Cordon’s Ranch Market from “Christmas with the Kranks”

Christmas with the Kranks has got to be one of the oddest movies I’ve ever come across location-wise.  The 2004 holiday flick not only used the backlots of three (count ‘em!) three different L.A. studios to portray Riverside, Illinois, the Chicago suburb where the story takes place (as I chronicled in this post), but the soundstages of yet another area studio, The Culver Studios in Culver City, were utilized for several interior sets.  And as I only recently discovered, production also played a bit fast and loose with the store where Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) finally got her hands on – and then promptly lost – a Hickory Honey Ham for a last-minute Christmas party.  (The entire ham storyline is problematic, in fact, but more on that in a bit.)  I figured the location trickery would make for a great holiday post, so I ran right out to stalk Cordon’s Ranch Market in Glendale, where the majority of the grocery store scene was lensed.

Sadly, Cordon’s Ranch Market, which was originally established in 1999, shut its doors in April 2015.  If only I had identified the location a few years sooner!

After Cordon’s shuttering, the site underwent a heavy remodel and subsequently re-opened as Moss Supermarket a few months later.

Moss did not last long, unfortunately, closing its doors in October 2017, a little more than two years after opening, and the space has sat vacant ever since.

In Christmas with the Kranks, Nora heads to Cordon’s Ranch Market to buy a ham  – not just any ham, mind you, but a Mel’s Hickory Honey Cooked, Boneless, Skinless Ham with Natural Juices and Gelatin Added (um, gross!) – for her annual Christmas Eve party that she and her husband, Luther Krank (Tim Allen), have decided to throw at the very last minute upon learning their beloved daughter, Blair (Julie Gonzalo), is unexpectedly returning home from the Peace Corps to celebrate the holidays with them.  Hickory Honey Ham, you see, is Blair'”‘”‘s absolute favorite dish.

The shop’s name and signage are both clearly visible at the top of the scene when Nora is shown parking her car.  I always assumed both had been faked for the shoot, though, due to the fact that the sign’s lettering and coloring looked very Christmas-y.  Then, on a whim a few months ago, I decided to input “Cordon’s Ranch Market” into Google and was shocked when a result was kicked back for a since-closed grocery store in Glendale!  One look at the place on Street View confirmed it was where filming had occurred.  What amazed me even more was that the signage that appeared in the movie was real, as you can see in this image of Cordon’s exterior from when it was still in operation!  Turns out it wasn’t altered to appear more holiday-ish at all!

Nora’s visit to the grocer does not go well.  And neither does the scene’s continuity because as soon as filming shifts to the inside of the market, we are at a different location altogether.  The store where Nora races another shopper in an attempt to nab the very last in-stock Hickory Honey Ham before ultimately crashing into a floor display at the beginning of the segment does not match these images I found of Cordon’s.  The shop that appears onscreen features a muted color scheme and some sort of a village-scape painted on its upper walls, while Cordon’s operated under the Apple Market brand and, as such, boasted bright red, green, and yellow coloring.  The movie market also has a checkered brown and white floor, which does not line up with Cordon’s blue and white tiling.

Unfortunately, I am unsure of what grocery store was utilized for the filming of that portion of the scene.

After Nora crashes into the display and loses her chance at grabbing the shop’s sole remaining ham, she comes across a family in the check-out line who happens to have one and she convinces them to sell it to her for an above-market price.  And that’s where things get really weird because that segment was shot at Cordon’s!  As you can see in these images of the shop, the cashier stands, general décor, and color scheme match what appeared onscreen perfectly.

The fact that two different market interiors were utilized for the rather brief segment makes me wonder if some of the scene was re-shot.  Or if Nora was originally supposed to be shown venturing into multiple stores looking for the hard-to-get ham and, at the last minute, producers decided to combine the bits instead.  Your guess is as good as mine, though.

Purchase safely in hand, Nora then heads out of Cordon’s, where she is promptly bumped by a passerby, causing her to drop the ham.

It subsequently rolls through the store’s parking lot . . .

. . . and into the street . . .

. . . where it sits for a brief moment . . .

. . . before getting run over by a big rig . . .

. . . which almost hits Nora in the process.

Though she manages to escape unscathed . . .

. . . the ham does not.  (Per production designer Garreth Stover, 26 hams were destroyed during the making of the scene.)

As if the market location switch-up isn’t enough, there’s more!  Though Nora returns home defeated and sans ham, a guest named Marty (Austin Pendleton) unexpectedly brings one to the Krank’s party, saving Christmas pretty much, and Nora is shown proudly serving it later in the evening to her future son-in-law, Enrique Decardenal (Rene Lavan).  But in an unexpected twist, in one of the movie’s final scenes Luther grabs an uncooked ham off of his kitchen counter and brings it over to his neighbors’ house as a sort of peace offering – which begs the question, where in the heck did that second ham come from?  Did another guest bring it?  Did Nora reconstruct the ham that was run-over by the big rig?  Did it show up as some sort of Christmas miracle?  Unfortunately, a DVD commentary was never created for the film, so, short of a sit-down with director Joe Roth, we may never know.  It seems to me a pretty huge gaffe, though, especially considering the Hickory Honey Ham storyline is so central to the movie.  I am shocked that no one caught it in post-production.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The former Cordon’s Ranch Market from Christmas with the Kranks is located at 2931 Honolulu Avenue in Glendale.  The store is currently closed and vacant.

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