and he has a decent job as a teacher (though I'm not buying that teachers' salaries were all that great then either), so he's NOT impoverished, for sure...but he's not wealthy to be able to buy a plane ticket to go after something he desperately wants to obtain?

So, not poor...not wealthy...sounds middle class-ish to me. But maybe it's just a case of historically questionable storytelling.

this is a fun discussion.

[CM]

Indy was a spoiled rich kid. Face it.


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I thought Indy was a fictional character...

[Dalexs]

And dont forget, Al Gore invented the Internet!

[havershaw]

I think my point is...I don't think even nice hats cost $32 in 1930. Hats were not luxury items at the time...look at any photo of 1930s crowds, rich or poor.

Ward's most expensive hat in 1930 was $4.50.
I'm not sure why, but their most expensive hat in 1937 was $3.85 - with a giant banner that says "Rivals the Quality Found In $5 and $7 Hats."
This would say, to me, that $7 was considered quite a high-end hat.
####, I own reeeeeeaaaaally nice Stetsons from the 40s with factory price tags still inside that read $15 - and those were some of Stetson's absolute top of the line (Flagship, Royal Stetson Deluxe, and of course, the Stetson Twenty - which actually cost $20).

I'm saying that yes, it costs $400 to make a hat like that today. But in 1930, you could buy a hat of that quality for much less - and it still probably wasn't the top of the line (because I have yet to find a vintage felt which I think is beaten by a modern one. apologies to all applicable offend-ees).

Just like you could buy a nice piece of tube gear for a reasonable price back in the day...but to find something made by hand in the same fashion today will cost you twice as much (and I don't mean because of inflation).

Additionally...we have no way of knowing how much Indy did spend on his hat. What you see onscreen does not necessarily jibe with what he actually would have worn.

But _, I'm not really disagreeing with him being a spoiled rich kid. I think people don't like to think about it because it's not really complimentary, in most people's eyes. I found Tony Stark's character to be somewhat unrelatable precisely because of that fact.

Sorry. not G & B nor Indy 4-related.

[Dr. Nebraska S.]

Gents, the points about the cost of fedoras and what is Indy's economic background are all quite fascinating--perhaps better discussed in a new thread (hint, hint)...

Todd, so there are leftover jackets in the archives, as opposed to the fedoras? Interesting...

...And the best reason? If they use the Expedition design, (as is), I will suddenly be the owner of a totally screen accurate jacket!!!



Michael

Snap some snaps on that stormflap, and it'd be all set (and it would be Nebraska Schulte life-accurate, too).

Best wishes,
Nebraska Schulte

[Dr. Nebraska S.]

Oh yeah.... There are jackets. Tony was told "bullet proof" and anyone who has that hide on a CS can testify - the danged things are indestructible.

I thought there were lids? I can ask around, but who said there were not?


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Actually, I thought you had said at one time that they had disappeared, but I could be remembering wrong. I'll see if I can do a search...

Best wishes,
NS

[havershaw]

Sorry to derail.

[Dr. Nebraska S.]

Sorry to derail.

No problem--like I said, it might be worth starting up another thread.

[CM]

All interesting stuff - I don't mind and I did start this thread.

I never try to read into two dimentional cartoon-like characters like Indy. Anything's possible. The hat may have been a gift from an old girlfriend, the jacket won in a poker game. I don't give a ****.

Forget the novels and the Young Indiana series which are just very average efforts to cash in on the original movie and the less than satisfactory sequals. I take the view that when Indy was created and first filmed there was nothing to his past except for a few cliches about running off with his mentor's young daughter. It's better that way. We rob the character of mystery and power by trying to "explain" him.

Where did Indiana buy his hat? Where did Mickey Mouse get his tail?

[havershaw]

True...but as Indy is a fictional character, and none of us are the creators*, any one of our guesses as to his background is as good as anyone else's...and everyone can enjoy their own theories as to anything that isn't directly seen on screen.

it's fun!

*by 2008, even the original creators weren't able to keep their own character consistent with the guy they invented in 1981. my opinion, of course...but it was like they didn't even know what made Indy work as a character...which probably goes farther in proving my point...

hey, I just got OT from the OT! wow. sorry.

[CM]

But to your own point - if you don't care, what are you doing posting? The question - however ot - was raised. Flipness aside, we assume he bought them. When's the last time your girlfriend dropped the equivalent of a mortgage on something pretty for you to wear? Again, if you didn't care, you'd keep walking. But the issue raised was realism. The useful answer is not "it ain't real."

Just sayin...


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I hear ya. I'm posting because I care enough to give my opinion on the question of speculation, not beacuse I care about the costume's fictional origins. We've had enough trouble around here trying to establish the facts behind the real jacket used in the film without getting into the shadowlands of unverifiable, undocumented, fantasy inner life of George Lucas and Co. I'm still trying to cope with a brand new jacket made of soft lamb that is hand aged to look like some old, hard wearing piece of horse hide.