MovieChat Forums > Theodora Goes Wild (1936) Discussion > Melvyn Douglas's undershirt

Melvyn Douglas's undershirt


It looks like a tank top for a teenage girl. Glad that style went out of fashion.

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alifeatthemovies wrote:

It looks like a tank top for a teenage girl
It is a man's undershirt. I would wear one with a shirt and tie.
Glad that style went out of fashion.
I'm not at all sure that wife beaters have gone out of style, but I am not up on such things.


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The garment Douglas is wearing is actually a loose-fitting one-piece tank top/boxer combination, a popular type of men's underwear in the thirties. One steps into it through the neck opening and then buttons up the collar at the chest. (For a better view of this garment, see John Cusack in "Bullets Over Broadway" at about the halfway point, when he wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the morning and storms around his apartment.)

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BuddyBoy1961 wrote:

The garment Douglas is wearing is actually a loose-fitting one-piece tank top/boxer combination, a popular type of men's underwear in the thirties.
You nailed it. I did not remember that there were buttons.

Of course I've seen advertisements for union suits, but I don't remember ever running across this mini union suit. I assume that it had a flap in back?

P. S.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/130572430/mens-vintage-union-suit-knee-len gth&usg=__qdATsCVjFySwIBiZjxr8OdEBK8c=

Scroll down a page. Still available in the JCPenney's 1976 catalog.


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Mmmm, it's not really the same thing, to be honest. The undergarment Douglas was wearing was made from a loose-fitting stiffer cotton (not a form-fitting "jersey" fabric) and it had a slightly elasticized waistband area (that was not too "cinchy", just gathered a bit at the waist). This style of union suit, introduced sometime in the 20s and sold well into the 50s and 60s, was traditionally known as an "athletic" union suit, probably because the legs stopped just above the knee and it had a tank top instead of sleeves (likely to allow for ease of movement, as opposed to the form-fitting, full-body traditional union suit). In any event, because it was all one-piece, I imagine it was a comfortable alternative to wearing a separate boxers-and-undershirt combo that could frequently become untucked throughout the day.

Hanes sold a version of this athletic union suit which they called "Samsonbak"; in addition to buttons up the front that one buttoned after stepping into it, there was an off-center vertical "vent" in the seat that usually closed with just a single button. Interestingly, the year before "Theodora" was released, men's "briefs" underwear were first introduced to the market. But with the advent of war just a few years later, a shortage of elastic for non-military underwear resulted in a return to the old button or tie waistbands on men's underwear (perhaps giving the athletic union suits a second life for many more years to come, and, I'm guessing for some, old habits were simply too hard to break).

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BuddyBoy1961 wrote:

Mmmm, it's not really the same thing, to be honest.
Okay. How about this

http://www.tias.com/stores/adsbydee/origpics/11842a.jpg

Or

http://www.amazon.com/1922-Lawrence-Underwear-Athletic-Union/dp/B005DG K3OY

I find this quite interesting. I had no idea such things existed.


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Bingo!

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Bingo!

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