Erik Pflueger
New member
The title sounds wacky, I'll admit, but hear me out: the film takes place in 1957, but there's no obvious telltale signs as to when in that year it takes place, right? Well, now I'm gonna give you one.
The Arnie's Diner sequence begins with the song Wake Up Little Susie by the Everly Brothers. This gives us a very tight time window in which to date this segment of the film. Why? Because that song was ranked by Billboard Magazine as the biggest selling single in retail stores on 14 October 1957. In the following week (21 October 1957), it was ranked as the top song played by disc jockeys and hit the Top 100, and stayed at the top for two weeks. Songs usually only get so placed if they are recent hits, so that means the Marshall College sequences could very well be dated somewhere between 14 October and 4 November 1957, when the Everly Brothers song was knocked off the Top by Elvis Presley?s Jailhouse Rock.
Ordinarily, that would just mean that the greater part of the film takes place somewhere between October and December 1957, but we can narrow that further: for one thing, it's not snowing in Connecticut, which places the film in autumn but not outright winter. But furthermore, according to the Lost Journal of Indiana Jones - which may or may not be canon, I'll concede - the journal was entered by KGB agents into the organization's archives on 10 November 1957, at a time when the events of the film had already taken place (except, perhaps, the marriage at the end).
So we can place the timeline of the film pretty much as follows:
1.) The Nevada sequences take place between mid-September and early October 1957.
2.) According to the novelization, there is a three-week gap between the Nevada sequences and the Connecticut sequences (the young adult novelization says only one week, but that doesn't give the FBI enough time to get a case together to get a warrant to search Indy's offices, so I go with three weeks until told otherwise; it has little bearing on my overall point).
3.) The remainder of the film, from the Connecticut sequences all the way to the end of the Akator sequences, likely take place from mid-October to early November 1957.
Please discuss.
The Arnie's Diner sequence begins with the song Wake Up Little Susie by the Everly Brothers. This gives us a very tight time window in which to date this segment of the film. Why? Because that song was ranked by Billboard Magazine as the biggest selling single in retail stores on 14 October 1957. In the following week (21 October 1957), it was ranked as the top song played by disc jockeys and hit the Top 100, and stayed at the top for two weeks. Songs usually only get so placed if they are recent hits, so that means the Marshall College sequences could very well be dated somewhere between 14 October and 4 November 1957, when the Everly Brothers song was knocked off the Top by Elvis Presley?s Jailhouse Rock.
Ordinarily, that would just mean that the greater part of the film takes place somewhere between October and December 1957, but we can narrow that further: for one thing, it's not snowing in Connecticut, which places the film in autumn but not outright winter. But furthermore, according to the Lost Journal of Indiana Jones - which may or may not be canon, I'll concede - the journal was entered by KGB agents into the organization's archives on 10 November 1957, at a time when the events of the film had already taken place (except, perhaps, the marriage at the end).
So we can place the timeline of the film pretty much as follows:
1.) The Nevada sequences take place between mid-September and early October 1957.
2.) According to the novelization, there is a three-week gap between the Nevada sequences and the Connecticut sequences (the young adult novelization says only one week, but that doesn't give the FBI enough time to get a case together to get a warrant to search Indy's offices, so I go with three weeks until told otherwise; it has little bearing on my overall point).
3.) The remainder of the film, from the Connecticut sequences all the way to the end of the Akator sequences, likely take place from mid-October to early November 1957.
Please discuss.
