I thought I read someplace that The Great Escape is a traditional Christmas movie in the UK.
There are two very specific cultural tags that date the film.
(1) The Wizard of Oz characters (that are dressed just like the movie versions) mean that the film is at the very earliest 1939.
(2) The Little Orphan Annie radio program ran from 1931-1942.
So early 40s seems reasonable, probably pre-Pearl Harbor (after which, discussion of the war would be hard to avoid).
But yeah, I’m no good at identifying car makes or other specific items that are part of the production design.
Very small sample size and confirmation bias, but I’m surprised at how popular Home Alone is among my friends in England. One of them even wanted to visit the house when he came to visit me in Chicago, talked him out of it because it’s not accessible by transit and it’s been written in the Tribune that the owners are sick of drive by lookie loos.
The specific Annie decoder pin was a 1940. The issue of Look magazine with Shirley Temple on the cover is a 1937 issue. (And Ralphie chooses the page with nude Russian sunbathers to locate his Red Ryder ad.) The Old Man’s car is a '37 olds. The background cars range from 1934 to 1948.
The movie is all over the place but that’s just adult Ralphie misremembering details. 
Well, the stories that the movie was taken from were told as being from various times in “Ralphie’s” childhood. For instance, the Bumpus’s dogs eating the turkey took place at Thanksgiving in the original story.
UK again here. Never heard of it. But then I can’t remember the last time I willingly watched a Christmas movie.
Sounds very likely. I just checked our listings mag, and it doesn’t seem to be on this year - but The Dam Busters is (More4, New Year’s Day, 5.25) - so you should be OK.
j
I’m from England and watch a fair amount of cheesy movies, but I’d never heard of this one before.
It’s a Wonderful Life is also not big here. I mean, some people will have seen it, especially movie aficionados, but it’s not the sort of cultural touchstone it is in the US. I know about it because it’s mentioned so often, but I’ve never seen it.
Exactly my position on this one also.
j
Canada here: this very message board is where I learned of the movie. I bought the DVD a number of years back, thanks to all you yanks. 
Anyway, I love the movie. 1930s or 1940s? Beats me but it certainly is reminiscent of my childhood in Canada circa 1970s.
I love the movie, and that’s a lot coming from me, because I usually don’t like any movie. (Subject for another thread.)
UK here. Never heard of it.
It was definitely not successful when it first came out. It gained popularity after it was shown on cable.
The author was born in 1923 so his childhood stories were from the Depression. Like everyone who tells stories decades later the details might be fuzzy and the gaps filled in with embellishments.
I’ve never heard Garrison Kellor on the radio but I’m assuming he took a lot from Jean Shepard. We bought my father Shepard’s books that had some of his better radio stories. Many of those stories became this movie.
If you’ve watched any American tv that was broadcast in the UK for the last 50 years I’m sure you’ve seen episodes based on It’s a Wonderful Life. Second only to Scrooge as being recycled for Christmas episode plots.
I’m American and this board is where I learned about it, although I probably would have encountered it one way or another eventually.
The TV is tuned to it all day during each year’s marathon. I love it.
One rather odd result of the movie’s popularity is the phenomenon of people purchasing replicas of the “major award” and using it as a Christmas decoration.
My favorite example of that is a bit of merch for the Lake Erie Monsters (Cleveland’s minor league hockey team), with a green, scaly leg topped by a lampshade.
And one of the teachers at the local high school won the school’s door decorating contest with a homemade leg lamp, mounted in a windowframe, with a gift-wrapped cylinder labeled “Red Rider” propped up next to it.
It was a low/moderate budget movie that earned low/moderate box office returns and received moderately good reviews. It didn’t really have any name actors in it, and was directed by a guy best known for directing the Porky’s movies.
It started growing an audience because of HBO and videotapes, but really didn’t become well-known until Turner Broadcasting got their hands on it in the late 90s. Because a lot of the classic Xmas movies rights were held/owned by other networks, such as NBC and It’s a Wonderful Life, Turner decided to make A Christmas Story their Xmas classic by flogging the hell out of it on TBS and TNT.
That’s a big part of it, as is the quotability factor of the movie.
Canadian. Never watched it, but vaguely aware of it.
See, to me, that’s one of the downsides. At least It’s a Wonderful Life has this overarching story behind the vignettes. You have something to pull you through at the places where it can feel like it drags a bit.
Though I’d say the biggest difference is that It’s a Wonderful Life is heartwarming and upbeat (even with some pretty dark subject matter), while A Christmas Story is rather cynical and melancholy. The vignettes in the former always end on an upbeat note.
I only find two vignettes memorable, and one isn’t even a full vignette. The first is the iconic flag pole licking (with it’s “triple dog dare”), while the other is Ralphie with that Santa which shows how frightening that sort of thing can be from a kid’s point of view. (The scene with the wide angle lens and Santa saying “ho, ho ho” is burned into my brain.) While I appreciate the former teaching me about licking cold metal, it isn’t the most heartwarming thing.
Heartwarming is what I want from my Christmas specials. The natural state outside, with the colder weather and decreased sun, injects some melancholy into our lives, and Christmas is one of the ways we add cheer and brightness back in. The only way I can enjoy cynicism is if it’s done in a comedic way, like in Jingle All the Way, and has this heartwarming part at the end.
I find that the season itself injects a level of melancholy into everything, with the colder temps and lesser sun. And so I don’t want stuff that reinforces that. I want something that makes me feel better than when I started watching.
Other than nostalgia for an earlier time (which doesn’t apply to most viewers today as they are too young), I don’t actually get what people like about A Christmas Story*. I would love to find out, though.
*Unless it’s nostalgia for just watching the movie. But then, there are so many more uplifting movies with that same feeling.
I won’t dispute it’s popularity during it’s theatrical release but in my little microcosm at age 13 I saw it multiple times in a theater in the midwest, often packed, during the weeks before Christmas in 83’. It was totally relate-able to me at the time and I dragged whomever I could to see it. Often neighbor friends and their parents.
Even as a kid who grew up in the 70s/80s I could empathize with everything Ralphie was going through. Overconfidence in a written assignment only to get a C+. Mail-order hopes crushed by a sub-par outcome. Coveted toys deemed too dangerous. Etc. etc.
Also the fact that It’s a Wonderful Life is boring as hell for most of the movie.
TBS and TNT each show A Christmas Story 24 hours straight, off-set from each other by 1 hour. It’s awesome!
I’m American and have never seen the movie, just bits and pieces when the kids obsessively watch it. Don’t think I’ll ever watch it, there are better movies out there.