It’s a deliberate reference to It’s A Wonderful Life. I think it may even be the same street on the Paramount lot.
Kettle, meet pot. How is your assertion any more based on logic than mine?
Actually though, I’m pretty comfortable with my one Red theory. Did the movie have subtle little details that would probably be noticed only on repeated viewings? Yes, it did. The one Red fits with this pattern. Did the movie waste actions or dialogue on things that didn’t contribute to the story? No, it really didn’t. It was very tightly put together. Marty’s greeting of of Red in the two Reds theory, would violate that in a way that virtually no other line in the movie did. Is it likely that Fox would have ad-libbed “Red” or something that sounded like it for the bum’s name by coincidence? I’m confident I could demonstrate there are way more names that don’t sound like Red than there are names that do, and even more character names that might have lodged in his head that don’t sound like Red.
I’m pretty sure it’s going to be you calling Fox a liar as he starts, “Zemeckis had this idea …”
Upthread, it was confirmed that the bum’s name was “Brett.” Doesn’t that break down your whole theory?
Cool!
And here I was being a smart ass.
I have cited facts. You have a gut feeling. There’s a difference. You’re not even actually arguing the question. You haven’t offered any reason why one of the writers would have made a false statement about the situation, or why they would have two very different looking people portray someone you claim is the same character, or even why the bum actually looks younger than the mayor 30 years previously.
Your position is effectively faith-based, which is why I asked what evidence it would take to convince you–a question you avoided while mischaracterizing my argument.
Hey, someone said they watched the scene and heard Fox say “Brett,” what was I supposed to do, call him a liar?
Perhaps in an alternate time line…or editing session…
Yes, that’s true. I was overly glib there. Your cited facts do show that making the bum and the mayor the same person was not written into the screenplay, and probably not even conceived when they shot the campaign poster using some guy from the production crew. I didn’t know that before I saw your original cite.
However, the question I’m considering is: why was Marty saying hello to the bum added to the scene, when it didn’t exist in the script? Your “two Reds” theory requires three separate leaps of faith:
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Somehow it was felt that adding a line there added some je ne sais quoi to the scene that justified the change to the script.
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Fox ad-libbed the name of the mayor for the bum by an odd coincidence.
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By an another odd coincidence, that ad-lib could be interpreted, and in fact, has been interpreted by many people, as a wink-at-the-audience type joke that fits with the tone of other subtle jokes made by the movie.
My one Red theory relies on a couple of leaps of faith also:
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When they added this joke, they didn’t tell one of the original screenwriters about it, or he’s forgotten if they did.
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They decided it wasn’t worth going back and re-shooting the scene with the campaign picture, or recasting the bum for a small joke that probably most people wouldn’t even pick up on.
So maybe it was an intentional joke, or maybe just a really lucky accident. There’s not really good evidence either way. I’m sticking with my theory, though, as the more plausible.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to ignore your comment. Yes, of course, I would change my mind if Fox stopped by the board and told us I was wrong. I thought that was meant to be a rhetorical question!
That’s what ad-libs are. Do you accept that ad-libs exist? The scene as written had Marty sitting in the car, listening to the radio. When they started shooting it, someone realized that that would be awfully dull, and probably out of character for Marty, who is a highly active character. The director probably asked Fox to improvise something better suited to the character, so he did. He may have tried a dozen things before hitting on the one that made the final cut.
It’s a nickname. A pretty common one–though I think it’s less so now than it used to be–and conveniently monosyllabic. There’s nothing odd about it. I’ve ad-libbed dozens of names (including calling someone “Red”–go figure), and I’m not even a professional actor. For someone who’s good at ad-libbing, names, lines, and even whole backstories just pop out.
If so, it was poorly executed in a movie that relies on good execution to make its subtle jokes work. If they were going to do it on purpose, how hard would it have been to get someone more appropriate to play the bum, or to age him up a bit with makeup? For that matter, they likely had versions of the earlier shot where the poster wasn’t visible; all they really need for that joke was the voice part.
The part about calling Fox a liar was a jab–sorry, I was getting frustrated–but the question itself was sincere. People arguing from a faith-based perspective don’t accept evidence, instead relying on unfalsifiable “feelings”. My impression is that that’s what you’re doing, and I was curious as whether or not you’d actually be willing to specify any piece of evidence that would convince you.
What you call a “leap of faith” on my part is believing the available evidence. Your leap is actively disbelieving evidence, with no evidence to the contrary. You’ll forgive me if I insist on drawing a distinction.
We may have to agree to disagree. I find your position to be, while not impossible, at least fairly illogical. I don’t disbelieve any of your evidence, and I somewhat resent that accusation. (Only somewhat since this is a completely trivial issue!) However, it only shows that line wasn’t written into the script. It doesn’t show why it was added. Do you think that it does? I still think greeting the bum as Red was probably intentional, but you must agree that it was possibly intentional, right?
You are once again omitting evidence–namely testimony from one of the scriptwriters that it was, in fact, an ad-lib. Was the choice of name intentional in the sense that Fox meant to say it, rather than call the bum “Arnold” or “Roy” or something? Sure. Was it intended as a joke? That does not seem to me to be a supportable position. So, no, I don’t have to agree.
You’re free to believe what you want, of course. If you can live with the terrible burden of knowing that someone on the internet knows that you’re wrong, that is. 
Well, crap.
I went and popped it in, and watched the scene again with the captions on. The captions say “Red.” We may have to chalk this up to Fox’s somewhat mush-mouthed diction (early Parkinson’s?)
On the other hand, closed captions shouldn’t be regarded as the last word, either. They’re created by ONE PERSON who listens to the movie and transcribes it, and they’re subject to both paraphrasing for length and human error. I remember watching The Lion King with the captions on, and there’s a scene where Timon the Meerkat is enjoying a bug and says “mmm… piquant, with a very pleasant crunch.” The person who created the captions had apparently never heard of the word “piquant” (“spicy, sharp-flavored”), and rendered the line instead as “pecans, with a very pleasant crunch.” So, you know, captions =/= ultimate authority.
I then went back to the scene in 1955 that includes Red the Mayor’s campaign vehicle. The picture of Red the Mayor isn’t UNQUESTIONABLY the same man as Red the Bum, but they look enough alike that 30 years and vastly changed circumstances could account for the differences. I will point out that even in 1955, Red the Mayor appeared to be in his fifties, which means that by 1985 he would be in his eighties, and Red the Bum sure doesn’t look that old to me.
I also checked the cast list in the closing credits, which list the character only as “bum.” No help there.
Actually, the subtitles on the 25th Anniversary Bluray edition says “Alright! Fred!” But no need for any external information because the movie (and Marty) speak for themselves and I hear something totally different than “Fred” or “Red”, so check this out, it’s both scenes with the bum from BTTF1 and BTTF2 in super slow motion. Marty says two entirely different names (from each other) in each scene BTW and neither of them sound like “Red” or “Fred” to me either…
Are you back already? So what do you hear now? Did you notice that Marty has something in the left (our right) side of his mouth dropping down in BTTF2 during the end of the name? Maybe it interfered with his pronunciation, like maybe he was trying desperately to hold his gum in while he said the name without accidentally spitting it out (or it could be just a lower silver cap, filling, crown or something slipping back into place).
Can someone explain why there is a clock in Docs house at the beginning of part 1 that has Doc hanging from one of the hands like he does at the end of the movie?
HERE is the scene you’re talking about. The clock comes on at about 57 seconds.
It’s not the Doc. It’s Harold Lloyd.
As pointed out, it is Harold Lloyd, but it is also just one of those little cute things they put in for repeat viewings. Doc has that clock and ends up doing that exact thing…uh, in the past. I guess he has already done it? In one timeline, anyway.
But if you look at the video and the picture they are different. Different clock, the men are wearing different cloths, the guy in the video is wearing a hat that Doc wears in the past.
I get that it’s just an easter egg for repeat viewings but it is still not Harold Lloyd in the video pic.
If you look closely at the scene in BttF, you will see that the “clock” is actually a photo of a clock. (I believe this is confirmed in one of the commentaries.) The dangling figure is wearing a boater hat. There are some more pictures of one of these clocks here, including closeups that make the type of hat more obvious. They also give a clearer view of the hand/hand link and show several different times, supporting the idea that these are different pictures of a real clock.
Doc Brown does not–as best I recall–wear a boater hat at any point in the movies, and he does not wear a hat at all in the clock tower scene. Harold Lloyd, on the other hand, does wear a boater hat in his iconic clock scene. The picture in BttF, therefore, is of an actual Harold Lloyd clock.
I’ve always appreciated the double nod to the original scene and to the actors’ names.