Plaid overload!

Holy crap you're not wrong there. I'm watching it for the first time now and yep pretty much every manly man has a woodsy plaid shirt jacket and/or hat. Thank God this isn't filmed in color or it would be fairly blinding.

Yes. They were probably drinking Scotch, too!

Hey guys, it's deer season. Notice the snow? It's November and deer season and when the temps are in the 40s or low 50s, the snow melts in the sun and leaves the city and the roads clean and dry and remains wherever the shade in the woods protects its throughout the day.

Those guys were wearing their heavy all wool hunting coats and pants, typical for the first half of the 20th Century. If the movie had been done in color all that plaid would have been dark or bright red so hunters could distinguish other hunters out in the field. Animals perceive red as gray and the varying widths of black striping breaks up the red/gray like camo.

Lighter synthetics started replacing heavy wool in the late 60s, hunter flourescent orange showed up in the 70s, and orange plaids gave way to orange camo over time. Nowadays you can wear normal camo and get away with just wearing an orange camo cap and gloves.

Plaid has gotten a bad name due to car salesmen and Bobby Knight.

LOL! I would wear Pendelton flannel shirts if I lived up in Big Bear year round too. It gets pretty cold up there, even in the Summer, especially at night! It beats wearing a coat since it rarely rains but it does snow in the Winter. For those that are not familiar with the area, Big Bear is a mountain area near Los Angeles. This movie was shot when they still primarily shot films in LA instead of Canada like they do now to save money (I would wear flannel shirts up there too though!)

Back then everyone wore plaid in hunting country, oh, wait, they still do in some areas where they haven't gone completely over to camouflage. It was harder to accidentally shoot someone back then.