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Those Awful Hats

  • 1909
  • Not Rated
  • 5m
IMDb RATING
6.2/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
The Adventures of Dollie (1908)
FarceComedyShort

Set in an early cinema house, this comic short illustrates the problems with the gals' hats obscuring the movie patron's line of vision.Set in an early cinema house, this comic short illustrates the problems with the gals' hats obscuring the movie patron's line of vision.Set in an early cinema house, this comic short illustrates the problems with the gals' hats obscuring the movie patron's line of vision.

  • Director
    • D.W. Griffith
  • Writer
    • D.W. Griffith
  • Stars
    • Linda Arvidson
    • John R. Cumpson
    • Flora Finch
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.2/10
    1.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • D.W. Griffith
    • Writer
      • D.W. Griffith
    • Stars
      • Linda Arvidson
      • John R. Cumpson
      • Flora Finch
    • 23User reviews
    • 4Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Photos6

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    Top cast12

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    Linda Arvidson
    Linda Arvidson
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    John R. Cumpson
    John R. Cumpson
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Flora Finch
    Flora Finch
    • Woman with Largest Hat
    • (uncredited)
    George Gebhardt
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Robert Harron
    Robert Harron
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Anita Hendrie
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Charles Inslee
    Charles Inslee
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Arthur V. Johnson
    Arthur V. Johnson
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Florence Lawrence
    Florence Lawrence
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Gertrude Robinson
    Gertrude Robinson
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    Mack Sennett
    Mack Sennett
    • Man in Checkered Jacket and Top Hat
    • (uncredited)
    Dorothy West
    Dorothy West
    • Theatre Audience
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • D.W. Griffith
    • Writer
      • D.W. Griffith
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews23

    6.21.3K
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    Featured reviews

    Michael_Elliott

    Two Early Griffith

    Those Awful Hats (1909)

    *** (out of 4)

    D.W. Griffith comedy about a movie crowd getting angry because the women's large hats are blocking the screen. This is shorter than most of the shorts from this period but it's a very funny little gem.

    Adventures of Dollie, The (1908)

    *** 1/2 (out of 4)

    The first (of 400+) film directed D.W. Griffith is about a pair of gypsies who kidnap a three-year-old girl. When the girl's parents come looking for her the gypsies hide her in a barrel, which they accidentally drop in the river. Griffith's skill is certainly in full display here as his use of editing is right on the mark as he builds suspense of the girl going down the river. A wicked sense of humor is also on display here.
    8ccthemovieman-1

    Short Message - And To The Point

    I wonder if this was a major problem a long time ago. I'll bet it was. I am referring to the subject matter of this early and very short D.W. Griffith film: rude people wearing big hats to the theater and blocking the view of those in back of them.

    Considering that people have probably been inconsiderate for as long as humans have inhabited the planet, this might have been a problem. Since people haven't word big hats in a generation or two, a lot of people don't remember "big hat days." Whatever, it makes for an amusing little film with a unique suggestion to dealing with the problem! If people were slow to get the message, the director put in print at the end.

    The special-effects aren't exactly state-of-the-art for today's audiences but I bet they shocked the film-goers 99 years ago, when this was seen.
    6framptonhollis

    Those Awful Hats, Indeed!

    I, personally, believe in common human decency, and in order to be a human of decency I believe that you shouldn't start a whole fuss when going to a film in the theater. However, right in front of me while I was watching this film, there was a woman in the theater wearing a ridiculously large hat! My complaint about this caused a whole string of events that kept me from properly viewing the film!

    What I DID see of the film, however, was quite interesting and experimental. Definitely impressive for such an old film! The film actually included some wildly creative special effects and can be used as an early example of more satirical cinema.

    8/10 for the film...1/10 for the time I had watching the film.
    7jluis1984

    A funny and amusing experiment!

    While often considered as one of the most (if not "THE" most) influential filmmakers of all time, American director D.W. Griffith started his career on film in 1908 in a very humble way: as an actor in short films under the orders of Edwin S. Porter, head of Edison's Film Studio. His luck would change soon, as that very same year he was offered the chance to direct shorts for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and it was there where he truly fell in love with cinema. In less than a year, Griffith learned the job, and soon became a master of the medium's many tricks and techniques. It wouldn't take him too long to start directing short films of excellent quality, a path that would culminate with the making of his first masterpiece, 1915's movie "The Birth of a Nation".

    One of the movies where the young Griffith began to show that mastery he had acquired so quickly was the short film "Those Awful Hats", a 2 and a half minutes movie done with the purpose of being a theatrical public service announcement (probably the first of its kind). In "Those Awful Hats", the action takes place in a typical screening in the nickelodeons of cinema's early years. The audience is enjoying a movie when suddenly, a gentleman (Mack Sennett) with a top hat enters the room and tries to find a seat for him and her companion. Loud and impolite, the man bothers the public constantly, however, this is not the audiences' main problem, as a group of ladies takes a seat and refuses to remove their big and ludicrous hats, an action that alienates even more the audience. Fortunately, the theater has an interesting and effective device to remove such undesirable persons: a giant steel bucket.

    Told by the heads of Biograph to conceive a short movie to tell the females among the audience to remove their bothersome hats when attending a screening, D.W. Griffith wrote and directed this very creative announcement that was both funny and informative at the same time. Making fun of the big hats that were fashionable in those years, as well as of the lack of courtesy that existed (and sadly still exists today) during screenings, Griffith certainly puts on film what many audiences through the history of cinema have desired to have at least once, a machine created to remove the troublesome persons among the audience. The gag is simple, but very effective, and it constituted one of the earliest examples of a public announcement devised to be shown before the feature films (a concept still used today in most theaters).

    Using a mixture of special effects techniques (mainly the Dunning-Pomeroy Matte process), Griffith created a film that shows a very early use of the technique that decades later would evolve into the blue-screen technique. Not only he managed to put a film within a film, but also created an extremely good effect of a steel bucket pulling out stuff (and persons!) from the audience. While this movie was done only a year after his debut ("The Adventures of Dollie", 1908), it already shows that Griffith is comfortable at the director's seat and that he truly knows what he is doing. This is specially notorious not only in his use of special effects, but also in the very natural performances he gets from his cast (which includes many members of his stock company, including his wife, Linda Arvidson), as their reactions are believable and the use of slapstick very appropriate.

    While not exactly on the level of many of his better known masterpieces, "Those Awful Hats" is a very funny and historically important short movie that can give us an idea of how was cinema in the past, and how it seems that we as audience haven't changed that much in more than a century of film-making. It is also a testament of the how Griffith was always willing to experiment as all as of the mastery he had achieved in only a year making movies. Despite its short length, "Those Awful Hats" is definitely one of the most enjoyable Griffith shorts, as it shows that the director of Biograph's many drama and adventure films was also able to laugh. 7/10
    Snow Leopard

    Rudimentary But Rather Interesting

    This ultra-short film (only 2 minutes long) uses very rudimentary techniques, but it's rather interesting. It's about a theater full of people watching a movie, so there are two different screens combined into one image, and while the 'special effect' is not very good by the standards of later eras, it was probably a clever idea for its time. The light-hearted nature of this feature is an interesting contrast to the ultra-serious films that Griffith usually made.

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    Related interests

    Leslie Nielsen, Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, and Lorna Patterson in Airplane! (1980)
    Farce
    Will Ferrell in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
    Comedy
    Benedict Cumberbatch in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
    Short

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      Is thought to be one of the very first, if not the first, theatrical public service announcements. Ladies were told to remove their hats in the cinema or the nickelodeons, or face expulsion. Today we have announcements about noise, babies, cell phones, etc. that are in the same vein.
    • Quotes

      Title Card: Ladies will please remove their hats.

    • Connections
      Featured in The Story of Film: An Odyssey: Birth of the Cinema (2011)

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • January 25, 1909 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Languages
      • None
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Those Darn Hats
    • Production company
      • American Mutoscope & Biograph
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 5m
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Silent
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

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