Club Obi Wan

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed this. Tonight, I was idly watching Raiders of the Lost Ark again (as we all do, right? ) I was looking at Indy's hat during the opening shot of them trekking through the jungle, when I saw this:



Huh?

Now, we all know the Indy fedora had a center crease, not a teardrop crown (to the point where that's the biggest problem with Dorfman Pacific, except for those god-awful pins). But there it is in the opening shot of Raiders: a teardrop crown. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to watching. A few seconds later...



...and the teardrop crown had disappeared.

Then:



I'm not positive, but it looks like it's back again in that picture (literally just one shot later). It's hard to say, as that particular shot doesn't offer any good opportunities for a screenshot, but it looks like it *might* be back again.

Finally, by the time Indy's scampering up the hill to the temple entrance, the teardrop crown is gone for good:



Now, as is commonly known, the Hawaii sequences (not counting the temple interior scenes) were shot last, and by that point a stuntman had walked off with the hat Ford had been wearing for the entirety of the film. The hat worn during the Hawaii shots was a different hat, and it appears whoever was in charge of costuming for this unit hadn't spent a lot of time hanging out around Nadoolman. It seems like the hat went through re-shaping once or twice during the shoot? What does the Indygear brain trust think of all this?

I noticed that once while watching. That's not a true teardrop. I believe that to be simply a new hat that was in process of being bashed, thrown on and the hat may have fallen off and he put on and before they caught it, the shape had been deformed a bit. That is to say the teardrop shape was in intentional.

This bit of weirdness can be spotted in various shots throughout the film. Look closely, and you will see that it is actually a center dent that has been bumped out of shape. The felt on those hats was softer than most of the Indy hats we wear, and it didn't take much to nudge it into a different shape.
I have noticed this happens in a lot movies with softer fedoras. I've owned a couple, myself.

I ordered several Poets from HJ in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and apart from the two I bought from Lee Keppler, which I'm sure he reshaped, they all came with a teardrop crown. It was very easy to "correct," though. Whether or not HJ supplied them to the production that way, I have no idea, but it seems a logical extrapolation.

Jack

Yeah, I definitely don't think this is how the hat was supplied to the production unit. The hat appears to be *trying* to return to its center dent (see in the first picture how it's popping out on the right side?). It looks a bit too intentional though to me for it to be a bash that got mashed out of shape. My guess is it fell off Ford's head, or had an altercation with a low-hanging branch, and they called in the costume guy on set to fix it. (S)He didn't have Nadoolman's eye for details and tried to put a teardrop crown in the hat, but it gradually reverted back to its original center dent. Just my opinion, based on what I'm seeing. Any of these explanations seems plausible.

If that is her attempt at a teardrop or C crown she did an aweful job of it.

But yeah, these are all just opinions and we all could be close or far from the truth.

The first picture doesn't strike me as being a teardrop dent as much as the center dent that had been bumped on a branch or otherwise and not corrected before the shot was taken, especially in these shots where Indy is walking through the jungle.

With as 'quick and dirty' as SS was shooting, it probably won't have been noticed or if it was, left in for the sake of keeping the production moving.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

Yeah, to me, that shot seems to show that the center dent was just pushed out to some degree on the top right hand side and it created sort of the tear drop shape along the back...

And remember NOBODY at the time was looking at the hat shape the way we do.


Regards,

Indiana Jeff

I know this is late but just to add:
Here’s my wip raiders center dent that I bumped the middle out of and put a dent in the back.
The only thing that’s unconfirmed is how this happened to the hat.https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hnb8yIk98pHTey1I2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also remember Spielberg shot Raiders quick and dirty, and also stated he wasn’t going to do a million takes if costuming or hair wasn’t perfect. So it’s definitely inevitable a teardrop, misshaped bash, or other shape changes (more noticeable in Cairo) would appear at some point. Fascinating to see new discoveries after we’ve all seen the films over and over again!

Ark101 wrote:... he wasn’t going to do a million takes if costuming or hair wasn’t perfect. So it’s definitely inevitable a teardrop, misshaped bash, or other shape changes would appear at some point....

I have observed simply from handling my own hats... the hats that I actually wear while I'm doing stuff, rather than pamper... that they rarely keep the same exact shape for any length of time. When a hat gets warm, or damp, or banged around as observed previously in this topic, the dents and creases change shape. That's what happens to a hat that's worn in the real world. I imagine that in Indy's world (or the film-making world), the changes would be considerably more dramatic considering the abuse his hats take.

Seeing these screen-caps (Ha! Screen caps! Get it? Caps, like in hats! I crack myself up! ) reminds me of another question I've had but have ever asked. I don't mean to derail this topic, so please let me know if there's another topic where this has been discussed: In Raiders, in the scenes in which Indy appears, what percentage of the shots are actually the actor Harrison Ford and what percentage are stunt men or stand-ins? My understanding is that most of the Hawaii/Peru shots, other than the close-ups, were done with stunt actors. Has anyone ever counted the Ford shots relative to the stand-in shots?

Anyway, resurrecting this topic and seeing these particular screen caps again has me hankering for another Indy hat.