Back to the Future 1955 -> 1925

Cafe Society
1

I’ve seen a lot of threads here and on other boards about how well Back to the Future would have worked out set in 2015, with a teenager travelling back to 1985.

Usually it’s mentioned that from 1985 to 1955 was a huge difference in culture, clothing, music, social norms, but the jump from 2015 to 1985 wouldn’t be quite the same, except for the lack of cell phones and internet.

But what about the opposite: a Back to the Future where the teenager starts in 1955 and gets sent back to 1925? What would this movie be like? How would such a teenager react to 1925? What kind of car could they use for the time machine? What song would be a good “oldie” to play for the teens of that era?

2

That would be a culture shock too. Fewer girls would be in schools, in fact most kids would be expected to work full time from 13 or 14. But it was both a culturally revolutionary time and an increasingly scary time. 1955 kid would know all about the upcoming Depression, and Hitler’s rise to power. Not a great source for comedy shenanigans, probably.

3

Some awesome music from 1925 - heart of the Jazz Age. The #1 song was * Sweet Georgia Brown*. St. Louis Blues; Tea for Two; If You Knew Susie; Yes Sir, That’s My Baby – great stuff.

If you want a song to take back from 1955, Rock Around the Clock is the obvious choice.

For the car, how about a 1955 Chevy Bel Air, considered one of the coolest and most influential cars ever.

The works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby, 1925); Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises, 1926); and Sinclair Lewis (Arrowsmith, 1925) give a good sense of cultural life during that period.

Now I want to hop in a Chevy Bel Air and go back to 1925.

4

Not to derail your thread but your statement about the change from 2015 to 1985 being minor is basically there were no huge changes except for these two huge changes. There’s also a lack of cable TV or VCRs (which existed but were in their infancy), Neighborhoods were tighter knit, and possibly the biggest: attitudes about women, gays and minorities.

Hell, there was an article on Cracked the other day about how aghast the writer was about the show Friends and that was the mid 90s.

I think those eras only feel like less of a change because many of us lived through them and also there is a greater about of media chronicling them so they never really felt like they went away.

5

Not to nit-pick (well, maybe a little), but they were at least in adolescence by 1985, not infancy. I’ve never been a johnny-on-the-spot to jump up and get the new technology as soon as it comes out, but I bought my first VCR in 1984. Some of my friends had them for several years before that. When they first became currently available in the 1970’s. they went for as much as $2000 in 1970’s money. I paid about $500 for mine (at the time, about the same as the cost of a color TV), so the price-reducing effects of the technology becoming common had already done their magic to a great degree (of course, prices continued to decline, and by the time DVDs appeared, VCRs were selling for under $100). In fact, by the time I bought a VCR, even video rental stores were starting to become ubiquitous, indicating that a good enough chunk of the population had VCRs to support the stores.

And I had cable TV by the mid-1970’s, including HBO.

6

For the car I would suggest the Mercedes 300SL. Introduced in 1954 and the first road car to have Gullwing Doors. You know it makes sense…

TCMF-2L

7

Is it made of stainless steel?

8

I’d go with the Tucker Torpedo. If you could find one.

9

My mom had a car phone in 1987 (real estate agent, not because we were rich), and my dad started going online around the same time (Prodigy). Still, yes, cells phones and the rise of the Internet are huge changes.

This is wrong. We first had cable TV in the 70s in Indianapolis. Not a lot of channels, however. By the end of the 80s, cable was a thing in a large number of households. We got our first VCR, a Betamax, in '80 or '81, and everyone had a VCR by like 1983 or so. FWIW, we got our first video game system (Intellivision) for Christmas 1980, and everyone I knew had that or the Atari 2600. Mostly the latter. This was all middle-class technology, nothing special.

Gay rights is indeed a major social change, but I think a lot of people were at least passive (i.e., they may have in theory disapproved but put no energy into opposing it) about homosexuality in the 1980s. E.g., I was raised somewhat strict Catholic, but my parents simply never talked about gays. My cousin had a gay partner who started attending our family Thanksgivings in 1987. We just really didn’t talk about it. Obviously, things have changed much for the better since that time, but not everyone was experiencing rage against gay people (if you were not gay yourself; I have no idea how my parents would have handled me coming out had I been gay. Probably not well…)

I totally disagree. The thing is, when BTTF came out, adults who had been alive in 1955 absolutely recognized the nostalgia and agreed that it was a totally different society and world. That was really the whole point of the movie; had that nostalgia not been present, they would have picked a different time. The fact that people my age (45) do not feel that way about 1985 is enough to tell you that the two periods are not comparable.

And I don’t think people in 1955 would have felt the same about 1925 either. The reason is that 1955 seemed to people in that year as a better time than 1925. And also more a culmination of history: we had defeated Old Man Depression and the Axis and were enjoying the rewards of making the world right again. There was fun new technology, awesome new music, and lots of prosperity. The mood was great. That’s why 1955 was a suitable target for nostalgia in 1985.

10

Actually, Quimby, your point about media chronicling the times so that they never felt like they went away is valid to an extent. Also, we did not make a switch from B&W to color and recording media were good, so 1985 feels more contemporary to us, relatively speaking. Still, if those technological and social changes alter the level of nostalgia, they do. The only real nostalgia I see for the 1980s is in music and movies. Fashion and to a lesser extent TV are appreciated in a sort of camp way. No one really wants to go back and live in that time. Socially, it just seems like a somewhat squarer and less advanced version of the present.

11

The gays/women/minorities idea was pretty much the same in the 1950’s as the 1920’s. They were “lesser” than the white, straight men who ran everything. That would not be any change.

The real civil/women/gay rights movements started in the 1960’s and it’s one of the three best things to come out of it (environmentalism and the music being the other two)

12

…Well, Spirit the Wonder horse has already been done…

13

I think you overstate it. I’m also 45, and I think 1985 was a different world. Not quite as much as the 85 to 55 difference, but a pretty big difference.

In many ways I find the world of 85 preferable or even superior to 15, just not to the extent 55 would be compared to 85.

14

There was a huge cultural change in the 1960s, so anything pre vs post that is going to work. I would suggest 1940 vs 1910 as somewhat similar gap (with the 1920s being the decade of societal change).

15

Most teenagers of the 1950s who journeyed back to 1925 would’ve found it almost as big of a leap as 1985/1955. To wit:

–There was no television (except in a couple of labs…), and radio was far less widespread than it was from the later 1930s onward.

–Lee DeForest was screening his Phonofilms in a handful of theatres, but otherwise, talking pictures were a few years away. The big stars of ‘25 included Gloria Swanson, Norma Talmadge, Thomas Meighan, Harold Lloyd, Pickford and Fairbanks, Tom Mix, Corinne Griffith, Rudolph Valentino et al. The average teenager of 1955 wouldn’t have even heard of some of these names, and others would just be vaguely associated with their parents’ generation.

–Popular bands in the mid-1920s included those of Paul Whiteman, Ted Lewis, Isham Jones, Fred Waring, Ben Bernie, Coon-Sanders and the California Ramblers. Some of the more famous vocalists were Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Marion Harris, Aileen Stanley, Jane Green, the Brox Sisters, Wendell Hall, and a number of “crooners” that were coming into their own, such as Art Gillham, Gene Austin and Whispering Jack Smith. Bing Crosby wasn’t famous (and hadn’t recorded) yet. Relatively few white teenagers in 1925 would’ve listened to black performers, whereas by the 1950s many young people listened to Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, the Platters, etc.

–As for fashions, not all teenage girls and young women had bobbed their hair yet in the mid-20s, and it was a momentous decision for some. Men didn’t wear crew-cuts as much (they often slicked their hair back), and they sometimes sported plus fours as daytime wear. Clothing in general was more formal than in the 50s, and men usually still wore vests. Women didn’t typically wear pants in public.

–Notable songs (with carryover from late '24) included “All Alone”, “What’ll I Do?”, “Brown Eyes, Why Are You Blue?”, “Yearning”, the scores from No, No, Nanette, Rose Marie and Lady Be Good, “Oh, Katharina!” “Titina”, “Don’t Bring Lulu”, “Collegiate”, “The Original Charleston”, and countless more. Rodgers and Hart had their first hit with “Manhattan”. Some of these stayed on through the decades and may have been familiar to a 50s adolescent.

–Speed limits were lower and road trips took longer. In the 1922 movie Manslaughter, reckless Leatrice Joy stuns a couple of townsfolk when she drives 60 mph!

–The military and international affairs were far, far less significant issues for most people in 1925 as opposed to 1955.

–Felix the Cat was the most popular cartoon character; neither Mickey Mouse nor any of the Warner Bros. creations existed yet.

16

A GM Futureliner would be good but those were in use until '56 so using one as the basis of a time machine in '55 wouldn’t be possible.

17

If you were in western Europe, then there would be a lot more women available, because so many men were killed in the War.

For the car, you’d want an Aston Martin DB2/4.

And I can’t believe that no one has mentioned that films were silent!

18

I’m imagining a '50s teen with a demure June Cleaver-esque mother being transported back to 1925 and discovering that she’d been a young flapper, sneaking out to jazz clubs to do the bunny hug!

19

Was Louis Armstrong well known in 1925 or was that still a few more years away?

One other difference about 1955 and 1925 is the existence of prohibition. Granted, no matter what the year, teenagers can’t legally drink alcohol but in 1925 nobody else could either. What, just a few years before, had been a common adult activity (i.e., going out for a drink) now meant breaking the law.

20

Racism and xenophobia were big in both eras, but the 1950s teen might have found the 1920s rather startlingly liberal as far as sexual permissiveness and female equality went.