It Happened One Night

Through many films, Hollywood acts as a 'dream maker'. Movies might offer its public the wish to want something more in their lives like e.g. a prince charming by their side or a more exciting life. Fashion films do not differ in this aspect, since they often are based on the Cinderella-motive and the viewer -along with the main character- dreams of a job in the fashion world or a closet filled with the latest trends.

Al though It Happened One Night (1934) is usually classified as a romantic comedy -in stead of a fashion film-, this movie had a great influence on fashion at that time. In the scene where Clark Gable is getting ready to go to bed, he undresses only to reveal that he is not wearing an undershirt, which allegedly caused the sales of the undergarments to drop. I still need to investigate this fact properly for my thesis, but this is what IMDB states:

"While shooting the scene where he undresses, Clark Gable had trouble removing his undershirt while keeping his humorous flow going and took too long. As a result the undershirt was abandoned altogether. It then became cool to not wear an undershirt which resulted in a large drop in undershirt sales around the country. Legend has it that in response, some underwear manufacturers tried to sue Columbia."

How is this connected with Hollywood's Dreams Can Come True-policy, you might think? The female viewer might never get married to the movie star, but she could however get herself a man who did not wear undershirts.

Gable starts undressing around 1:45 min.