Club Obi Wan

The Tall Nazi grey is turned in this one scene. (I believe the Pan Am grey and Tall Nazi grey are the same hat. The Pan Am bow has a narrower cinch than the Raiders hat, and the same narrow cinch is on the tall Nazi grey.) The brim warp on the Nazi hat below is obviously the classic result of a turn, and earlier in this shot, the daylight exposes the old front pinch. So I assume the turn was a known quantity and purposly reproduced. ---Now, please observe the BIG WART on the side of the crown. This wart is part of a line that circles toward the back of the crown. Looks to me like the same line on the brown hat. I suspect this is evidence of the original telescope manufacture of the Raiders grey and brown...(And you thought I had given up) A corresponding wart of smaller size is there on the other side of the crown in other frames in this scene. The stress of the turn is probably what makes the line stand out. This wart is extreme, the line I've shown you before is extreme. By the way, once in the bar, the hat is no longer turned.

He's gonna give mercenaries a bad name.

I've often though that the grey hat the Nazi was wearing was the same one Indy was wearing on the plane also. But lets not open that can o' worms.

. Turned?

Yup, sure looks turned to me.

I also think it is the same hat as the Pan Am. I have also noticed the old front pinch in the shot that 3k mentions.

I'm gonna have to speak in on this one. With all due respect to 3Kbucks and all the research he's done. I think this is a VERY tired subject. We've established that the 'turn' phenomona is pretty much a common place trick in the hat world! Many vintage pics show this, movies galore show this-IT'S NOT REALLY SOMETHING SPECIAL! Guys just plopped on their hats and turned 'em a smidge! THAT'S IT! It's time we realize that this is not something special from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Many thanks to 3Kbucks for originally pointing this out, but enough already. We know the freakin hats are turned!

O.k. I'll stop the rant now.


have a nice day.

Well, I'm not talking about this guy putting the hat on a little off center, (even though that may be all that's going on). I'm saying that the hat may have been reworked with a new Off center front pinch , even though it appears in other scenes with a centered front pinch. That would be a new one and a BIG deal. When Marrion goes by this guy in the horse cart, the hat seems to be a very tight fit, which could cause a very small turn to give it this brim. I can't tell you for sure if a second (old) front pinch is there for sure, I think I can see it, like prairiejones, but dimly. If someone could get a capture? My equipment isn't good enough. ....But the turn was secondary to me anyway. My main interest was the WART and the line it is part of, that suggest to me the original hats were telescoping. That's why I showed you a clear picture of the wart FIRST, and the second picture I showed you was a clear picture of a turned brim with No wart visible. Sorry I ever mentioned the turn. not. I still would have had to mention it in the part about the turn being the cause of the wart standing out. .... Here's something I noticed, it may have been coverd before, but again, here's a picture. ..The Nazi in the Grey hovers next to Indy and Belloch, but he's hiding behind that post for a moment too. This scene cuts directly to him standing close to and on the opposite side of Indy, with zero seconds for him to arrive there.

3thoubucks wrote:When Marrion goes by this guy in the horse cart, the hat seems to be a very tight fit, which could cause a very small turn to give it this brim. I can't tell you for sure if a second (old) front pinch is there for sure, I think I can see it, like prairiejones, but dimly. If someone could get a capture?

I can see the old pinch.

I have always seen that popped out front pinch, at least on the dvds that feature the zoom option. That is the reason I have contended this was the hat Ford wore on the plane. On the telescope crown, I cannot detect it. Now, if the telescope crown was a factory blocked shape, it would probably jump out at ya as the process of stamping that shape in the top with a machine would distort the top in a big way. This distortion is hard to get out of a factory hat. You would really need to reblock it to change that style into the front to back traditional English crease without telltale creases and a distortion to the very top of the crown. I do not see this in any of the Indy fedoras. But, if the hat had a hand creased telescope crown, well, that is a horse of a different color. Those hand creased hats could be changed at a moments notice if you were using soft felt, which the Raiders fedora was. Most telescope crowns that I have run across have been really stiff on the top to maintain this particular crease style. I am talking factory, machine creased hats here. I still feel that the Raiders fedora was just an open crowned hat that was hand creased in the traditional way that all hat shops did them before the factory creases became popular. All of the clues that 3M$ has alluded to can be explained by other ways. I honestly cannot see how a factory formed crown could yield a Raiders fedora, but heck, that is just me. Fedora

Hi Fedora. I think you could find a wide variety of distortion in factory formed hats. Here's my Jaxon Iconnoclast and Akubra Colly. Both have a telescoping teardrop bash, but the Jaxon is more distorted. Here's my Akubra Sqatter, a factory formed pork pie, with thin felt that has even less distortion. Yes, there's a bit of extra stiffness in the formed areas, but that additional structure may actually be part of the reason why a formed hat may make a different looking, perhaps more accurate Raiders hat, even if the distortion is minimal.

Only thing is those telescope crowns use a differnt block shape. Look at how tall and pointy the dome is. The Raiders hat, or the LC or TOD hat for that matter, had a flatter open crown than what is normal for the telescope crown block. Fedora

I think Fedora is right. As far as I can see, that nazi's hat IS open crown (ie the bash has been popped out) and it doesn't look distorted to me.

Yes, these are all the wrong block shape, too pointy a dome.

What about crown height? Doesn't that hat look amazingly tall? And considering that the Nazi fellow is a pretty tall fellow in comparison to other characters in the scenes, that hat looks very tall to me.

There are also things to take into consideration, such as lighting, for instance. Shadowing can give the illusion of the crown being a little taller, and as you said HJ, he's already a tall fella to begin with. Also, camera angles are another thing to consider. Shot from different angles looking up at this guy, the hat could appear to be much taller than it is, not mentioning the fact that the dents have been popped out.

It is so hard to call crown height from looking at films. There is distortion that is obvious, and I see it as elongating the hat, depending upon the scene. When Indy lays his head down right before entering the Well of Souls, notice how the hat looks shorter when it is on its side. Distortion again. I still think if you use the ribbon as a gauge of the height of the hat, you will get real close to the original height. The ribbon and hat would distort basically the same amount and therefore would still be an indicator regardless. Fedora