Iconic hometowns not where you think they were

Ever wonder where your favorite Christmas movies or television scenes were filmed?

Were the iconic “hometown” settings real towns or just based on the idyllic settings of the mind’s eye?

Some had a kernel of realism mixed with film magic but many were Hollywood smoke and mirrors from the get-go. Cue the snow machines.

The Bing Crosby classic “Holiday Inn” that featured his hit song “White Christmas,” was filmed in Sonoma County, Calif. Not much chance of a postcard snowfall there.

All those snowy, hometown Christmas episodes of “The Waltons” and “Little House on the Prairie” were filmed in sunny California as well with the Hollywood Hills somehow standing in for Walton’s Mountain.

The original “Miracle on 34th Street” was actually filmed on location in New York. Filmmakers even did the unthinkable of shooting scenes live during Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, mostly in one-take scenes on a bitterly cold day. The 1994 remake was mostly filmed in Chicago and Macy’s refused to allow the use of their name in the movie.

In the Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart’s character George Bailey traipsed through the cozy mid-century town of Bedford Falls with his guardian angel Clarence. George got the chance to see how the town would have turned out if he had never existed. Of course Bedford Falls never really existed anyway. It was filmed on sets in California. It is said that Capra likely based the town on Seneca Falls, New York, however.

Even my favorite Christmas movie “A Christmas Story,” was set in the fictional town of Hohmanm, Ind. The book the film is based on was written by Jean Shepherd, who grew up in Hammond, Ind. The yellow house where the movie’s exterior scenes were shot isn’t located in Indiana or even California; it’s in Cleveland.

A guy reportedly made enough selling the fake leg lamps from the movie to actually buy the house where the movie was filmed. He restored it, put up a museum and souvenir shop next door and apparently today you can actually rent out Ralphie’s home for the night.

Ralphie’s school, Warren G. Harding Elementary, wasn’t even depicted by a United States building. Instead it was filmed at Victoria School in St. Catharines, Ontario. They cut the Canadian kids’ hair in 1940s styles and used them as extras.

Higbee’s Department Store depicted in several scenes in the movie was an actual store in Cleveland, one of the few that would let them film the movie. Reportedly the store’s vice president conditioned the use of the property on stipulation that the movie contain no profanity. Therefore the “Old Man’s” cursing while doing battle with the furnace in the basement became incoherent grumbling and mumbling.

I don’t think I want to spend the night at 3159 W. 11th St. in Cleveland, but in my imagination John Boy goes to bed in Virginia and Ralphie sleeps in a yellow Victorian in Indiana.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

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