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Christmas story errors

C

chrish

After a few years vacation from It's a wonderful life and a Christmas story I watched and enjoyed them both this year but with the advent of HD I caught a couple of errors in a Christmas story that I never saw before. First, during the introduction when the camera is panned down Cleveland St. a house on the right has a TV antenna. Second, when the family buys their Christmas tree the board in the background with wreaths hanging appears to be particle board and not plywood.
Bob Clark did an incredible job with this movie down to changing the electrical meter hardware on the side of houses. Neither TV antennas nor particle board were around in the late 30's but I guess sometimes things slip through.

The home owner may have not let them temporarily remove the antenna, in this day and age they would have just digitally removed it.
Love to see car chases in 1970 movies and TV shows where in one scene the police car is a Chevy and the next scene it a Plymouth.
 
When this film was made in the mid-80's I don't think they had the ability yet to remove objects digitally.
And if they did, it would certainly not have fit the budget for this film at the time.

I know that when Sly Stallone made his trucking union movie F*I*S*T back in the early 80's he filmed it in
some town in Iowa, rather than in Cleveland where the story was set, for the same reason. The Iowa town
had 95%+ cable penetration, and hence, no antennas. Clevelanders meanwhile were sticking to their
over-the-air TV.

Or maybe Ralphie and his family just wanted to watch FDR's television address to the nation
about the New Deal (sorry, Joe Biden!) ;D
 
The movie was filmed in Cleveland in July, all the snow is fake and the house on Cleveland st is one of its top visitor sites. Movie was described as bieng in Holman, Indiana (looks like Gary, Indiana to me)
 
One mistake I've noticed before in in the scene where Ralphie and his friends are looking at the Christmas display in the department store window. There is a Radio Flyer wagon with the logo that was used in the early 80's when the movie was filmed. The reason I know that is because I used to work at a hardware store in the 80's that sold them at Christmas.

I've also wondered about the accuracy of the cars on the movie. Although I can't actually prove it, I've wondered if some of the cars may have been newer than the late 30's when the movie was set.
 
chrish said:
The movie was filmed in Cleveland in July, all the snow is fake and the house on Cleveland st is one of its top visitor sites. Movie was described as bieng in Holman, Indiana (looks like Gary, Indiana to me)
Click to expand...

"Hohman, Indiana" was based on Jean Shepherd's hometown of Hammond, which is the city between Gary and Chicago.

Neither TV antennas nor particle board were around in the late 30's but I guess sometimes things slip through.
Click to expand...

There was television in Chicago beginning in 1939. Zenith's W9XZV started that year, and Balaban & Katz's W9XBK/WBKB went on the air in 1940. But almost nobody would have had a TV antenna on their roof, unless they were a Zenith or Balaban & Katz engineer or executive, or maybe a bar.

Particle board was invented by German engineer Max Himmelheber in the 1930s, but it wasn't in widespread use in the US until the '50s so that's definitely a mistake in the movie.
 
If the movie was filmed in July then why is it that some scenes depict a very cloudy winter day when it was probably warm outside? And how would the boy with his tongue stuck on the frozen flagpole be explained when it was supposed to have been winter time (snow falling from the sky while he was stuck there) and it was summer when it was filmed?
 
Braves2005 said:
If the movie was filmed in July then why is it that some scenes depict a very cloudy winter day when it was probably warm outside? And how would the boy with his tongue stuck on the frozen flagpole be explained when it was supposed to have been winter time (snow falling from the sky while he was stuck there) and it was summer when it was filmed?
Click to expand...
Assuming this isn't sarcasm, it gets cloudy in the summer.

There are any number of ways they could have stuck his tongue to the flagpole.

Any movie crew can make snow fairly easily.

The question I have is why is the sun about to come out in most movies when it is raining?
 
I remember seeing that. If I remember right it's not just a TV antenna it's a dual VHF/UHF antenna which no one would have at that time, not even engineers.
 
Braves2005 said:
If the movie was filmed in July then why is it that some scenes depict a very cloudy winter day when it was probably warm outside? And how would the boy with his tongue stuck on the frozen flagpole be explained when it was supposed to have been winter time (snow falling from the sky while he was stuck there) and it was summer when it was filmed?
Click to expand...

According to this hastily-made Cleveland tourism video, Cleveland only sees the sun three times a year. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM
 
TheRob said:
Braves2005 said:
If the movie was filmed in July then why is it that some scenes depict a very cloudy winter day when it was probably warm outside? And how would the boy with his tongue stuck on the frozen flagpole be explained when it was supposed to have been winter time (snow falling from the sky while he was stuck there) and it was summer when it was filmed?
Click to expand...

According to this hastily-made Cleveland tourism video, Cleveland only sees the sun three times a year. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzgAjjuqZM
Click to expand...

It was definitely cloudy the day I visited Cleveland (specifically, the R&RHOF) in 1999. By the time I got back to my "mother ship" in Canton late that afternoon, the sun had come out. And yes, I visited the PFHOF the next day.

ixnay
 
vchimpanzee said:
Braves2005 said:
If the movie was filmed in July then why is it that some scenes depict a very cloudy winter day when it was probably warm outside? And how would the boy with his tongue stuck on the frozen flagpole be explained when it was supposed to have been winter time (snow falling from the sky while he was stuck there) and it was summer when it was filmed?
Click to expand...
Assuming this isn't sarcasm, it gets cloudy in the summer.

There are any number of ways they could have stuck his tongue to the flagpole.

Any movie crew can make snow fairly easily.

The question I have is why is the sun about to come out in most movies when it is raining?
Click to expand...


Actually filming was divided about evenly between Cleveland and the Toronto area.
That school and the famous flagpole were in St. Catherines, Ontario. If you look carefully the
fire trucks that respond to that call have lettering from Toronto area fire companies stenciled
on them.
 
Yes, the snowy scenes were done in Canada, and the inside scenes on a soundstage. The entire cast was in Cleveland for the leg lamp arrival scene. You an now visit the house in Cleveland, which someone bought on eBay and turned into a popular tourist attraction.

http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/

I was there opening weekend (an unseasonably warm Thanksgiving weekend with temperatures in the 70s). Long lines and neighbors selling ovaltine, soft drinks, memorabilia and bathroom visits.
 
As for a whole winter scenario when it was summer, some pretty great Christmas songs and movies came out of summertime, to wit: The Christmas Song, Miracle On 34th Street, and a few others that escape me just this minute.
 
Before noting the period, I had to double check my facts; the setting is the 1940s, not the 1930s.
 
Silkie said:
Before noting the period, I had to double check my facts; the setting is the 1940s, not the 1930s.
Click to expand...

I was always under the impression that the setting was 1939, which is why those Wizard of Oz characters were featured. Most of the cultural references would tend to support this.
 
I wonder why Ralphie/Jean didn't have a crystal radio?

Put WJOB, where Jean first worked in radio, into a Google Map search, right arrow once, and there's Cleveland St., about a mile east of WJOB's tower. Ralphie/Jean would most likely have received WJOB 1200/1230 and WIND 560 quite well there on a crystal radio.
 
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