I have a story about the locations where “Prancer” was filmed, and I hope others will find it interesting.
My girlfriend and I saw “Prancer” in the theater when it first came out in 1989. We both thought it was a Christmas classic on a par with the 1947 “Miracle on 34th Street”.
In 1991, on a Compuserve forum, there was a discussion of the Rodney King incident. One of the participants was John Hancock. At first I thought it was someone using an online pseudonym. He mentioned in passing that he was a film director, so I looked up his name. Imagine my amazement when I found out he had directed one of my favorite movies!
As luck would have it, he grew up in a Chicago suburb that I knew well. We began to exchange messages on other subjects. It didn’t become a close friendship, but we did enjoy our discussions.
At one point, John mentioned that his family owned apple orchards not far from Chicago, and every fall he came out to help sell the crop. He invited my girlfriend and me to come see him during the apple harvest.
So, my girlfriend and I went to Three Oaks, Michigan, to meet John Hancock. When we arrived at the farm, he wasn’t there, so we sat for a bit with John’s Aunt Gladys. After John arrived we, naturally, got into a discussion about “Prancer”. John mentioned that much of it was filmed on property he and his family own around Three Oaks.
And then, without our asking, he drove me and my girlfriend on a tour of the locations where “Prancer” was filmed. We went into the barn where Ralph the horse and Janet the cow lived, across the pond from the shed where Jessica hid Prancer. We also went to Jessica’s house, which was on another farm.
It was a magical day. Imagine the director of one of your favorite movies taking you on a tour of the places where it was filmed! And at the end of the day he gave us a bag of apples. For free.
The next time we watched “Prancer”, we noticed that Aunt Gladys had a close-up as an audience member in the Christmas Pageant scene.
I’ve lost touch with John lately, so please don’t ask me for his email address. I don’t have it any more.
Geoff Sjostrom
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sixpackrt
18 years ago
Through my early years (i'm now 21) my parents would always take me to Three Oaks. We had a trailer at a nearby campground called Bob a Ron, it was mildly rustic but charming. We had friends who used to camp with us and actually moved there for a few years. It was a very nice town. I remember Dier's Meatmarket and I remember the Hannah's Resteraunt, also there was another place called Rosie's which was up the street in the direction of the beach. Also, I remember they used to have a festival down by the beach (I can't remember for the life of me what it was called) and one year me and my dad were standing in the concessions line and he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the guy in front of us. I looked up and it was Gene Siskel. It's weird thinking back now that Gene's dead and I haven't been up there in years.
They say the best times of your life are in high school and your early twenties but my best times were those great summers spent in Three Oaks. I'll never forget them and I really get misty-eyed just thinking about it. I never did see Prancer but I remember my parents and their friends talking about it during the period when the film was in theaters and I remember there was a poster of it up in one of the local pub & grills.
"I've seen things in this city that make Dante's Inferno read like Winnie The Pooh."
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shadowsailorneptune
17 years ago
Hannah's and Rosie's are both in New Buffalo. The festival (Ship and Shore) is also New Buffalo. Good luck actually being able to see the beach from downtown New Buffalo anymore without x-ray vision. ~_~ You meet a lot of people you wouldn't expect at Ship and Shore.
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