See ‘Grumpy Old Men’ Minnesota Locations Then and Now

Does your family have some Family Movies? I mean those films that get played a lot in your house. The go-to bits of joy that make a day better, and are far more fun than watching The Weather Channel for an hour. 

Growing up, our family movies included Grease (my parent's favorite movie), Bill and Ted, and Back to the Future. Now, with my spouse and kids, our family movies include Twister and Wall-E in heavy rotation. We also have long been obsessed with the Grumpy Old Men films. 

The movie Grumpy Old Men, and its sequel, take place in Minnesota. They’re about a pair of lifelong frenemies, Max and John, played by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. They’re a couple of grumps living their retirement ice fishing and tormenting each other.

The movie was written and directed by Hastings, Minnesota native Mark Steven Johnson. And he made The Land of 10,000 Lakes one of the stars of the film.

The 1993 movie was shot in Minnesota, mainly at locations around Minneapolis and St Paul. Which means many of the locations are still there. So, we decided to take a Grumpy Old Men tour and see where they filmed this classic.

When it comes to South Dakota and Hollywood, we've seen our fair share of films that have used our state as the backdrop for a number of productions over the years. They may not have always filmed here, but movie folk love to set stories here.

We're all familiar with the blockbusters like 1990's Dances With Wolves, 1959's North By Northwest, and more recently, 2007's National Treasure: Book of Secrets. But our state's life on the big screen goes back nearly 100 years.

According to IMDb, it all started with Courtin' Wildcats, a 1929 film which, like so many of the 29 films on this list, is a Western set in the time before South Dakota became a state in 1889.

I am a longtime fan of the television show Unsolved Mysteries. The classic version from the 80s/90s. I remember a few times the late Robert Stack introduced a mystery in South Dakota. 

Looking through their archives, we found four South Dakota mysteries that were featured on Unsolved Mysteries. Do you remember these cases that still have a lot of unanswered questions?