The Greybar Hotel

Sometimes when I see an image that intrigues me, I made quick assumptions about the source and the approximate time it was taken.  Often I'm close, but sometimes I'm way off.   Some FH readers might remember my ignorance of classic cinema.  When I first started the stie, I avoided most films made before the 1980's, and especially anything shot in black and white. Thankfully I got over that.

Thanks to TCM and a few friends, and people I met via the site, I now love classic film, especially films from the 1960's and 70's.  So many of my favorite movies are now older films, and would rather re-watch an older film I know I'll love, than wasting time on so much of the bland carbon copy studio produced films for the masses, they make today.

Given my deep dive into older films, and given this is FH, I've also noticed connections between the male form and time a film was made.  Although there were a few exceptions, (Jimmy Stewart, Montgomery Clift) there was a thicker, broad chested physique on many actors from the 50's, 60's and early 70's.  So, if you scan down to the last two images below, you may understand why I thought they might be stills from Steve McQueen prison film.

McQueen, (just below) had a similar body shape, and the blinding white butt with tan lines.  He also made a number of Prison films.  Almost every classic male star seemed to make at least one or two films set in prison, some, (like with Paul Newman, (HERE:) and Clint Eastwood, (HERE:) also gave us brief butt shots.

Turns out, the butt below didn't belong to McQueen, nor was it from a prison film.   The shot above of McQueen was taken in 1963, but the shots below, taken in the 1970's, are of actual prisoners, in a real prison.  I should have guessed it wasn't an actor by the tan lines.  McQueen had a 'California' tan, just a white butt from his swimwear, (trunks). The rest of his body was pretty much fully tanned.  

The men below have a farmer's tan, a prison farmer's tan to be more specific.  As part of their sentence, they spent hours each day in the fields, usually cotton, sweating under the hot sun.  They were fully dressed in a prison uniform, and depending on the mood of the guard, they might be allowed to take their shirts off, but that was rare.  Check out more of deep dive into images of the male form from rural and state prisons on THE NEXT PAGE HERE: