Corky
Practically Family
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How to turn the worst hat you own into the star of your collection:
Fort Apache is the classic hat movie. As the fireworks explode between John Wayne and Henry Fonda, the central conflict of the film is symbolized by the battered cowboy hat worn by Wayne and the regulation issue West Point kepi worn by Fonda.
Fort Apache
Fonda expresses it best as his role as Lt. Col. Thursday: "The uniform, gentlemen, is not a subject for individual, whimsical expression. We're not cowboys at this post... or freighters with a load of alfalfa."
Hondo
The hat that Wayne wears in Fort Apache looks like the same one (actually, the costume department probably had several identical hats) that his character wears throughout the Cavalry Trilogy and in Hondo and in Rio Bravo. Other costume details tend to repeat from one movie to another in the Wayne canon. For example, Wayne’s character wears the same belt buckle in Red River and Rio Bravo, his same pistol and holster rig show up again and again, etc. He even tends to ride the same horse from one movie to the next.
Rip Bravo
A reproduction of this hat may be purchased from several vendors, but any new hat lacks the one essential quality of this hat: it is or at least looks like a beat-up relic of many seasons of hard use on the trail. A new hat (especially one priced at up to a thousand dollars) will never see enough abuse to look even remotely as cool as the movie hat reproduction that we can make.
Directions:
1.) Get an old beat up hat. You can use either a cowboy or a fedora, but look for the best quality that you can find. You want something soft, something that looks like it might have survived a few cattle drives from Texas to Dodge.
2.) I get rid of the band and the liner (but that is up to your taste) and in the case of these two hats, I have cut the brim to about 3 inches. You want one that looks proportionally good on top of your head.
3.) Using water, steam, dry bash, whatever, work the crown to an open dome, then mold it into a diamond bash. You know the procedure.
4.) Note that the front of the crown has a sort of wishbone detail. Place your thumb and fingers together on the front crease, with your thumb underneath and one finger on each side of the crease and firmly pinch together. Then extend the crease downwards.
5.) Flatten out the brim and then roll the right side of the front up just a little bit and roll up the right side of the back just a little less. Note that the front of the Wayne hat is not rolled up directly over his nose, but seems to be rolled up a bit more over one eye. Note that the brim of Wayne’s hat goes down a bit on the sides over the ears and then gently rolls up fore and aft.
6.) I usually replace the band with a narrow strip of latigo leather, saddle-stitched together with a piece of rawhide. Some people might put a cavalry band with acorns on the hat, that is not my style. I also use a needle and thread to secure the rawhide band in place with two stitches at the inside base of the crown, just above the bottom edge of the sweatband, one above and behind each ear. These stitches can be seen in the picture above because the white hat currently lacks a sweatband.
7.) The Wayne movie hat seems to have the magical ability to have the front of its brim be rolled up in one shot and to be snapped down like a fedora in the next shot. The actual hat used in the movies might have done this, but I suspect that different hats with different brims were used for the various shots, depending on whether the Duke was supposed to look noble or tough in each shot.
Required viewing list: (this will also give you an excuse to watch some of the finest examples of the Western genre)
John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy: Fort Apache, Rio Grande, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
John Farrow and John Ford's (uncredited) Hondo
Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo
Fort Apache is the classic hat movie. As the fireworks explode between John Wayne and Henry Fonda, the central conflict of the film is symbolized by the battered cowboy hat worn by Wayne and the regulation issue West Point kepi worn by Fonda.
Fort Apache
Fonda expresses it best as his role as Lt. Col. Thursday: "The uniform, gentlemen, is not a subject for individual, whimsical expression. We're not cowboys at this post... or freighters with a load of alfalfa."
Hondo
The hat that Wayne wears in Fort Apache looks like the same one (actually, the costume department probably had several identical hats) that his character wears throughout the Cavalry Trilogy and in Hondo and in Rio Bravo. Other costume details tend to repeat from one movie to another in the Wayne canon. For example, Wayne’s character wears the same belt buckle in Red River and Rio Bravo, his same pistol and holster rig show up again and again, etc. He even tends to ride the same horse from one movie to the next.
Rip Bravo
A reproduction of this hat may be purchased from several vendors, but any new hat lacks the one essential quality of this hat: it is or at least looks like a beat-up relic of many seasons of hard use on the trail. A new hat (especially one priced at up to a thousand dollars) will never see enough abuse to look even remotely as cool as the movie hat reproduction that we can make.
Directions:
1.) Get an old beat up hat. You can use either a cowboy or a fedora, but look for the best quality that you can find. You want something soft, something that looks like it might have survived a few cattle drives from Texas to Dodge.
2.) I get rid of the band and the liner (but that is up to your taste) and in the case of these two hats, I have cut the brim to about 3 inches. You want one that looks proportionally good on top of your head.
3.) Using water, steam, dry bash, whatever, work the crown to an open dome, then mold it into a diamond bash. You know the procedure.
4.) Note that the front of the crown has a sort of wishbone detail. Place your thumb and fingers together on the front crease, with your thumb underneath and one finger on each side of the crease and firmly pinch together. Then extend the crease downwards.
5.) Flatten out the brim and then roll the right side of the front up just a little bit and roll up the right side of the back just a little less. Note that the front of the Wayne hat is not rolled up directly over his nose, but seems to be rolled up a bit more over one eye. Note that the brim of Wayne’s hat goes down a bit on the sides over the ears and then gently rolls up fore and aft.
6.) I usually replace the band with a narrow strip of latigo leather, saddle-stitched together with a piece of rawhide. Some people might put a cavalry band with acorns on the hat, that is not my style. I also use a needle and thread to secure the rawhide band in place with two stitches at the inside base of the crown, just above the bottom edge of the sweatband, one above and behind each ear. These stitches can be seen in the picture above because the white hat currently lacks a sweatband.
7.) The Wayne movie hat seems to have the magical ability to have the front of its brim be rolled up in one shot and to be snapped down like a fedora in the next shot. The actual hat used in the movies might have done this, but I suspect that different hats with different brims were used for the various shots, depending on whether the Duke was supposed to look noble or tough in each shot.
Required viewing list: (this will also give you an excuse to watch some of the finest examples of the Western genre)
John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy: Fort Apache, Rio Grande, and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
John Farrow and John Ford's (uncredited) Hondo
Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo
