Finnegan

Anja,

Presumably there's some maximally complete "director's cut master tape" somewhere in the archieves of Sony Pictures (Columbia TriStar) from which "versions" are made by cutting. The "cut scenes" page of the Strawberry Lane fansite may give us an idea of how much more complete that is than even the French version of YA. To make a new version from that "master tape" takes time and money; one must decide what to cut, and it must be internally consistent.

So once a more complete version is made, it tends to get used, absent compelling reason to use a shorter one. The question,which I've tried to answer, is why the more complete version was made in the first play - in France in 2001. Rawley High - Das Erste Semester aired in Germany in 2002, no?

Obviously, tossing the "Six Packs" song and opening credits back into the even-numbered episodes is easy, however; it's the same for every episode, just stock footage.

So again, the only real "problem" is to explain why a more complete "European" version was made in the first place, and I think I've done that; it was originally made to accommodate double-episode presentation on M6 in France in 2001.

Why do the French like double-episode packaging? Why do they want their TV shows to be twice as long? Beats me. Why do they spend twice as much time to eat a meal, or to make love? They just lack a good Puritan tradition. I blame it all on Henri IV, and his "Paris is worth a mass" cop-out.

Finnegan

1. The Coxwain's Megaphone in YA episode 5

Near the start of YA episode 5, when 'Jake' Pratt tells Hamilton Fleming, on a couch in the Rawley Boys' common room, that her mother is coming to visit for parents' weekend, a large old non-electronic megaphone sits on an end table at the end of the couch at which 'Jake' is seated. The megaphone is visible from 6:11 to 6:40 minutes into this clip.

Such old megaphones, once the esential tool of a coxswain such as 'Jake,' were totally out of use by coxswains well before 2000, replaced either by a smaller electronic megaphone or (for a better-funded team) by an electronic "cox box" sound amplifier of the sort 'Jake' is shown using in YA.

In no other of the many "common room" scenes of YA does a megaphone appear. It is specific to this scene, a visual prop for 'Jake' Pratt, a coxswain, in the episode about (a) parent's weekend and (2) the regatta that culminates the summer crew rowing season. It serves to foreshadow that, in that episode, Pratt's role as coxswain will conflict with her hosting of her visiting mother.

However, the megaphone is also an anachronism, underscoring, like all YA's many anachronisms, the ambiguity of time-setting resulting from the narrative perspective. It is, nevertheless, the only anachronism specific to 'Jake' Pratt that I know of, other than YA's citation of Bob Dylan's Love Minus Zero/No Limit, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it.

(2) Bella's gas pumps are late-1940s-model pumps fitted for GLOBES.

At the end of episode 5, when Bella runs past her gas pumps to fill up Senator Calhoun's Mercedes, 5:26 minutes into this clip, we see an empty round collar on top of the two gas pumps see close-up. That collar is the fitting for a gas pump globe, which has been removed from the pump. What is a gas pump globe? It's one of these things that before 1950 were commonly seen on top of gas pumps:

The pumps in the first picture are all pumps made by Gilbarco (Gilbert & Barker) in the late 1940s. The pumps in the second and third pictures is the Bennett 956 model, made from 1945 to 1956. All the gas pumps used for Charlie's gas station in YA appear to be late 1940s models, but they are all different models. The one nearest the door to the office of the gas station appears to be a Bennett 956 to 966 (a series of similar models); I cannot identify the others, but if you'd like to try, you might start with Jack Sim's Illustrated Guide to Gas Pumps.

The globe collar fittings of the pumps in YA are painted, suggesting that they were sold or (more likely) rented as movie props without their globes; to attach globes, the collar should be paint-free, as in the photos above. Nevertheless, why was the globe not used in YA with the rest of the gas pump, given that gas globes are readily available from antique dealers? Perhaps Antin wanted his anachronisms to be a bit subtler than a gas globe, which conspicuously dates a gas pump to the era before 1950. Or perhaps the idea of attaching a globe just never occurred to anyone on the YA production staff.

(3) The 1930s-model Coke machine is a Westinghouse Standard

The 1930s-model Coke machine at Charlie Bank's gas station, from which Scout Calhoun takes two Coke bottles at the start of episode 1 of Young Americans, at 1:28 to 1:40 minutes into this clip, is a Westinghouse Standard. More details at the link, from "SodaMachine.com."

4. Unanswered questions: unknown "little things"

There are a lot of costumes or props in YA that I either can't see well enough, or don't know late 1990s US youth culture well enough, to identify. For example:

-- (a) In episode 5, in the same scene in the common room in which 'Jake' tells Hamilton that her mother is coming to visit, and in which 'Jake' has an anachronistic coxswain's megaphone as her personal prop on the end table at her end of the couch, there is some almost cubical thing, apparently made of wood, on the end table at Hamilton's end of the couch. It is seen from 6:11 to 6:40 minutes into this clip. It seems likely to be a parallel personal prop for Hamilton. Can anyone identify what it is?

-- (b) What is the grey T-shirt with a gold "S" or snake on the front that 'Jake' wears in the scene in YA episode 4, in the scene where she finds that Hamilton has just allowed Lena to induce him to break his promise to escort 'Jake' to the cotillion? It's seen from 3:54 to 4:58 minutes into this clip; Pratt wears it in no other scene, I believe.

-- (c) What are we to make of the stuff posted on Scout Calhoun's bulletin board in his room in YA episode 5, in the scene when his father arrives at Rawley, and again in the scene in which Bella tells Scout that she wants to meet his father? These props include a silver (American) football-shaped pieces of cardboard bearing the word, "DUH?", a black-and-white etching of a mustachioed male head (possibly a comic strip figure, although it looks a bit like Orson Wells), and a comic strip cut-out. I believe these props are specific to episode 5.

Finnegan

I tried to post some links to screencaps of what I was talking about in my previous post, but the linked site refuses even url-citation hotlinking.

s e r e n i t y

Maybe you could upload the pictures to your own server?

Finnegan

Above is the best photo I've seen of the canopy of Charlie Banks' gas station. I've been trying to identify the date and style of this canopy. The canopy, unlike the adjoining house used for the gas station building, was a set feature built for YA, not a pre-existing feature of the Havre de Grace townscape.

The dating seems relatively easy. Canopies with large square pillars appear to date almost exclusively from the 1920s and 1930s in the USA. That's consistent with my original impression that the exterior architecture and decor of the station are from the 1930s. See:

-- the "Drive-in station with canopy" page of the University of Vermont's "Dating Home" website for dating historic images;

-- "Old Baltimore Gas Stations;" and

-- "Massachusetts Canopies."

Howevr, identifying the style of the gas station is difficult. Let's look closely at some of the features, from bottom to top:

-- Exterior wainscoting, possibly faked with mere paint, but with a real "chair rail" at waist height and real floorboarding, both on the walls and on the canopy pillars. There are photos of 1920's or 1930s flling stations with this feature here and here.

-- The screen of transluscent glass panes suspended around the edge of the canopy to afford better protection from rain without diminishing sunlight. I've never seen that feature on a filling station canopy, either in life or in photographs. Has anyone?

-- The mansard roof, its line interrupted in the center of each side by a sunburst-shape arch outlined and filled with the letters "GAS" in neon lighting. Once again, I've not seen this sunburst-shape roofline interruption on a gas station canopy either in life or in photos. Has anyone?

-- The trim, including exterior ceiling board, the frames of the screen panels and extensions of the screen top and bottom around the pillars, and the "chair railing," all highlighted in the same very dark brown paint used for the doorway and the vertical services-advertising lettering on the pillars. Again, I've never seen such elaborately tasteful trim on a gas station exterior, in life or in photos.

All in all, I can't identify the style. It's not art deco - it's much more traditional than that. Can anyone label it?

How can a canopy whose style I can't identify scream "1930s" to me so loudly? It's not just the large square pillars and the wainscoting that scream "1930s," it's the whole thing. The screen, the lettering, the trim, the color schene, although I've never seen them on a gas station, all are distinctive of the architecture of the 1920s and 1930s.

Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make this gas station canopy even more dsitinctively characteristic of the architecture of the 1920s and 1930s than gas stations of that era were. And I still don't understand why.

Finnegan

The perfect life, the perfect people ... the perfect preppy dogs.

Re-reading the "New Beginnings" fanfiction sequel to YA, I'm reminded of the three golden retrievers we so often see at Rawley in YA. We see them:
-- on the docks in Krudski's opening voice-over in episode 1, before we meet any Rawley students;
-- frolicking with the students as Krudski's parent drive him into the school a few minutes later in the same episode;
-- sitting with Hamilton in the school garden in episode 2, as "Jake" approaches him to ask him help her find her missing bike;
-- playing with Hamilton and his mother on the school lawn in episode 3, as Finn looks out his window and decides to break off his affair with Kate (the most beautiful shot in YA, I think); and
-- with Hamilton and Jake in the first of the two docks scenes in episode 7.
The golden retrievers may have other appearances, but that's all I can recall now.

"New Beginnings" treats the three golden retrievers as pets of the Fleming family. That's plausible. They're only seen at the school, and most often with Hamilton. But sometimes they're seen without any member of the Fleming family -- namely, the first two times we see them, in episode 1, before we first see Hamilton. We never see anyone taking care of them, nor speaking about them.

Do you think they're the Flemings' dogs? Or somehow the school's dogs?

---

Since this thread, and this board's "YA mistakes and bloopers" thread, are where I've mostly posted about the many deliberate anachronisms in YA, I just wanted to leave a note here that the name "Hamilton" seems to be an anachronism. As I posted today on the thread, http://www.fanforum.com/f39/ian-some...g-us-62969926/.

s e r e n i t y

I hadn't thought much about the dogs, do school have dogs? I didn't know that, who takes care of them? like the schools caretaker? or do they get passed from dean to dean?

Finnegan

Well, some schools do have live animal mascots. And yes, my thought was that the groundskeeper might take care of them. Although they clearly have a special relationship with Hamilton.

If it were just one dog, I'd say it was likely the Fleming family pet. But do the Flemings seem like the type to keep a pack of three large dogs in their home? In the winter -- winters are long and cold in Massachusetts -- they all have to live indoors.

Finnegan

Elsewhere on his forum, I've pointed out that the names of the protagonists in YA all mean something, e.g., Will Krudski (a guy overcoming his cruddiness through willpower) or Bella Banks (beauty, morally limited by the trauma of parental abandonment).

And I've pointed out that Ryder's name may be intended to evoke Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, the full title of which notes that that novel is the recollections of Captain Charles Ryder.

Lena's name means something, too. It's short for Eleanor, meaning "compassionate," from the Greek ἔλεος (pity, mercy, compassion). Too appropriate to be a coincidence, don't you think?

s e r e n i t y

I don't think they seem like the kind to keep dogs, they're far too busy but then again there's the possibility they got those dogs for Hamilton so he wouldn't feel lonely in their absence

Hmm interesting about Lena's name definitely fits

Finnegan

In episode 3 of YA, Lena, when first meeting Hamilton Fleming, cites a line from the hugely successful 1973 film romance, The Way We Were, written by Aurthur Laurents and starring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford.

This is yet another of YA's many allusions to the pop culture of Antin's youth -- he was 15 years old in 1973. Among film romances of the early 1970s, only Eric Segal's Love Story (the first chapter of which Bella shamelessly plagiarizes in YA episode 1) surpassed The Way We Were in popularity. Plainly, the allusion to The Way We Were is one of many that underscores that YA is a mature man's dream of an ideal youth, covertly set in the early 1970s as well as in its ostensible time setting of summer 2000.

But is there any other reason why YA alludes to The Way We Were?

Note that the dialogue of The Way We Were that Lena cites disparages Los Angeles. In the movie, Redford's character gives up serious but poorly-paying novel-writing to take a more lucrative scriptwriting job, and moves to Los Angeles. In short, he sells out. Streisand's character begins to fall out of love with him at that point -- it's the beginning of the end for their relationship.

Antin, of course, was a scriptwriter. And YA is very a work that could have been far more "serious" (or, rather, more obviously serious) if he hadn't sold it to make money rather than keeping it for a less lucrative venue. Might Antin, by citing The Way We Were in YA, be chiding himself a bit ... letting us know that in YA, he's "selling out."

Finnegan

And then there's the title song of the film, "The Way We Were." Topped the charts in early 1974. A snip of the lyrics:

s e r e n i t y

Aww those lyrics are just beautiful and they tie in with the show very well

Finnegan

The fanfic is right, I was inattentive. The golden retrievers belong to the Fleming family, not to the school. In YA episode 3, in the scene where Finn tells Kate he's not going to chase her any more, Kate is walking one of the retrievers on a leash.

s e r e n i t y

But why would that rule out the dogs belonging to the school?