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i have an alpo question , why in the old B&W movies


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do they get in and out of the cars on the passenger side even when they are alone in the car ? 

 

wasa that a time in our lives when the cars on the road had the right of way ? in other words we exited the car and entered it on the safe side ? it no longer works in my vehicles as they have consoles and stuff , bucket seats , but i remember owning cars with bench seats in front , you could slide across or your gal could cozy up to you as you drove , ive not had one like that since the 80s for sure ,

 

i did in the 70s and in the 60s but i also had a new mustang in 67 with buckets and console - no seatbelts , the turn signals were indicated in  the hood detents and the top retracted for a complete convertible , robins egg blue , the top was white and the interior was black , what i recall in 67 was you didnt want to try to cross that console so you didnt get in from the passenger side , same with my friends 67 corvette , or my other friends 62 SS .............when did that practice stop ? i never knew of it - we were taught to look both ways and be careful when you opened your doors , 

 

my folks were born in the early 20s , they lived through the depression , they never taught me to enter or exit a vehicle on the passenger side , was this before their time or did they forget ? 

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I wondered this myself, and I came up with what I think is the answer.

 

They have a car parked at the curb. The camera is pointed at the driver's door. The driver gets in on the passenger side and slides across the seat.

 

If the driver had walked around to the driver's side, they would have had to have had the camera further back so that they could see him circling the car, and the camera would have to be further back so there would be room for the door to open him to get in. And that might - might - make your ending picture smaller than the director has in mind. So everyone goes in and out the passenger side, and they don't have to have the camera so far away from the car.

 

I have never seen anybody get in the passenger side and slide across in real life. Just old movies and TV shows.

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I used to own a 1947 Ford truck that was heavily modified into a hot rod. One unique feature I remember was that there was no way to lock the driver's side door from the outside. You did it from the inside by moving the door handle down. The passenger side door had a key lock on the outside of the door.

 

 

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Some other possibility was that many streets were muddy especially the gutter. So getting in on the passenger side kept your shoes clean and dry.

 

Consider that car doors were very large and streets narrow. So getting in on the passenger side eliminated the risk of a passing car hitting the door.

 

Another possibility is it reduces the risk of getting splashed with mud or water by passing cars.

Edited by Sedalia Dave
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that crossed my mind , i only owned one car that had a bench seat , all the others had buckets and consoles so it was not an easy task - as a young person i could today not so much , 

 

i get the mud and crud and the big doors [i had those on many of my older vehicles , ive started thinking that it was a different way of thinking back then - hear me out - could it be that the streets were for traffic and the walkways were for pedestrians and back then if you walked into traffic you could die ? in some of these era movies there were horses still on the street and they didnt break lkike our modern cars do , ? just thinkin outside the box 

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If they did it in reality, I can see some of these reasons put forth here being correct.

 

But did they do it in reality? Or did they just do it in the movies and on TV?

 

Every cop show out there, there will be a scene where the plain clothes cops will see the person they're after, and from 30 to 50 feet away they will call his name and flash their badge, which always causes him to turn and run the other way, and he has a 30 to 50 foot head start.

 

That's television. We have the exciting chase.

 

But I can't help but think that in real life, the plain clothes cops would wait until they were standing next to their suspect, and they would grab him by the arm and show their badge, and that way he would not be able to run away. That just makes way too much more sense.

 

But that would be reality, not television.

 

As far back as I can remember, which would be the very early 60s, the drivers always got in the driver's side. I never ever saw anyone, in reality, get in the passenger side and slide across the seat.

 

My truck has a bench seat. And a couple times I have slid across the seat. Generally because some moron has parked next to me so close that I cannot open the driver's door.

 

Unless you keep the seat completely clean - as in no maps, no winter coats, no CD cases or cassette boxes - it's very difficult to slide across the seat. And then we have the transmission hump in the middle of the thing that you got to clear with your feet.

 

As a kid, the parental units would shove us in one door and we would have to slide across the seat to make room for the other siblings. But that made it easier on them - all the kids were on the same side of the car. By the time we were in double digits of age, if we were going to sit on the left side of the seat we went in the left door. Sliding was just foolish.

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4 hours ago, Alpo said:

If they did it in reality, I can see some of these reasons put forth here being correct.

 

But did they do it in reality? Or did they just do it in the movies and on TV?

 

Every cop show out there, there will be a scene where the plain clothes cops will see the person they're after, and from 30 to 50 feet away they will call his name and flash their badge, which always causes him to turn and run the other way, and he has a 30 to 50 foot head start.

 

That's television. We have the exciting chase.

 

But I can't help but think that in real life, the plain clothes cops would wait until they were standing next to their suspect, and they would grab him by the arm and show their badge, and that way he would not be able to run away. That just makes way too much more sense.

 

But that would be reality, not television.

 

As far back as I can remember, which would be the very early 60s, the drivers always got in the driver's side. I never ever saw anyone, in reality, get in the passenger side and slide across the seat.

 

My truck has a bench seat. And a couple times I have slid across the seat. Generally because some moron has parked next to me so close that I cannot open the driver's door.

 

Unless you keep the seat completely clean - as in no maps, no winter coats, no CD cases or cassette boxes - it's very difficult to slide across the seat. And then we have the transmission hump in the middle of the thing that you got to clear with your feet.

 

As a kid, the parental units would shove us in one door and we would have to slide across the seat to make room for the other siblings. But that made it easier on them - all the kids were on the same side of the car. By the time we were in double digits of age, if we were going to sit on the left side of the seat we went in the left door. Sliding was just foolish.

 

Could have been because movie sets were only so big. The less a camera panned the less set you had to build.

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11 hours ago, Alpo said:

If they did it in reality, I can see some of these reasons put forth here being correct.

 

But did they do it in reality? Or did they just do it in the movies and on TV?

 

Every cop show out there, there will be a scene where the plain clothes cops will see the person they're after, and from 30 to 50 feet away they will call his name and flash their badge, which always causes him to turn and run the other way, and he has a 30 to 50 foot head start.

 

That's television. We have the exciting chase.

 

But I can't help but think that in real life, the plain clothes cops would wait until they were standing next to their suspect, and they would grab him by the arm and show their badge, and that way he would not be able to run away. That just makes way too much more sense.

 

But that would be reality, not television.

 

As far back as I can remember, which would be the very early 60s, the drivers always got in the driver's side. I never ever saw anyone, in reality, get in the passenger side and slide across the seat.

 

My truck has a bench seat. And a couple times I have slid across the seat. Generally because some moron has parked next to me so close that I cannot open the driver's door.

 

Unless you keep the seat completely clean - as in no maps, no winter coats, no CD cases or cassette boxes - it's very difficult to slide across the seat. And then we have the transmission hump in the middle of the thing that you got to clear with your feet.

 

As a kid, the parental units would shove us in one door and we would have to slide across the seat to make room for the other siblings. But that made it easier on them - all the kids were on the same side of the car. By the time we were in double digits of age, if we were going to sit on the left side of the seat we went in the left door. Sliding was just foolish.

would love to ask my folks that grew up in the late 20s and 30s but they are both gone now , ill ask the first 100 year old i see as thats what they would be this year , i like the camera angle idead - it makes some sense but so did all the other ideas as well , thanks for contributing everyone , 

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