Wednesdays with Joan: Countless Gentlemen and a Selection of Hat Stylings

Image 1: The Rugby boy (previous), front and center, lends his parent’s car for this photo shoot, on what looks to be a cold summer day.  Stanly, the joker with the driving goggles, wears his boating hat straight and low, completing the dorky look.  Lawrence, meanwhile, looks like quite the stud with a cigarette and jauntily tilted hat.

These different ways to wear a hat remind the Author of Humphrey Bogart’s fedora fashioning in The Big Sleep.  Bogart wears his fedora slanted to the side, with the front tipped down, a style we equate with the Hard-Boiled Detective.  However, in one scene, Bogart enters the antique book shop owned by Geiger (who has diversified into blackmailing and gambling) and pretends to be a rare book enthusiast.  To fit the part, he wears his hat flat on his head and flips the front of the fedora up—instantly transforming himself into a nerd. * 

Image 2: Joan sits with more friends on the pebbly beach.  The couple on the left seem to be of an older generation, and thus more susceptible  to the cold. 

Image 3: Joan seems to have an endless supply of Gentleman friends.  None of these fellow have featured in the photo album before.

Image 4:  More fellows.  Is that Robert, the handsome Scot, sitting quite closely to Joan?

*As Sinatra said: “Cock your hat – angles are attitudes.”