Supplimentary question:
Did lamps in the style depicted in the film exist at the time? It seems way more like something I would have imagined for a '50s bachelor pad.
Supplimentary question:
Did lamps in the style depicted in the film exist at the time? It seems way more like something I would have imagined for a '50s bachelor pad.
This film has always interested me partially because of the timeframe: What other films from after the War depict America in the immediate pre-War period? (Yes, I’m looking for examples.) Most ‘Historical Panorama’ films kind of segue right from 1929-1935 (Okies in Tin Lizzies fleeing the Dust Bowl (early to mid-Thirties), Hoovervilles (OK, they lasted until '41), and maybe FDR’s first term (1933-1937)) to December 7, 1941, the Date Which Will Live in Infamy without so much as tipping their hat to the idea America didn’t stop progressing just because it got a little Depressed. This ties into the fact Hollywood can’t imagine World War Two starting without the Greatest Generation.
So, regardless of the fact nobody can tie this film down to a specific year, it’s still interesting because it’s indubitably set in a very much ignored period.
No. The leg lamp is not really all that sexy, and I couldn’t imagine it actually being manufactured back then (Yes, I know they make them now; I have one).
Derleth: Technically, From Here to Eternity is set in prewar Hawaii and most of the action has nothing really to do with the war (though, of course, it does portray Pearl Harbor). Cradle Will Rock is set in 1937, the late Depression.
The family is by no means poor - for the time period, they were well off - well-dressed, plenty to eat, and they had a fine Christmas… I find it extremely refreshing that even if WWII was going on, or war was about to start, there is NO mention of it whatsoever.
AFAIK there are two other Jean Shepherd stories available on VHS, etc:
My Summer Story (1994) aka *It Runs in the Family ( I won this and it’s not bad)
Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss * (very rare)
I caught the last half of Ollie Hopnoodle’s Haven of Bliss on television once when I was a kid. IIRC, the family characters weren’t quite the same–different names, the little brother ?wasn’t there?, etc?
Well, I guess my perception is colored from having read some of Shepherd’s other works. The essay about his friend’s parents’ house being foreclosed on, and the auction of all their threadbare possessions. And the one about Movie Nights and people being frantic to get a free dish or try to win money or prizes. So the first time I saw it, all the way through I was thinking, “That’s got to be a pretty expensive gun, and it’s gonna break the bank for them.” I was surprised when, instead of it being his only gift, it was the surprise after already getting a pretty big haul.
I’m also conditioned by my parents’ stories of that era. They were kids back then too, and my dad likes to tell about the year he wanted hockey skates soooo bad. And he did. And that was all he got. (He was content with that, which is another indicator of how spartan a time that was.) And my mom tells of the time the neighborhood Santa* gave everyone socks. Because the church ladies had conferred on this, and concluded that every kid in the neighborhood really needed socks. In those days, you couldn’t just go to Wal-Mart and get a bag of six, after all. So Santa gave socks, and that took one small burden off the parents.
Still, it would be awfully glurgey if Ralphie had to go through a crisis of conscience and make a noble sacrifice. Better to focus on You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out than to make him Oliver Twist with a decoder ring.
*Yes, the same Santa to whom my uncle said “G’bye, Joe!” Though I don’t know if it was the same year.
OK, so I’ve been taken to task for my earlier post about the story taking place in the 50’s.
I was alive in the 50’s and it’s my experiences (right or wrong) that I based my assumptions on.
1.) There was no reference in the movie to war or an impending war. This, to me, is very important.
2.) Radio serials were still alive in the 50’s even though television was killing them off.
3.) Although TV was making huge inroads, not everyone had a TV. It was still a luxury. Radio was still important in everyone’s life. Ralphy’s dad struck me as a late adapter.
4.) The styles and clothing look very 50’s.
5.) I didn’t take note of the model years of the cars but I thought they looked like early 50’s. Remember, not everyone owned a late model car.
So I’m very willing to be corrected but that was my impression from the multiple viewings of the film.
Little Orphan Annie was not sponsored by Ovaltine after 1940. And it certainly wasn’t on the air in the 1950s.
FWIW, the film is not set in any specific year. Bob Clark said that on more than one occasion. We can go back and forth all day with inconsistencies from the film about the year it was set, and a contradiction can be quickly and easily located.
I have my doubts that leg lamps were even available at any time before the movie’s release.
I’m sure you all know this already, but…
also bear in mind that Xmas Story is a mixture of several earlier, separate stories by Shepherd. Most(?) of them were first published in Playboy in the 1960’s, which is where I first read and loved them; they’re all available now in three paperbacks of JS collected shorts stories.
I haven’t read them for several years, but I don’t remember any of the immediate family members, including the narrator, being mentioned by name.
Anyway, just thought I’d throw my 2¢ into the mix.
PS: apparently I’m the last person in my family to have learned (very recently) that the child actor who played Ralphie is the real-life nephew of Barbara Billingsley. June Cleaver. Beav’s mom.
.
Second to last. In the whole wide world.
(Bolding mine) Was it a major award?
Another thing that makes the movie seem more modern than the early 40’s is that it’s in color. I always expect a movie based in the 40’s to be B&W, as though color didn’t exist then.
Early in the film, when the boys are gawking at the toys in the store window, one of the toys is a wind-up tin tank.
This tank is clearly a pre-WW2 vintage design. In my mind, if this took place in 1942 through 1945, there would be no tin toy available. If it took place after 1945, then the toy design would be different (I would think, anyway). This taking place in 39-40 always seems to make the most sense to me.
WIZARD OF OZ was released in 1939, and SNOW WHITE in 1937, so we’re presumably talking about that short time period. Those wouldn’t have been featured in parades and window displays except for perhaps a year or so before and a year or so after release date.
I don’t see anything that signifies 1950s.
Thanks for the link to the bits with the 1940 dates on the decoder, license, etc.
And, they had TWO phones!
As a point of reference, my father worked for the phone company, and we still only had one phone in a three-level, four bedroom house. Didn’t get a second phone until somewhere in the mid '80s when it was possible to purchase phones rather than eternally leasing them.
As a collector of old phones, their having two phones was one thing that jumped right out at me and said “Hey, these people have some money!” Odd though, that they could afford a second phone, but the Old Man’s spare tires looked more like used racing slicks.
Prizes…
The Burma Shave folks found themselves in an interesting situation after putting out one of their sign sets:
This was in 1955, when contests were common, and they of course intended their sign as a parodying joke about the ubiquitous contests. But one enterprising store owner in Wisconsin used the Burma Shave jingle as the starting platform to his own local campaign. he put up signs asking people to buy Burma Shave and return the empty jars so they could “Send Frenchy to Mars!” People in his small town responded, and soon enough, Arliss French was the possessor of over 900 empty jars. He sent a telegram to Burma Shave asking where the jars should be shipped, and Burma Shave responded with a playful rhyme… but also sent out their general manager to see how serious the guy was. After learning that the whole town had been involved in the advertising, they decided that they had to do something to honor the offer. They sent French and his wife on a trip to Moers, Germany (pronounced ‘mars’) and turned a potential embarrassment into a publicity success.
Were there any TVs in the movie, though?
Wartime restrictions on rubber.
If there were wartime rubber restrictions, then there wouldn’t be anything unusual about the Old Man’s barely there tires. I think this anecdote is another example of his eccentricities - he could probably afford better spares, but would rather squeeze out every mile he could from old, bald pairs.
Not even second to last in this thread. :smack: