"Those Awful Hats" is a little movie from 1909, so this is of course silent and black-and-white. And it is also very short, only runs for 2.5 minutes. It is among the more known works by silent filmmaker D.W. Griffith. I believe the man today is known mostly for his dramatic films from that time and 1909 was one of his most prolific years. He was in his mid-30s at this point. But here, he tries to take the comedic road. I would not say it is a failure, but he probably did well in leaving this genre to the likes of Chaplin, Lloyd, Laurel, Hardy and Keaton in the following years. Here we have a hat comedy. There is a stage performance, but gigantic hats wreak havoc, for example as some audience members cannot see anything because of the gigantic hat in front of their faces. But a solution is coming quickly and the lady may not like it. All in all, nothing too bad or good, I did not find it very memorable and give it a thumbs-down. Griffith has done better on many other occasions.

You'd never guess this was a D.W. Griffith short if somebody didn't tell you. Griffith's shorts usually weren't THAT short, and they were also usually dramatic. Here Griffith shows his comic side and a Keatonesque flair before there such a thing as Keatonesque.People are sitting in a movie theatre complete with musical accompaniment when not only do some people come in late, but the women have on some ridiculous headgear. Maybe it was appropriate for the time. A commotion is stirred, and finally a way is found to make them remove their hats that, again, I say was Keatonesque. You have a film within a film (it's what the people are watching), a mechanical device that is the hero, and then some guy with an obvious false nose and mustache that just happens to be Mack Sennett, early employer of Roscoe Arbuckle, who was the guy who actually got Keaton interested in film.

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.

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.