wjstixThe Christmas Story discussion reminds me of choosing a time frame for a model railroad...for some of us, modelling say "the fifties"
The great thing about this discussion is that A Christmas Story never specifies the year it takes place. We can look for all kinds of clues, but in the end, it is just a discussion that we cannot ever fully resolve.
I wonder how many model railroaders just build something that looks good to them without specifying a year, and then just let the viewers/visitors draw their own conclusions.
It just occured to me that in all the times I have visited people's home layouts, I don't think I have ever asked someone what year they model.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
SeeYou190The great thing about this discussion is that A Christmas Story never specifies the year it takes place. We can look for all kinds of clues, but in the end, it is just a discussion that we cannot ever fully resolve.
He also did make the point at least once that the filmmakers had done a great deal of careful research in making the film that he wouldn't have. Stories, like radio, can leave a great deal to the imagination that movies need to depict... and it is usually in those 'other depicted details' that we nitpickers find the little, ah, non-Eastery eggs. I deeply respect those filmmakers who try to get details right, and respect even more those who are able to make me believe I'm in that era and place... even with the occasional 'compromise'.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching the film, any more than I'll ever get tired of reading Shep's stories... or better, hearing him read them on the magic of radio.
Well, and one could spend a lifetime recording all of the anachronisms in movies and TV shows that are set in a specific year...IIRC the movie "Hard Times" (set in 1933) starts with Charles Bronson arriving in a passenger train hauled by I think a GE 70-ton switcher. Gary Busey playing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster guitar when playing Buddy Holly, who died in 1959. Etc. Etc. Sometimes it's better to be a litte 'vague'.
wjstixWell, and one could spend a lifetime recording all of the anachronisms in movies and TV shows that are set in a specific year..
Just to get totally geeked on this subject... and since this is a train forum.
In the film Enemy At The Gates, they did a remarkable job with making sure that all the military equipment was as accurate as possible. Sure, there is some nit-picking out there about grip styles on pistols, tread patterns on tires, and even some impossible to understand musings about scope diameters. Overall, it is a remarkable film.
HOWEVER... In a huge glaring error, right at the beginning of the movie, when the A/A gun car is attached to the Soviet troop train, it is being pulled by a German steam locomotive.
This would not have happened. No captured German locomotives were used on Soviet trains that operated near the front line until very late in the war.
They ruined a near-perfect movie with a train error.
SeeYou190 Just to get totally geeked on this subject... and since this is a train forum. In the film Enemy At The Gates, they did a remarkable job with making sure that all the military equipment was as accurate as possible.
In the film Enemy At The Gates, they did a remarkable job with making sure that all the military equipment was as accurate as possible.
Rich
Alton Junction
BTW with all this talk about Jean Shepherd, I forgot that there was an episode of his "Jean Shepherd's America" 1970s PBS show that was about Trains....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDpLSRQSug
As I recall, there is a Baldwin visible at the beginning of "Phantom of the Open Hearth".
I watched "A Christmas Story" once. It never did much for me.
But I really enjoyed both "The Phantom of the Open Hearth" and also "The Star-Crossed Love of Josephine Cosnowsky".
Both of the above can be watched on YouTube, I believe.
OldEnginemanI watched "A Christmas Story" once. It never did much for me.
Noooooooooooooooo!
How can you say such a thing?
Re "A Christmas Story" and other stories of Shep, remember it's easier to keep history straight if you're going by a history book you read rather than from memory. Our memories tend to blend things together and mix them up, like "those Frankie and Annette 'beach movies' of the fifties" that were made 1963-66; or Meredith Wilson including a reference to "Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang" in the Music Man's song about the pool hall, even though the story is set in 1912 and the humor magazine didn't start until the 1920s.