Club Obi Wan

Something that has always bugged me about the fedora used in Raiders of the lost ark: THEY USED SEVERAL DIFFERENT HATS

Just take a look at these and tell me that they are the same lid:



The bashes are very similar - surely done by the same costumer and are all probably HJ's, but the hats themselves vary from scene to scene just as the hats used in TOD.

That is probably true. Could it also be the lighting?
As was well discussed here, lighting can do amazing things to hat color!

Pic 1 is a newer hat used in the last scenes filmed in Hawaii. The other two are the same hat, IMHO. The Chachapoyan temple and The Raven Bar were filmed at Elstree Studios, London.

Hawaii was filmed last? I thought Alfred Molina(Satipo, Sapito, estupido, etc. ) talked in an interview about Hawaii as the 'first days of shooting'?
Was he referring to his first days of filming or the first for the project?

they were the first shot.

Besides the lighting which Feraud mentioned, all of these frames were taken from different angles. The second and third clips are a little closer to being taken from the same angle, but the difference is still there. As Pagey mentioned in another thread, the hat changes its shape remarkably when viewed from a different angle. That being said, I would not be surprised if they used a large number of hats in the filming of Raiders. It just wouldn't make sense to use one hat, and hope that it wasn't damaged beyond repair during filming.

I believe they used numerous hats that were predistressed at various levels to show how beat up it became throughout the adventures. That makes since if they used a new hat in the filming of the Hawaii locations. It was first in the movie, but last in filming so they couldn't have used a beaten up hat. '81

I thought LaRochelle was the first shooting location?

In any case, I always thought that the outdoor Temple scene hat was a completely different hat than all the rest. Maybe even by a different hatter than HJ. There were other hatters who've claimed to have made hats for Rauders, so you never know.

Molina was refering to to his first day on the set at Elstree, not Hawaii. You are right, Agent 5, La Rochelle was the first.

Dakota Ellison wrote:Molina was refering to to his first day on the set at Elstree, not Hawaii.

Got it, thanks!

I am not talking about lighting or coloring. I am talking about brim length, crown height and ribon position. The first pic is obviously a VERY tall crown (at least 6" unbashed) while the second and third pics look to be about 5 1/2 or so.

The hat in pic 1 had a shallower center dent than the other hat in pics 2 and 3.

Dakota Ellison wrote:The hat in pic 1 had a shallower center dent than the other hat in pics 2 and 3.

What about the ribbon position?

Could the first hat pictured have been Ford's Christie's hat. I remember hearing that he was rumored to have used it in a few scenes.

indy81 wrote:Could the first hat pictured have been Ford's Christie's hat. I remember hearing that he was rumored to have used it in a few scenes.

What is the "Christie's" hat? You mean the one that was auctioned?

That could've been it.

Then again they could've all been HJs.

IMO all 3 photos could easily be the same hat. Light has been mentioned as one way to explain the color differences, but the choice of lens certainly has an effect too. Not on the color but on the perspective and thats where it sometimes becomes impossible to shape a hat from a picture. You cannot make a real-life 3-dimensional hat look like a 2-D screenshot that may have been shot with a wideanglelens. Not whithout a bulldozer that is

When talking about crownheight etc. try looking at the picture in generel also. Spielberg uses a wide variety of lenses to get the effects he wants, just remember how he explained the use of a telephotolens in the LC scene where the motorboat is being chopped up (I know, Indy is not wearing a fedora in that scene...) to make it look like they were fighting closer to the screw than they actually were. Photographers can use special lenses to make small buildings look taller (taper?) and visa versa.

Looking at the 3 photos I would even say, that Harrisons face looks rounder on the right photo than on the left (look at his cheeks), and the picture in the middle has always bothered me because it doesn't look like Harrison at all!

Cheers

The hat in pic 1 had a shallower center dent than the other hat in pics 2 and 3.

Correct. This is what leads me to believe it may have been made by another hatter or at the very least, the same hat on a totally different block. If the hat was open crowned, there should be a taper to the hat until you push in the front/sides to make the center dent. That's what makes the taper go away. However, on this hat, iut has a much shallower center dent and the sides are not pushed back nearly as far as on the other hats in the film. If the dent is smaller then the hat should have slight taper, but it seems it has less taper than the rest.

Comments? Thoughts? Suggestions? :