Not even third to last.
…And we watch the movie every year, and I knew the actor’s last name! I never made the connection. :smack:
I am being a bit of a pain in the arse, and actually acknowledge it wasn’t meant to be set in any particular/specific year (not as a hard, final decision). However, those working on the movie were presented with decisions, because certain things pointed to a certain year, and those in charge of props went with certain dates. We’re talking key things, tied to the script/plot. Someone slapped '40 on the car tag and chose 1940 for the pin. They were trying to keep the movie right around this year.
Being realistic, I understand that those who made the movie a reality, from writer to producer to director, just want everyone to enjoy it for the nice story it is, so I don’t expect (or want) them to come out and ever say any one particular year. I am sure they have heard about various inconsistencies in dating, and they were likely aware anyway. ::shrug:: What do they gain by even getting into the whole nonsense?
No, this is about holding people accountable for saying that the movie takes places anywhere from the 30’s to the mid-50’s (see that coonskin hat?). It’s also about stopping right there when someone says it can’t take place before 1947 because of a certain vehicle in a scene. Please… I mean, really.
We all know (don’t we) that vehicles can’t always be secured for historical accuracy, and sometimes they can be but it’s not worth the bother. A coonskin hat sometimes just looks right on a bully from yesteryear to a wardrobe person, but it wasn’t chosen because the movie was meant to be so vague in its time-line that we stretch it all the way out to the mid 1950’s! That is a riot.
No, what we have is a movie that is supposed to take place right around 1940, give or take, and it just drifts from that date because of memories, and then is furthered confused by the fact that some things look and feel right to a wardrobe staffer; some prop people had to pick dates and because rounding up everything to be dead-on accurate wasn’t needed.
This.
It takes place in a storyteller’s mind, people.
I disagree. I think the movie is deliberately intended to be set in no particular year. It is designed to resonate with at least two generations because it draws on (intentionally) artifacts, music, and other items from a range of years. I hadn’t been aware of just how broad the range of dates indicated in the movie is; it’s not just a few anomalies or anachronisms that can be accounted for by the mistakes of a wardrobe department.
As I pointed out before, it doesn’t take place in the mind of a single storyteller, because the elements are drawn from at least two generations and don’t represent any single person’s childhood.
It resonates by design. Artifacts from a range of years is intentional. These are not just anomalies. Got it. Not buying it, but appreciate the attempt to clarify.
All good.
"White Sox player Bill “Bullfrog” Dietrich (Bill Dietrich) is mentioned as being traded. He was traded to the White Sox in 1936 and from the White Sox in 1946. Since the family drives a 1937 Olds, it would imply it was the 1946 trade. This would be consistent with the soldiers present at Higbee’s corner window in the movie opening, since the war may have just ended. However, war-era versions of the decoder badge were paper due to the shortage and Little Orphan Annie was off the air well before 1946. Theres no way this was pre-war as the country was in a depression and families were not focused on buying toys for Christmas.
Welcome to the Straight Dope, cloudfly. I feel obliged to point out that the thread you are posting in is six years old. Longstanding SDMB tradition requires me to make a zombie joke, but I’ll forbear.
Does anyone know if the area its filmed in really get that much snow by Christmas?
Maybe. January and February are when most of the snow falls in the Chicago/Gary/Hammond area but it isn’t impossible to have a good amount of snow by Christmas.
Lake effect snow is common in NW Indiana. I’ve seen it fall in May for crying out loud.
No doubt, but that’s not where the movie was filmed. It was set in northern Indiana, but filmed in Cleveland. That opening scene, where Ralphie sees the Daisy Red Ryder in the Higbee’s window? That’s Public Square.
My mom grew up in Cleveland/Lakewood; A Christmas Story always makes her nostalgic.
Wow. Ok, couple of thoughts:
About the hat. Rings or no, that’s a fox. I always thought the idea was, as someone said upthread years ago, that Scut was supposed to be, or supposed to be described by the narrator as, the kind of guy (either tough, poor, or both) who would make his own hat out of an animal.
Scut’s hat (with face!): https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6eb2C6pdHgU/maxresdefault.jpg - video: The Fight | A Christmas Story | TBS - YouTube
Real fox hat (very apparent rings): http://www.bikerringsleather.com/product_info.php/pName/canadian-red-fox-fur-hat-with-tail
I’ve seen lots of foxes with various kinds of patterns including rings on their tails. Never seen a red raccoon, other than the Red Panda in the zoo, and it would probably be frowned upon making a hat out of him.
Also, the fruit basket. I’ve always been in the camp that this is obviously someone’s recollection of events some 40+ years later. Meaning he would be recalling giving her a nice basket of fruit that probably cost him a fair amount of change. Exactly what was in it would be heavily colored by what would be “expensive but affordable” fruit in the 80’s or whenever the story was supposed to have been recounted to us.
Even 20+ years later, let alone 40 or so, I can only remember these kinds of things in very broad strokes. Even things I think I remember clearly, for sure, I understand that particular details are likely to be mental fabrications and placeholders accumulated over the years from all the previous times I may have recalled the event. Whether the filmmakers intended specifically to depict the hazy imperfection of human memory, or just artistically decided “let’s place the setting sometime vaguely in this range of years”; it works either way. And the hat doesn’t imply 50s at all, IMO, since it’s certainly not even a raccoon (the A Christmas Story Movie Museum also labels it a fox hat- photo about halfway down the page).
I forgot to add that the school scenes, both interior and exterior, were shot in St. Catherine, Ontario.
Well, yes, there are some indications that the thread is that old, but then again, there are some posts in it that are clearly from less than a year ago. It’s not really consistent with any one year.
It’s an amalgam of the OP’s and Philster’s memories of the thread, I think we can agree.
Regional? It came all the way from Italy!
It’s turkey connoisseur with the end of connoisseur changed into freak. He wasn’t just into turkey, he was CRAZY into turkey.