The invention of the television threatened the very fabric of the feature film industry and no more so than the co-option of one of the moving pictures' signature cool looks: sunglasses. Smoking, the other major mark of a character's coolness, also jumped to the small screen but it didn't take like the epidemic of shades covering up the eyes of so many television characters, especially when it comes to cops. David Caruso's stunning sunglass work on CSI: Miami is always the first image that pops in my head when someone mentions on-screen tinted specs, but let's not forget the decades of theatrical supremacy.
"It Goes To 11" has created a supercut salute to the fantastic feature film supporting work that the protective eyewear has produced over the last four decades - for the purposes of this montage, exactly four decades because apparently actors didn't wear sunglass in movies before 1962 - all edited to the soothing sounds of Dean Martin's "Shades." Well, it's soothing after Rowdy Roddy Piper opens the clip with a great quote from John Carpenter's They Live. Enjoy!
[video via Slate]
A lot of 80s and a lot of Tom Cruise. My personal favorites would be two of the earliest entries with Cool Hand Luke and Lolita but I'm also partial to the shot of Ritchie from The Royal Tenenbaums and Stallone in Cobra might look the coolest. My only thought was that it definitely needs some Jack Nicholson. The full list of films used in the montage can be found on Found Item Clothing's "It Goes To 11" Blog but why not have a little fun in the comments and see if you can name them all. There are 47 (51 clips but 47 movies). No cheating.
For added movie-eyewear video viewing pleasure, take a look at Val Kilmer (another conspicuously absent from the above feature) "losing his glasses"...
