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# Go Get Yourself . . .
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/2198/
- Published: 2005-09-12T23:02:14.000Z
- Updated: 2005-09-12T23:02:14.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: History, #wpChunk

. . . some cheap sunglasses.

Historical miniature on the origin of tough guys with dark glasses:

> This association is of relatively recent origin. Once worn only by the blind, dark glasses first appeared in the context of dangerous sports such as auto racing and mountaineering around 1930\. A generalized connection with toughness seems to have emerged during the war: a photograph taken in 1944 shows the film director John Ford, with a cigar stuck between his lips, wearing a pilot's uniform and dark glasses. Uncharacteristically, he looks cool and tough. In 1947, *Business Week* wrote, "Hollywood has turned \[sunglasses\] into a fad; today they are a definite style item." Moviemakers adopted dark glasses to indicate toughness in male characters. *[Gun Crazy](http://www.filmsite.org/gunc.html?ref=thedailyeudemon.com)*, shot in 1949 by director Joseph H. Lewis, was possibly the first film in which vicious gangsters sported shades. There is no record at that time of gangsters' wearing them in reality. After they started appearing in films, however, dark glasses became a stylish necessity for tough guys they symbolized in the first place.

Diego Gambetta, *The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection* (1996), pp. 134-135.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ea/fd/eafdb338-c9b6-4f87-8363-78ab94cc3a18/content/images/wp-content/GunCrazy.jpg)